Internet Evalutation Essay, Research Paper

Internet Site Evaluation

I was having difficulty choosing a particular aspect to nutrition of interest, so my Internet exploration took to the webcrawler search engine where I typed in nutrition to get me going. The results gave one particular site, which I recalled seeing on the list that was distributed in class. Hence, my Internet site to investigate has landed me at http://navigator.tufts.edu/.

Consequently, I found that the site s main purpose was to serve as a search engine for nutritional information for all types of audiences from kids and parents to health professionals and educators. In addition, the web site uses a 25-point scale to rate the content and usability (i.e. nutrition accuracy, depth of information, site last update, and user experience) of each site. For example, a kid could simply click on the kid icon to find a listing of sites based on information children could easily learn and share. Furthermore, the children or whoever else might be searching the site can click on any of the listed sites to obtain detailed information about the site (i.e. sponsor, organization, intended audience, sectioned reviewed, and rating). I liked the detail they gave on each web site that is listed throughout the search. This component could save people a lot of useless time surfing the net. Additionally, I liked the different icons that where provided for quick searches, for example, the parent icon and the women icon. However, I did not like the fact that a men icon and senior icon were not included as well. Moreover, I was kind of bothered at the fact that the site says it has highly qualified Advisory Board which came up with the criteria for the 25-point rating system, yet nowhere on the web site did I find information concerning whether or not the same Advisory Board rates all the sites or if there is a chosen group who performs that task.

I would not say that the site is a useful source of nutrition information, but rather a useful site in locating nutritional information. The Advisory Board is deemed highly qualified consisting of a couple PhD holders and the rest having MS and/or RD at a variety of campus locations. I am unable to say whether or not the schools they obtained their degrees from are highly accredited, but I think it is safe to assume they are. Furthermore, I think the site is a good source because none the members of the Advisory Board gain anything from the site. The only gains are given to the browser. Finally, I thought the site has and effective way of communicating for the different browsers by having sites available for children, parent, journalist, health professionals, etc.