Forum Moderators: open
And now — for apparently the first time — a university professor is teaching a class on Google. This class — taught by University of Washington Information School professor Joe Janes — isn't a simple class on Web searching that one might find at a library or a community college. This is a graduate-level course...
Full Story [seattletimes.nwsource.com]
{Professor}Janes worries that the quality of research is declining when people can so easily use Google and come to rely on information that has questionable authority.
...the 50 students who finish Janes' class in March will have to determine whether Google is in fact good or whether researchers' reliance on such a simple and one-sided search tool is degrading the quality of research.
Bet the term papers arguing Google is bad for research quality get higher marks.
Instead of going to the library and asking a librarian for help, people rely too much on Google and other Internet search engines that are incomplete, he said.
I really hope the writer mischaracterized the message there.
Where is this complete library? Or complete librarian?
I'm lucky enough to live within 10 miles of two public libraries and a major university with many libraries. None are anywhere near "complete."
The article makes it sound like the prof has no confidence in grad students' abilities to evaluate information sources, or research methods, and/or look at more than one source and make judgements.
Google Print is attempting to change that. It won't be a free library, you can bet on that.
Is the "Public Library"'s future doomed? Public Libraries have lasted since before christ. [basd.net]
I wonder if senior WebmasterWorld members will get honorary degrees? ;)
The bottom line is that really good content, like the Harvard Business Review, isn't given away.
There is also a private subscription system called Questia that makes a lot of content available... but still no HBR, Journal of the IEEE, Nature, or New England Journal of Medicine.
Google should be used as another tool for research, in addition to, not in replacement of, existing methods.
conroy
That about sums it up.
Google as a tool is only as good as it's used.
You'd think an academic might have a better grip on the situation. The predominant factor which determines how good Google is as a research tool is not the competence of the human searcher who uses Google, it's the quality of the resources on the web available to be searched.
I can't imagine anybody using the internet to conduct serious research. Undergraduates should know better too.
In this case I do think the web with the help of Google is helping spread the myth as true.
