The Content of Your Site

What kind of content do you want to include?

Refer to the discussion on Audience. Remember: different users will need distinctive content.

Things you need to consider before you start

One of the first considerations is that of copyright. As a teacher librarian, part of your role has always been to inform staff and students of their responsibilities under the copyright law. As the creator of a website, you have to be very clear as to your responsibilities in this area. Any materials placed on the Internet should be copyright free, or used with permission and appropriately acknowledged. The rules for placing materials on the Intranet are less stringent, but still must be obeyed.

Check further information on Copyright and Intellectual Property

One area where confusion arises is that of linking. Apparently the law allows a web author to link to another site, as long as it is clear that you are linking off-site, and that is acknowledged. Read the pdf file from Australian Copyright Council: Web sites: creating & publishing on the Internet.

It's also necessary to point out to staff and students their responsibility to acknowledge the source of all material used for teaching and learning. We have to provide guidance in the correct acknowledgement of sources and avoidance of plagiarism. Read further about Plagiarism and Referencing and Citation

Censorship/Filtering

The school will have already made informed decisions about whether they filter what the students and staff see. Some schools will have a two-phase filtering system. One will be via the Internet service provider and the other will be in-house. Depending on what is filtered, you may find locating appropriate sites difficult when you are dealing with controversial topics (drugs, sex etc.) The decisions yo and your school makes about filtering and censorship will influence the content of the site.

Read some varied ideas on the topic at Internet Censorship.

Specific library-related information

outline of library services and facilities
bibliography guides
search catalogue facility
guides to research, study and literacy skills
tutorials and guides to the use of computer software and Internet searching
references and dictionaries

Appropriate web links

You might want to provide assistance with assignments so you will need to choose links to sites to assist completion of assignments.

We are all aware of the possibilities of the enormous amounts of material available on the Internet. The huge quantity of sites available is daunting rather than encouraging for a student first faced with the vagaries of the World Wide Web. It is very apparent that many find the quantity of material available on the web overwhelming. Anyone who has gone to Google, Yahoo or even an Australian search engine like Goeureka, typed in one word, and been faced with millions of hits, has been confronted with the sheer immensity of the Internet However, the main difficulty with this plethora of information is the enormous variety in quality of material that is available. There is a necessity to provide a roadmap to assist students to find their way through the maze on the ñInternet Superhighwayî. To achieve this, you can include appropriate Internet links on your library website.

The search engines are developing better selection methods to make their retrieval more useful, but the amount of information recovered is still overwhelming. Both students and staff often find the task of obtaining relevant material very time consuming. While students don't often mind this time loss, staff resent it, and students ultimately realise they do not have the information they need to assist them.

Some staff members initially may see the creation of the website as ñspoon feedingî the students. However, in a print library we donÍt just pile the books in a heap on the floor. We donÍt call providing a library catalogue ñspoon feedingî. The ñroadmapî of the website merely points students in the right direction. If we simply provided one or two sites on a topic, then this might be too proscriptive. Your aim is to provide a number of sites, just as we would offer a number of books.

The main aim is to provide access to a wide variety of high quality information in all kinds of areas to support the curriculum and the teachers as much as possible. Your expertise, as a teacher librarian, gathered over a number of years, enables you to choose material. No library has the funds to provide access to a wide range of hard copy resources in all the possible areas students and teachers would choose to research. The Internet can provide a very useful extra resource that can extend the other resources of the library and be of use to staff and students.

The skills of selection you apply in choosing books and magazines are appropriate in selecting web sites. The questions you ask about quality and relevance apply in the same way. The medium may be different but the quality of the message is still an issue in selection.

The assistance of this selection gives the maximum amount of choice with the greatest amount of support for the teaching and learning programmes. We should not try to limit the choices of the students. We can provide a number of sites on each topic, ranging from introductory to academic. Especially in areas where viewpoints differ, attempt to provide a wide spectrum of opinions to allow students to examine the alternative options.

There's not much use in providing lists of other links. Find useful information for students to use. There are lots of lists out there; yours has to be relevant to your students.

Finding and Choosing Links

How do you ascertain appropriate links?

Educational, computing and other journals regularly review sites of use to students and can provide good suggestions.
Colleagues and students will often provide suggestions.
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. While you're searching for one subject, you often find something else which is relevant.
IHow to Search the Internet: Searching and Finding
Learn how to search intelligently and teach this to your users

Search Engines

Learn which search engine works best in which circumstances. Search engines are useful but there is a need to learn the peculiarities, strengths and weaknesses of each one, to use them appropriately.

Use "invisible web" tools. Invisible web search engines are especially tailored to search academic and research databases. Knowledge of the ñinvisibleî web is very useful in finding appropriate sites. Normal search engines do not find the contents of databases or Adobe pdf files which are of great benefit to students and teachers alike. Have a look at some of these Invisible Web Search Engines.

Criteria for selection

You need to establish criteria for selection of links in the same way as you would for other materials that you add to the library. Don't ever accept lists of links at face value from anyone. Check each link before you add it. At the very least the link may be "dead" or inactive; at worst some unsavoury and inappropriate site may have hijacked it.

Evaluating web sites has a few difficulties that you may not find when examining books. Sometimes the details about the author or date are hard to establish. You may have to search backwards and forwards through a site for contact details or index pages.

Specific criteria of assistance when examining web pages:

Accuracy

When viewing a webpage, weigh the information provided with information already known. If possible, check with subject teachers to assist in this area. You are not an expert in every field. However, as a librarian, you are used to making such decisions. Where details are provided, you can check with known information. If there are sources provided on the site, you can use these to verify accuracy.

Another area of accuracy of great importance is accuracy of links. A page where many of the links do not work argues that details are not important and/or no revision has taken place recently. This is of concern if considering the accuracy of statements made.

Authority

This is one of the most difficult areas to confirm. Many websites provide little or no information on the author and some authorisations prove spurious on further analysis. It is definitely a step in the right direction if there is an author cited. Try to choose sites where the credentials are clear, where reliable source organisations are acknowledged, and organisation loyalty is clearly cited. This is not always foolproof. Universities sometimes host websites that have no actual academic standing at all. It is a good sign if there is an address provided that is contactable outside the Internet

Objectivity

Previously during teacher training, lecturers have often said you need to be objective when teaching. They spoke of keeping personal feelings hidden and merely presenting the facts. This stance was and is untenable. No one is really totally objective.

People have differing views of the world. This colours what they say, how they say it and what they include and exclude. In choosing websites, select sites where the bias is clear and acknowledged; where, if commercial, the dependency is stated; if academic, which institution is involved; if related to any group, that affiliation is clear.

When dealing with advertising, the situation is more problematical. A commercial site must advertise its product. A genealogy site may advertise gedcom software or a music site promote favourite player software. When choosing sites, for students especially, I try to choose sites where the relationship with the advertising is clear and acknowledged.

Currency

One of the major benefits of the web is access to current information. It is obviously of much more use if a site is updated regularly. This is not a hard and fast rule. For example, on-line classics will not change. However, regular updating is important even in areas like history,as research can change our view of the past. Currency is especially relevant in areas like politics or contemporary issues. Choose sites where the page is dated clearly, and where verifiable information is up-to date.

Links also need to work. The usefulness of any links provided is dependent on whether they work or not. If these are not updated then the page may be out-of-date despite any dating provided.

Coverage/Purpose

Firstly you will be concerned about subject matter to help students with their assignments. Many sites may cover the particular topic, but to be added to your site they have to be relevant to the assignment under discussion, and suitable for the year level that is studying it. There is so much on the Internet and you are not trying to catalogue it all, but merely finding sites appropriate for students and teachers in their tasks.

When evaluating sites, those of more value are ones where the purpose and coverage of the site are clear. It does not matter whether the site appears to be comprehensive or focussed on one small area. If it is clear what the aim of the site is, and if it achieves that aim, then it may be valuable if it's on the right subject at the right level. A major university site may aim to provide a comprehensive coverage of World War Two; a small storytelling organisation may try to supply resources for beginning tellers. Both will be valuable if they achieve their task well and are relevant for your users.

You will want to find material that is of local interest. It's often useful to find international material, but it is also very valuable to find information that is culturally relevant to your students. List material that is state level and country specific first, so it is accessible.

Further links for you to examine which will help you to learn more about this process and teach it to your users: Evaluating Web Sites

Commentary or just a list?

You need to decide whether you comment on sites found or just list them. I decided not to have much editorialising. My comments are minimal so the users can make their own decisions. The books on my library shelves do not come with my commentary on the cover. I decided not to add comments except when absolutely necessary. Sometimes, if a site seems reasonable but is created by a student, I will indicate that. The process of writing comments on each site adds considerable time to the process, and places the teacher librarian between the source and the reader. However, it is your choice and may be of use for some particular assignments.

Appropriate online activities

Pathfinders
Pathfinders are a particular online listing that includes web links, but also includes a list of other resources available in the library. They often include appropriate keywords, Dewey numbers, book titles, journal articles and encyclopaedia references. These are useful if you want to emphasise the varieties of resources available for students. However, if a teacher librarian does this, it will be very time consuming and often linked very closely to one particular assignment, (which may not be as useful as a broader list of links.)
WebQuests and On-Line Research These specific research activities are excellent to avoid the "hunter-gatherer" assignment. These are great to avoid the issues of the "cut and paste " brigade, the sort of plagiarism that is rife in schools
Collaborative Projects These activities involve students and teachers working with others from around the local community and further afield. This is only one of the ways of interacting with other students and also teachers
Subject outlines, assignment outlines, course outlines.
The teachers usually provide these for the benefit of the student, although the librarian may have input when a unit is planned and/or implemented in collaboration. Some teachers may be quite pleased to have these available to the world; other staff may not be happy for other teachers to have access to their creations. Some teachers may fear other teachers will use their materials or judge them harshly. My experience has shown most teachers are very grateful to those brave enough to share.
Student Creations
Teachers ask students to complete webpages and other productions to fulfil assignments or as competition entries. There are some issues of concern with these especially with regard to privacy, so some school leave off names or identifying labels. Also, it is very important that any documents available on the web be consistent with copyright law. Some schools may be afraid to expose student work to the outside world fearing less than perfect material will damage public relations. Most members of the public know students are still learning and are usually impressed and charmed by students' offerings.

Advice:

Keep it small and simple at the beginning. Know that you'll add and change as the site grows.
Try to make it specific to your users. Don't duplicate what's already "out there". Look for special things your users need that they can't access easily in other ways.