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| Hazards of research on the Internet |
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About Web sites:
Web sites can be very useful sources of current information about an organization and the issues on which it works. However, keep in mind that:
-- Web sites are often hard to use; even such basics as addresses and phone numbers can be difficult to find in them.
-- Information may be outdated, even several years old; there is often no way of knowing when it was posted.
-- Information on policy issues may be incomplete or otherwise unreliable. Groups that have high standards for their publications may not apply those standards to their Web sites.
Lists of links and search engines:
Lists of links (so-called “Web directories”) and search engines don’t take the place of a carefully researched and systematically structured reference tool. The reasons include the following:
-- Lists of links, even those posted by major organizations, are often haphazard and not kept up to date.
-- Lists of links often are biased toward groups with which the host organization works or is allied.
-- It is often hard to get your bearings. How does a group fit into the larger picture? How does it relate to other groups active in the same field? Who’s behind it? What does it really stand for?
-- Many organizations still do not have a presence on the Web; this is especially true in parts of Africa and Asia, where the digital divide remains a serious problem.
-- In doing research for the World Directory of Environmental Organizations, which we produced from 1972 to 2008, we found more than a few Web sites for questionable, spurious, or even nonexistent organizations. For example, one site represented a group offering "certification" in a field of environmental expertise simply upon payment of a fee. Another site purportedly represented a global organization with an imposing name that existed only on the Internet. |
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