Use of a world wide web site evaluation tool in chemistry

Material on the World Wide Web may be freely accessed by instructors and students, regardless of its source. Evaluation of such material can be facilitated by use of one of a number of web site evaluation tools. These assess a web site in terms of content and design by adapting established principles in each of these areas. The feasibility of using one such tool, originally developed for the evaluation of medical information sites, in chemistry has been explored. The tool was applied to 37 sites that cover the periodic table. Most of the criteria seemed to be as applicable to chemical sites as to those for which it was designed, and gave useful information on the quality aspects of each site. On the other hand, some of the criteria included for medical sites were inappropriate or too vague in the context of chemical sites, and additional criteria not present in the original tool would have been useful for this application. These observations have been used to construct a modified tool which should be more applicable for World Wide Web sites with chemical content. © 2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation.