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The first page of the Business Section of the New York Times of 6 Jan 97
is 'Don't Stop the Presses: Newspapers Balk at Scooping Themselves on
Their Own Web Sites.' It list the URLs for a number of newspapers on
the web including the Wall St. Journal and the New York Times. The
Library of Congress has a web page listing scores of newspapers online
with their URLs. Business Week and Fortune are the web too. I intend
to use readings from web-sites to supplant other forms of assigned
readings. This will be especially helpful to me this Spring term since
I'll be teaching two courses at a university in Lithuania where many
hard-form materials are not financially viable in university courses at
this time. Any comments on or experience related to this?

Of greater concern to me is how to assist your students in ascertaining
the credibility of the information that they find on the Web? Any
suggestions?

______________________
Great Optimism,

Dutch Driver
Dept. of Communication
McMurry University
Abilene, TX
ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu

Dutch Driver asked how can we help students to evaluate the credibility
of web-based information. Certainly, information from periodicals,
textbooks, professors, TV, films, personal interactions, etc., all has
to judged as to its accuracy and usefulness. I see web-based info as no
different. If a student comes to class with information from a
company's web-site that is quite different than having something from a
UseNet group discussion. I think students know that too. Teaching
students to use date delimiters to get only the current info is
important. Teaching them to go beyond only the English language sources
is important. Finding a variety of views on the Net on a subject in
itself may be more stimulating and developmental for students than
finding only facts. Indeed, I doubt the existence of facts. Facts are
slices of reality often cut with a narrow purpose.
'nuff said, Charlie

I make it a point of asking students if they have found any
information on the web which is *negative* regarding their search
topic. Then I ask how likely it is that no negative information
exists. I also ask how likely it is that someone who is not very
interested in a particular point of view is to take the time and
energy to put together a web site...

Then, I take them over to the library and reintroduce them to books
and journals.

I happen to like the web. Unfortunately, students find it too
tempting to ignore everything but the internet for their research.

Dave Ackerman
University of Puget Sound


> Dutch Driver asked how can we help students to evaluate the credibility
> of web-based information. Certainly, information from periodicals,
> textbooks, professors, TV, films, personal interactions, etc., all has
> to judged as to its accuracy and usefulness. I see web-based info as no
> different. If a student comes to class with information from a
> company's web-site that is quite different than having something from a
> UseNet group discussion. I think students know that too. Teaching
> students to use date delimiters to get only the current info is
> important. Teaching them to go beyond only the English language sources
> is important. Finding a variety of views on the Net on a subject in
> itself may be more stimulating and developmental for students than
> finding only facts. Indeed, I doubt the existence of facts. Facts are
> slices of reality often cut with a narrow purpose.
> 'nuff said, Charlie
>
>

Not exactly a newspaper web site, but I have arranged an email subscription
for all my IB students with the Journal of Commerce. The cost per student
is $35 for the semester. The paper is delivered each evening for the
following day (Monday thru Friday) in compressed form, as an email
attachement, and a program is provided that uncompresses it and loads it
into the web browser. You can save each day to a separate file for reseach
purposes.

Anyone interested should contact-- Carl Fortson <cfortson@joc.com>.

--Derm