Week 4

How do you judge the value of expertise on the Web? Does it differ from your notion of expertise in face-to-face settings? Why or why not?

Regardless of where I find my information, I take most things with a grain of salt. I do my best to triangulate the information I've found before I consider it fact. However, my approach varies depending on the kind of information I'm looking for. If I'm looking for a recipe or DIY household fix, I'm not going to spend hours looking for supporting information somewhere else. Sure, everyone may make spaghetti sauce a bit differently or approaches a backed up garbage disposal with varying solutions, but I just need one that works. So, I'll search for what I need, try it out, and if it works I'm all set. Otherwise, I'll try something else - no need to make sure 3 chefs/plumbers recommend the same thing.

By contrast, if I'm writing a paper, making a recommendation to a client, or even having a friendly debate with a coworker, I want to make sure the information I'm using is legit. I may browse academic journals (if I'm familiar with them) because I know this information, while not perfect, is held to a higher standard. If I'm searching outside academia, I look for reputable sources and I look for the information in several places.

However, even information from well-respected sources may not be completely accurate. In my Research Methods course in my Psychology program, my professor would bring in articles from the newspaper for us to critique. Many of these articles used statistics to essentially lie - making their claims look stronger. In behavior analysis, we don't use statistical significance - we use social significance, meaning our results are significant when we reach the level that the client would like us to reach. So, a small margin of statistical significance means nothing unless it actually produces desired results as specified by the client. Therefore, I'm wary of statistics and I don't just accept them because someone reputable said so.

I think this is also the case in a f2f setting - I don't take everything that comes out of a professor's mouth as gospel. I also want to triangulate this information before I'm certain of it. I want to see it replicated in various places and sometimes even experience it myself before I'm sold.

Unfortunately, many (not all) of my f2f classes have been structured very much like typical undergraduate courses - tell me what you want me to know, I'll learn it, show you that I've learned it, and I'll pass the course. There hasn't been a lot of room for exploration or translating an assignment to be more meaningful to me and my future (again, in most of my classes - not all). So, I've learned to play the game. I give my professors what they want at the sacrifice of doing something meaningful for me because I've learned that that's the way to get good grades. A semester is short. I can't argue with my professor or work to prove them wrong even if I don't really buy into what it is they're telling me. So, for the purposes of school, I take what they tell me and do what they tell me, but I definitely don't do this blindly. I'm very aware that other perspectives and contrasting information exist and it's my job to analyze all sides and come to a conclusion about what information is most appropriate given the situation. I just may not share that with my professor if I know he/she wants the assignment done a certain way.