LINGUISTICS com LINGUISTICS com Evaluating Language Resources on

LINGUISTICS. com: LINGUISTICS. com Evaluating Language Resources on the Internet Adams Bodomo Department of Linguistics The University of Hong Kong abbodomo@hku. hk 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001

Introduction ® The Internet A massive surge of the internet and allied Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) ® a powerful tool for research analysis, dissemination, and documentation ® ® Aim ® To examine how the Internet can be used as a useful source of information for learning and doing research about language and linguistics 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 2

Internet URL Webpage BASIC TERMS Homepage HTML Hypertext HTTP Website 14 December 2001 WWW ILEC 2001

® Internet ® ‘a worldwide network of interconnected networks, connected together using recognized standards to enable electronic communication and the exchange of information’(Cooke 1999: 155) ® HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol ® Hypertext ® Contains cross-references or links to different parts of the same page or to different pages ® HTML: Hypertext Markup Language ® WWW: World Wide Web ® URL: Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator ® Website: a collection of linked HTML ® Webpage: an individual HTML page ® Homepage: the opening of any site on the WWW 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 4

LANGUAGE WEBSITES 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001

What is a language website? ®A collection of linked html pages available via the World Wide Web for the purpose of providing information about some aspects of language and linguistics ® Authors: ® Individuals or groups of linguists or other language experts and enthusiasts ® Example: ® the Linguist List http: //www. linguistlist. org 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 6

E-journals E-books Bibliographies TYPES OF LANGUAGE WEBSITES E-libraries E-dictionaries Online Language Courses 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001

Language and Linguistic Association websites ® Linguist List (http: //www. linguistlist. org) ® Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist/lshk) ® Linguistic Society of (http: //www. lsadc. org) America (LSA) ® Linguistics Association of the Great Britain (http: //www. phon. ucl. ac. uk/home/dick/aboutlag. htm) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 (LAGB) 8

University and Institutional Departmental websites ® HKU Department of Linguistics (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist) ® Stanford University Department of Linguistics (http: //www-linguistics. stanford. edu) ® NTNU Department of Linguistics (http: //www. ling. hf. ntnu. no/index_en. php ) ® University of Ghana Department of Linguistics (http: //www. ug. edu. gh/pages/lingdept. htm) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 9

Theoretical Linguistics websites ® LFG (http: //www-lfg. stanford. edu/lfg/) ® HPSG (http: //hpsg. stanford. edu) ® Minimalism (http: //www. minimalism. linguistics. arizona. edu/) ® OT-LFG (http: //www-lfg. stanford. edu/lfg/ot-lfg. html) ® GB (http: //www. jtauber. com/linguistics/synthinar/) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 10

Dictionary and Glossary websites (edictionaries and e-glossaries) ® SIL Linguistic Glossary (http: //www. sil. org/linguistics/Glossary. Of. Linguistic. Terms/) ® Oxford English Dictionary (OED Oniline) (http: //www. oed. com) ® Cobuild (http: //titania. cobuild. collins. co. uk/) ® Merriam Webster (http: //www. m-w. com/dictionary. htm) ® Web of Online Dictionaries (http: //www. yourdictionary. com) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 11

Individual or Language Group (Grammar) websites ® ® ® Chinese (http: //pears. lib. ohio-state. edu/China/linguist. html) Japanese (http: //www. twics. com/~kenbutle/learning_japanese. htm) French (http: //rylibweb. man. ac. uk/data 1/ir/info/french. html) English (http: //www. chomp. com/) Swahili (http: //www. yale. edu/swahili/) Dagaare (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist/staff/_ab. Dagaare. Proficient. ht ml) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 12

Online Language and Linguistic Course websites ® Web. CT course websites (http: //ecourse. hku. hk: 8900) ® Let’s Speak Dagaare (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist/staff/_ab. Dagaare. Proficient. htm l) ® Online phonology course (http: //www. stir. ac. uk/epd/celt/staff/higdox/stephen/phono/ phonolg. htm) ® Internet Grammar of English (http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/internet-grammar/home. htm) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 13

Bibliographical Databases ® Bibliography of Dagaare Studies (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist/staff_ab. Dagaare. Bibliog. html) ® Lexical-Functional Grammar (http: //www-lfg. stanford. edu/lfg/bibliography. html) ® Chinese studies (http: //deall. ohio-state. edu/chan. 9/g-bib. htm#c-bib) ® (others: see Linguist list) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 14

E-linguistic resource websites: e-libraries ® The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Linguistics (http: //www. emich. edu/~linguist/www-vl. html) ® Linguistics bookshelf (http: //www. sil. org/lingualinks/Linguist. html) ® Lancaster University Library (http: //libweb. lancs. ac. uk/g 47. htm) ® UCLA Library Collections and Internet Resources in General Linguistics (http: //www. library. ucla. edu/libraries/url/colls/ling) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 15

E-linguistic resource websites: e-books / e-encyclopedia ® MSN Encarta (http: //encarta. msn. com/) ® Encyclopedia. com (http: //www. encyclopedia. com) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 16

E-linguistic resource websites: e-journals ® Language and linguistic science Electronic Journals (http: //www. york. ac. uk/services/library/ejournal/linguist. ht m) ® Penn Library: Electronic Journals (http: //www. library. upenn. edu/webbin 5/resources/ejspubli c 5. cgi? homepage=http: //www. library. upenn. edu/&commu nity=Linguistics) ® UM Library: Electronic Journals & Newspapers (http: //www. lib. umich. edu/ejournals/lists/lingui. html) ® UCL Library: Linguistics Internet resources (http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/Resources/Arts/phonling. htm) ® Journal of Dagaare Studies (http: //www. hku. hk/linguist/staff_ab. Dagaare. Journal. html) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 17

DESIGNING LANGUAGE WEBSITES 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001

Designing a language website ® Design of website: ® The creation of a website and the subsequent arrangement and rearrangement of its contents ®A good design of a language website depends on how adept we are at manipulating the technology involved and how artistically sophisticated we are 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 19

Tools for creating language websites ® Hypertext ® HTML editors ® WYSIWYG-editors ® Netscape Communicator ® Dreamweaver ® Microsoft Frontpage ® Web. CT 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 20

Creating a webpage by using Microsoft Frontpage editor ® What do you need? ® The editor: Microsoft Frontpage ® The software for uploading your pages (e. g. Cute. FTP, Ws. FTP) ® A server for storing your pages (e. g. Yahoo. Geocities) ® Pedagogical tools ® Web-based course tool e. g. Web. CT 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 21

HOW TO EVALUATE A WEBSITE 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001

Searching for websites ® Evaluating a website begins with locating it on the internet ® Search engines Excite (http: //www. excite. com) ® Yahoo (http: //www. yahoo. com) ® Alta Vista (http: //www. altavista. com) ® Google (meta-search engine) (http: //www. google. com) ® Web. Crawler (meta-search engine) (http: //www. webcrawler. com) ® 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 23

Criteria for Evaluating a Language Website (Cooke 1999, Alexander and Tate 1999) ® Authority ® Accuracy ® Objectivity ® Currency ® Coverage 14 December 2001 CURRENCY AUTHORITY • Are there dates on the page to • Is it clear who is responsible for the indicate contents of the page? • When the page was written? ACCURACY • Is there a link to a page describing • When the pagefor was placed on • Are sources anyfirst factual the purpose of the sponsoring the Web? clearly listed? information organization? COVERAGE (and INTENDED OBJECTIVITY • When the page was last revised? • Is the information free from • Is there a way of verifying the AUDIENCE) • Are any other indications thata • grammatical, Islegitimacy thethere information provided as spelling, and other of the page's sponsor? That • Is there an indication that the page has material is kept current? public service? typographical (These kinds of is, is there a errors? phone or postal been completed, and isnumber notin still under • If material is presented graphs only indicate amore lack • errors Isaddress thenot information free of of quality to contact for construction? and/or charts, is it clearly stated when control, but can actually produce information? (Simply an email address • advertising? If the page is still under construction, is the data was gathered? in information). isexpected not enough). the date of completion • inaccuracies If there is any advertising on • If the information is published in the • Is it clear who has the ultimate • Is it clear who wrote the material and indicated? different editions, is it clearly labeled page, is author's it clearly differentiated for equivalent the accuracy offor the are the qualifications • Ifresponsibility there is a print to the Web what edition the page is from? from the informational content? content of writing onthe this topicindication clearly stated? page, is there amaterial? clear ofwhich is • If the material is from a work • If there are charts and/or graphs • If the material protected by on whether entireiswork isoften available out of copyright (as is the case 24 ILEC 2001 containing statistical data, are the copyright, is the name of the copyright the Web or only parts of it?

Further Criteria (Bodomo 2001) ® Evidence ® How many ‘customers’ patronise a website ® Evidence ® of Patronage of Collaboration / Corroboration Whether the author(s) collaborate with other linguists and language experts in that area of language and linguistics ® Multilingual ® Retrievability Related to online dictionaries/glossaries 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 25

An Optimal Model for Language Website Evaluation - e. g. Online English language learning Criterion Candidate website AC C AT H OB J CU R Internet Grammar of English http: //www. ucl. ac. uk/intern et-grammar/ English 4 us http: //www. english 4 us. com / English for Internet http: //www. study. com/ BBC English Key to abbreviations: http: //www. bbc. co. uk/world ACC: Accuracy service/learningenglish/ ATH: Authority OBJ: Objectivity CUR: Currency 14 December 2001 CO V PA T CO L 2 1 M R Ranke d Outpu t 4 3 COV: Coverage PAT: Evidence of Patronage COL: Evidence of Collaboration MR: Multilingual Retrievability ILEC 2001 26

Summary and Conclusion ® The web is an important source of data ® But the web can also contain a lot of inaccuracies and unethical material ® Hence the need for quality control and consequently evaluation ® In this paper we have provided information about language webpage creation before discussing criteria for Language webpage evaluation, ending up with proposals towards a model of language website evaluation. 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 27

References ® ® ® ® ® Alexander, Jan. E. and Marsha Ann Tate. 1996. Checklist for an Informational Web Page. USA: Wolfgram Memorial Library, Widener University. URL: http: //www 2. widener. edu/Wolfgram-Memorial. Library/webevaluation/inform. htm Alexander, Jan. E. and Marsha Ann Tate. 1999. Web Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. , Publishers. Bodomo, A. B. 2001. How to design and evaluation quality language websites. Ms, University of Hong Kong. Cooke, Alison. 1999. Authoritative Guide to Evaluating Information on the Internet. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. Grassian, Esther. 1997. Thinking Critically about Discipline-based World Wide Web Resources. USA: UCLA College Library. Available URL: http: //www. library. ucla. edu/libraries/college/help/critical/discipline. htm Kapoun, Jim. 1998. Teaching Undergrads Web Evluation: A Guide for Library Instruction. URL: http: //www. ala. org/acrl/undwebev. html Landsberger, Joe. 2000 Evaluating Website Content. URL: http: //www. iss. stthomas. edu/webtruth/evaluate. htm Skillman & Kirby Libraries. 2000. Evaluating Websites for Academic Use. URL: http: //ww 2. lafayette. edu/~library/guides/evaluating. html Wolinsky, Art. 1999. Locating and Evaluating Information on the Internet. USA: Enslow Publishers, Inc. URL: http: //www. enslow. com/Internet. Lib. htm 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 28

Referencing Internet Resources Many different accepted formats ® Information to be included for citing web resources ® Name(s) of author(s) ® Date/year of publication ® Title of the website/webpage ® Date of retrieval/access ® URL i. e. the address of the document ® Useful resources: ® Electronic Reference Formats Recommended by the American Psychological Association (http: //www. apa. org/journals/webref. html) ® MLA Style: How do I document sources from the World Wide Web in my works-cited list? (http: //www. mla. org/www_mla_org/style_main. asp? level=2&m ode=page&page=1&link=sty 72800121438&section=sty 5180012451 0) ® Evaluating and Citing Web Resources for Research (HKUST) (http: //library. ust. hk/serv/lin/evaluate-cite. html) 14 December 2001 ILEC 2001 29 ®