These same five criteria can also be applied to documents published on the web, albeit with more difficulty.

Authorship

Authorship is a key factor in evaluating a document. If the document is written by a well known and recognized expert in the field, the information contained therein usually is reliable. If the author is unknown, biographical information can establish credentials. Alternatively, contact information might be available; however, remember that it is easy to acquire an e-mail address with a legitimate-sounding domain name.

A second method of evaluating authorship is to look for recognized authors cited within or linked to the document. Conversely, it bodes well for the validity of a document if the author is cited or referenced by recognized authors.

Another method of evaluating authorship is to consider the number and credibility of sites that link to the author’s site. The advanced search feature of many search engines includes an option to find links to a website. For example, finding sites that link to the AICPA home page may be achieved by accessing the advance search option at www.altavista.com. In the box labeled Boolean query, type “link:www.aicpa.org”. This search will return web pages that link to the AICPA’s website.

Although authorship helps establish the reliability of a website’s information, it should not be taken for granted that the website author also penned all of its content. If an author’s name is not listed in a document, it might be found in the page source code. HTML, the language of web pages, allows identifying information to be embedded in the header of the web page. This information will not appear in a web browser but can be found in Netscape Navigator by selecting the View>Page Source menu or right clicking on the Navigator window. With Internet Explorer, the same information can be found by selecting the View>Source menu.

If the author is not identified, the name of the organization or webmaster responsible for the site might be. There might be distinctive features on the page such as headers, footers, or trademarked logos that suggest the page is affiliated with an official, professional, or academic website.

Publishing Body

In print media, a publishing body refers to a person or group that approved the text for publication. In most cases, a work printed by a publisher implies an evaluation process and possibly a peer review. On the Internet, a publishing body refers to a web host, the computer on which the document is housed. There are several ways to identify a web host, including the examination of a page’s URL.

A domain name and its suffix sometimes indicate the type of organization providing the information. For example, the suffix .gov indicates that a website is registered to a U.S. government entity; the .org suffix is used by not-for-profit entities. The Exhibit provides a list of common types of domain names.

However, the owner of a domain name and the name itself are not necessarily synonymous. Whois is a utility program that determines the owner of a specific domain name. A whois query returns the name, address, phone number, and e-mail address of the person or company registered for that domain as well as the IP address of the web server hosting the domain. An online whois query is located at www. networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois.

After identifying the owner of a domain name, one should assure the owner is a legitimate provider of information and a recognized authority in the field. For example, the IRS website (www.irs.gov) is regarded as an authoritative source for federal tax forms.

Questions need to be asked about the relationship between an author and a website owner. Is there an editorial relationship? Is the relationship more like renting space to post documents? Does the author have the only input on what is published? The answers to such questions will help determine the reliability of information.

Point of View or Bias

After determining a publisher, a site’s point of view or bias toward a specific topic can be addressed. For example, the NYSSCPA website (www.nysscpa.org) can be considered a reliable, unbiased source of information about CPE requirements in New York State; information from the Flat Tax Home Page (www.flattax.gov) is probably biased toward the flat tax, given that the site includes a presentation by U.S. Representative Dick Armey (R–Texas), author of the Flat Tax Bill. While it does not necessarily devalue information, a strong point of view should be evaluated in context.

One way to evaluate the existence of a bias is to consider the purpose of a document and its intended audience. The information may be meant to inform, explain, or persuade. For example, information on a company’s website is probably meant to persuade the reader of the company’s quality and advantages over its competitors.

Sometimes a website’s bias will be obvious. For example, sites are commonly hosted by organizations with definite stances or interests in the issues covered. On other websites, bias may be less apparent, in which case finding an author’s or publishing body’s home page may be illuminating.

Verifiability

Accuracy or verifiability of a document’s details also plays an important role in the evaluation process. For a research document, an assessment of the research methodology may be beneficial. If a document includes secondary information, there should be a bibliography or link to the source. A document should name individuals or sources responsible for nonpublished data. Keep in mind that a document’s accuracy is based upon the standards enforced by its publishing body. Many websites are personal or loosely organized publishing endeavors whose assertions may be difficult if not impossible to verify.

Timeliness

The date of publication is often included on a web page. If information is subject to periodic updates, pages should include a schedule of those updates. If a document does not contain a date, users can access the page information within the source code. This information can be viewed in Netscape Navigator by selecting the View>Page Info menu or right-clicking the Navigator window. In Internet Explorer, the feature is available by selecting the File>Properties menu.

Examples

An example is helpful in understanding how the five criteria should be applied to Internet documents. Take, for example, the AICPA’s site and the Heritage Foundation’s Tax Reform Now! site (www.aicpa.org and www.taxation.org, respectively).

While the author of the AICPA home page is not evident in the body of the page, its page info, or embedded in the page source, the page clearly is endorsed by the Institute and perhaps written by AICPA members. An AltaVista advanced search yields 8,000 web pages linked to the AICPA site, including several CPA firm, accounting faculty, and general business resource sites.

The AICPA’s home page apparently is published by the AICPA. Whois indicates that the domain is registered to the AICPA and the domain servers hosting the AICPA website are registered to Pacific Bell Internet (PBI). Because PBI is a large provider of Internet services, including web hosting, it is unlikely that it serves in any editorial capacity to the AICPA.

Since the AICPA represents the accounting profession, there is reason to believe that the AICPA is biased toward portraying accountants in a very positive light. The material on the website, however, reflects the breadth of AICPA membership and provides many diverse viewpoints.

The AICPA website appears to provide accurate and verifiable information. Because AICPA committees wrote many of the documents posted on the site, accurate reproduction probably is a safe bet. Also bolstering the website’s credibility is that it can be compared to similar information obtained from other sources, such as exposure drafts reproduced in the Journal of Accountancy. And, as indicated by the “updated” date on the home page, the information looks current.

In comparison, several pages of the Tax Reform Now! site provide the names of individual authors. AltaVista reveals that the Tax Reform Now! website is linked to approximately 130 web pages, of which more than 10% are affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, which is the publishing body.

The domain name is registered to Town Hall, Inc., and is hosted on domain servers registered to Townhall.com, a website that provides “conservative news and information.” This suggests that Town Hall’s self-proclaimed conservative point of view could extend to Tax Reform Now!

The information contained on Tax Reform Now! appears to be accurate and verifiable. The dates of the linked pages suggest they are up-to-date, and the “what’s new” page is updated daily. But there is no indication, even in Page Info, how to determine when the home page was last updated. The website also provides a link to a tax code that has not been updated since January 1994.

The Internet is rapidly becoming the first place to go for information. Its immediate access to information on a wide variety of topics is unparalleled, but precisely because its scope is so vast, there is the distinct possibility that some of its information is unreliable. Because the editorial filters traditionally applied to print media do not necessarily apply to the Internet, users of information should carefully evaluate data found online. Applying the five criteria previously discussed will help ensure that only credible information is selected.

Editors:
Paul D. Warner, PhD, CPA
Hofstra University

L. Murphy Smith, DBA, CPA
Texas A&M University

©2009 The New York State Society of CPAs. Legal Notices