The World Wide Web provides unprecedented access to a plethora of information and the various search engines all have different ways of determining what is considered relevant in its results. In order to get comprehensive coverage it is wise to use more than one search engine.
Because there is no “gatekeeper” on the World Wide Web, rich sources of scholarly research information and absolute junk can both be included in search results because there is no automatic filtering system.
The short, five minute video Evaluating Web Sites provides a good understanding of this process. The guide, Search the Web & Evaluate Web Resources, provides a checklist of evaluation criteria to consider in determining the reliability and credibility of a Web site. Using it is highly recommended!
With the use of other multimedia that is now freely available, it is important to also evaluate this information. Thinking Critically about Web 2.0 and Beyond, created by Esther Grassian, the UCLA Library and used with permission, provides an excellent listing of criteria to using in evaluating such resources.
Currently in beta test, Google Scholar searches the free Web for scholarly resources. UMUC has linked those articles available via the free Web to Google Scholar results. Note however, that this represents a small portion of the full-text articles available via UMUC database subscriptions. For assistance with finding full-text articles linked from Google Scholar to UMUC see the Tips for Searching Google Scholar via UMUC guide.