To help you evaluate sources of information you find for your assessments and research, we have created and curated the following evaluation tools.
The Dependability Checklist can help you make decisions about the dependability, credibility and trustworthiness of the sources you are considering using in your assessments.
The checklist contains ten questions to get you thinking critically about the resource in front of you. Each question asks for your YES or NO response about a particular feature of your resource. More YES answers result in a higher dependability score.
Once you have developed the skills, you won’t need to rely on the checklist. But remember evaluation is a critical thinking skill, not a formula! You may have a good reason to keep a source that has scored lower.
The SIFT Method is a simple 4-step method to help you evaluate information that you find on the web. This method, based on fact-checking strategies, helps you to quickly make a decision about whether or not a source is worthy of your attention.
Click on the plus (+) icons below to learn more about the steps in the SIFT method: