Search Engines

Class decides on appropriate criteria for choosing the best website found in this activity. Consideration should be given to:
- presentation (layout, colours, quality, quantity and relevance of graphics, presence or absence of advertising)
- accessibility (ease of moving around the site, presence and usefulness of indexes, contents and hotlinks)
- time taken to download the website
- whether information on the website is valid and up-to-date
- relevance to the search or query.
Refer to the following for further information on evaluating websites:
- Cornell University Library's 'Five criteria for evaluating Web pages' http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webcrit.html
Class brainstorms and lists vocabulary and criteria to use for their search (synonyms and associated paraphrases).
Class decides upon the kind of information considered satisfactory for the set task.
Groups or teams undertake Internet searches and select and collate information. In their search they should:
- note particular words and phrases that are the most successful in returning websites with the most relevant information.
- assess the websites found against the criteria for choosing the best website.
- Students use information to prepare a report on the results of the search task. The report could include information on the topic researched and the efficiency of the searching techniques undertaken.
- Groups or teams design an appropriate website to present the information obtained, using appropriate criteria.
An interesting extension to this activity would be to compare search engines. Some search engines collect and index webpages differently. For example, search engines such as Alta Vista use a webcrawler which works its way through the Internet indexing pages using metatags and keywords. Alternatively, Yahoo! relies on people registering their website using the appropriate category in their index.

If students use different search engines then they could compare and discuss the results of their findings.
To conclude, students should identify that successful research using the Internet relies on:
- using appropriate key words and phrases
- using more than one search engine
- determining the appropriateness of the information found.

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Access Asia | Anthologies of Asia | Resources

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