Getting Serious About Research Online

Sarah Kubik (associate faculty member in visual
communications and design at Indiana University-
Purdue University) writes in Higher Ed Today
about the value of authoritative online research
sources in the evolving academic information
landscape.

Kublik, who was "shocked at [a student's] apparent
laziness and naiveté on conducting research" when he
presented three website addresses as his research
source list, realized that students are not being trained
to analyze online sources and select quality information
because many academics dismiss Internet sources
out of hand.

Kublik encourages academics to "take seriously issues related
to citing materials in media that didn’t exist a generation ago."
She advocates for recognition of online-only journals
(generally not peer-reviewed) that are frequently located
by students in web searches and cited in their research.
She suggests that, "while it once made sense to equate
print with quality, it’s time to embrace newer forms of
communication as valid. If they need academically
sound forms of verification and procedures for citation, let’s
get to work."

Make sure to look at the comments following the article.

Hat tip to Marie S. Newman at Out of the Jungle.