Related Site Selection Guidelines*

Quality, authority and accuracy of content

  • Source of the content is established, respected and dependable.
  • Information provided is appropriate to the audience level, well organized and easy to use.
  • Information is from primary resources (i.e. textual material, abstracts, web pages).

Purpose of the web page is educational and/or informational

  • Content is objective, having no personal biases, opinions, or ads.
  • Design and organization of the material supports the page's purpose.
  • Most content is available at no charge.

Availability and maintenance of the web page

  • The web site is consistently available and easy to use.
  • Links from the site are maintained.
  • The source for the contents of the web page(s) and entity responsible for maintaining the site is clearly stated.
  • Information is current or an update date is included.

Special features

  • The site provides unique information to the topic with minimum of redundancy and overlap between resources.
  • The site contains special features such as graphics/diagrams, glossary, or other unique information.
  • The content of the site is accessible to persons with disabilities.

Prepared by Gretchen Stephens, VM Librarian, Purdue University

Last Updated: 10/4/00

*Adapted from the MEDLINEplus Selection Guidelines (http://nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus.criteria.htm) by G. Stephens, VM Librarian, Purdue University (Email: gms@purdue.edu) on 10/3/00.