The folks at Intute created this wonderful tutorial: http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/
A student who has gone through the tutorial made the following comments: “I think the Internet Detective is an incredibly helpful resource. It is true that close to if not all college students around the country use the internet to provide them with information. Information that is sometimes incorrect and misleading, which is not a good thing when writing a paper for example.
I found the section, the good, the bad and the ugly part of the website very informative. The good thing about the internet is that many sources of authoritative research publish their information on the internet. This information is accurate! The bad thing about the internet is that there is a lot of information that is incorrect and misleading. Anyone can put something on the internet and say what they want, which is not the information you want to be using to write a research paper for one of your classes. The ugly thing about the internet is that it can lead you into real trouble. There are tons of “internet sharks” online that can trick and deceive you, as well as defraud you. I also found the section about spotting fake sites incredibly helpful. It had good points that everyone should read and keep in mind when doing research on the internet.”
You might want to assign it to your students!
