Evaluating Digital Resources for Quality

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by Tracey Brown Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist

Last weekend you attended a teacher technology conference and you learned about an amazing new website promising to transform learning in your classroom. What’s the first thing you should do?

Surprisingly, this blog post is not about completing an MOI (materials of instruction approval). It is actually about what you need to do before you even know if you are ready to complete an MOI.

Step 1


Explore the site - the WHOLE site


This might sound dumb, like, “ of course I was going to visit the website!” But how many times have we seen just a snapshot of something and found ourselves recommending it to a friend. This happens in education too. We let a presenter show us the parts of their site they want us to see, we get excited by their high energy presentation, and we forget that we only explored about half of the resource, and didn’t explore freely on our own. Evaluating the quality of a resource is time-consuming and there is no recommended shortcut. While exploring, here are some things to look for:

  • Does the site reflect consistency in layout, ease of use, and quality?
  • Are distractions like advertisements kept to a minimum and limited to the margins of the site?
  • Does every click result in the expected action; no extra, irrelevant tabs opening, for example?
  • Does the quantity of text seem age appropriate for the target audience?
  • Are colors of text and buttons easy to read/see?
  • Are animations and flashing items limited?


Step 2


What does a user get for free?


Many education services are what we call “freemium sites.” These are sites that offer ABC for free but then also offer XYZ for a subscription fee. Some even offer a tiered system where the higher up the ladder you go, the more features you get. When evaluating sites for approval as a Free Digital Resource only the features included with the free version can be considered. An additional factor to consider is, how intrusive are the prompts to upgrade accounts? Some sites hide all of the menu options included in the paid version from users with a free account. Other sites have tools featured prominently on the toolbar that are paid. When a user with a free account clicks on the tool assuming they will have access, they are rerouted to the subscription and payment page for an upgraded account. From the website provider’s perspective, this may result in a steep increase in the users who upgrade. From the user’s perspective, this is frustrating, detracts from the user experience, and represents poor quality in web design as it doesn’t value instructional time.


Step 3


Look for signs of a reputable company


There are some basic things web designers are taught to include. If the company that authored this resource was aiming for quality, they would hire a web designer who would refuse to put their name on a project that didn’t include these staples:

  • A company name and logo, often at the bottom of the resource or on an About page.
  • A current Copyright date.
  • A Support page with information on how to contact someone through live text, an email address, or phone number.


Step 4


Look over the Terms of Service (sometimes called Terms or Terms of Use) and Privacy Policy (sometimes just called Privacy)


This is another way you know if a site is reputable, it includes Terms and Privacy! These are often linked at the bottom of a website or the far right side of the menu. They are usually long digital pages with lots of legalese and they sure aren’t fun to read. But just like there is no shortcut for thoroughly exploring the website, there is no shortcut for checking for what is important in these linked resources. Except there is! There are specific things that education officials are looking for on these resources and knowing what those things are and how to find them quickly can cut the time you spend examining these resources exponentially.

  • PRO TIP: use CTRL + F to search these resources for exactly what you need to find. CTRL + F opens a small search box on a page that allows you to type in exactly what you are looking for. Then it shows how many times that word, or words appear on the page and when you click on the arrows next to the number, it jumps you to the next entry. Making it easy to find exactly what you are looking for.

So WHAT should you type in your fabulous search box?

  • 13, 16, 18, minors, and/or age of majority - some sites are not designed for children and the authors of those sites are up front about that in their Terms and Privacy. Finding the terminology they used can be a bit of a guessing game though. In the United States website providers are subject to a law known as COPPA which is all about children under 13, but international sites may have laws pertaining to different ages, or may get around the age issue by using terms like 'age of majority' to cover themselves since this age can change from country to country.
  • Personally Identifiable Information - in education circles, this is often abbreviated as PII. It refers to what information a website collects from a user when they create an account. Some websites don’t require accounts at all, others only require teachers to have accounts, some require every user to have accounts including the students. PII should be considered for any sites that require accounts, but especially those that require student accounts.


A final note… not to harp on the Terms and Privacy, but when a user creates an account, the final step is usually to click a button that says, “I agree to the Terms and Privacy.” When a user agrees to a site’s Terms and Privacy, it represents a legally binding contract. So if a site says “No one under 13 is allowed” and a teacher decides to have their elementary students create accounts, the teacher is in the wrong, not the website that allowed those accounts to be created. It is the responsibility of each of us to protect AACPS, ourselves, and our students!
Want to learn more about how to OFFICIALLY review a free website for approval in AACPS? See the Review and Evaluation website for more information.






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