At 12:52 PM -0500 2/19/97, Scott T. Meissner wrote:
>2) Given the shifting nature of the net how can
>I check if the citations given are valid? Web pages
>come and go, and information in existing ones is
>constantly being updated. Going to the printed
>literature at least anchors the citation to a
>physical unshifting item that can be checked. What
>is the value, for example, of citing something that
>can not be found weeks or years from now?
Do you actually check each item in a student's lit.
cited section, and if so, you must spend a huge amount
of time in the library! I think there is a mistrust
of the electronic medium that somehow leads to a
mistrust of the student's work. In other words, an
internet citation has to be checked but a library
journal citation does not?
Frankly, some of what is in printed, refereed journals
is not worth the paper it is on. Some have errors that
are only published in subsequent issues as a "note" that
you might not notice unless you are a regular subscriber.
The beauty of WWW pages is that such errors are corrected
so that the only copy is accurate. The WWW pages can be
reviewed just as rigorously as printed pages (although
the responsibily to do so is not formalized) and that is
an issue.
A professional site is maintained by a faculty member and
is therefore likely to continue to exist on the web for
long-enough for classroom purposes. There are, of course,
junk sites just as there are junk journals. They may be
here today-gone tomorrow; who cares? Any site that is
worthy will probably be maintained.
In a few years I think societies will forego publication
costs and "publish" their journals electronically. These
"official" pages will be archived by the society and will
be no more "ethereal" than hard-copy is today. We are in
a transition period and that makes our lives a bit more
unsettled.
ross
_______________________________________________________________
Ross Koning | koning at ecsu.ctstateu.edu
Biology Department | http://koning.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/
Eastern CT State University | phone: 860-465-5327
Willimantic, CT 06226 USA | fax: 860-465-4479
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