Evaluating Web Sources In A Materials Engineering Course

An important part of engineering is knowing how to find, interpret and critically evaluate information. This skill is critical for lifelong learning and for engineering practice. Unfortunately, we often do not adequately prepare our students for these tasks while the need to do so has increased dramatically due to the ease of access and the tremendous amount of information on the World Wide Web. To address this problem, a quantitative method was developed to help students improve their ability to evaluate sources of information. Students were asked to apply this method as part of an assignment in a course in materials engineering. In this paper, the proposed method for critically evaluating sources of information will be presented in detail. Assessment results will also be presented evaluating whether or not this method assisted students in evaluating sources.