The Publisher:

Photo: printing-press from janGlas on Flickr

On the Web, the publisher is generally the person or organization that owns or is responsible for the website.

There are a couple of things to look at to help you determine who is responsible for a site:

• Look for identifying information on the site itself.

  Does the page identify who was responsible for publishing it?
  Is there more information on the site's home page? (Look for "home" or "back" links or try clicking on the site logo).
  Is there an "about this site" or "credits" link in the site's header or footer?

  Example: Bicycle History from the late 19th century
  

  Say you came across this site while researching the history of bikes in the United States. What people or organizationso were responsible for publishing this information? Would you consider them authoritative?

  (Click here for our explanation.)

  The first thing you should notice is that this information seems to be part of a larger site called "America on the Move". When we click on the "America on the Move" logo at the top of the page, it takes us to the main page of the site.

  From here, we can see that this site is published by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Clicking on "About This Site" tells us that "unless otherwise noted, all text and images are copyright © National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution."

• Look at the Web address (URL The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a page is the address that shows in your browser's address bar. (e.g. http://library.pdx.edu/tutorials.html)).

  • The Domain Name

    The domain name is the part of the URL (between the "http://" and the next "/") that defines the "location" of a web site on the Internet. The domain on which a page is hosted on often will tell you the organization that is responsible for the page - for example we can tell that a page at pdx.edu is associated with Portland State University.

    Remember, though, just because a site is hosted on a domain, doesn't necessarily mean it's endorsed by that organization. There is plenty of information on the Web (personal Web pages, blogs, personal profiles, information in social networking sites, etc.) that may not reflect the views of the people responsible for the websites that host it.

    In general, information on .edu domains (from educational institutions) and .gov domains (from governmental organizations) are considered more trustworthy than information from websites with other domains (.com, .net, .org, etc.), but be careful - the personal homepage of some random student shouldn't be considered credible simply because it is hosted by the university they attend.

  • The File Path

    The rest of the URL (the file path) can tell you about the context of the information in the site. Directory names (between the slashes) can provide clues about the type of information, who is responsible for it, and how it fits in to the site as a whole.

    One useful way to see this is to truncate the URL - progressively shorten the URL by deleting the portion after each slash - and see if the pages you find can give you more information on the page's context.

  Example: Patterns of Vibrations: Natural Modes, Natural Frequencies
  

  What can we tell about this page by its address? What do you see when you truncate the URL?

  (Click here for our explanation.)

  http://www.uvm.edu/~mmsander/music/modes-intro.pdf

  The full address points to a PDF version of a presentation on patterns of vibration. The content seems professional and well organized, but there is no indication as to who produced it.

  http://www.uvm.edu/~mmsander/music/

  When we delete the final part of the URL (after the final slash) we see that this presentation is part of a class on the Physics of Music and Musical Instruments at the University of Vermont, taught by Dr. Malcolm Sanders, a "faculty member of the UVM Physics Department, a lover of music of many kinds, and fiddler of long standing."

  The fact that this site was prepared by physics faculty member for a university class lends credibility to the information.

  http://www.uvm.edu/~mmsander/

  When we move up to the next level we don't get an actual Web page, just a listing of all the files in that directory.

  It is relatively common to see file lists or errors when truncating URL's!

  Still, by looking at the address we can guess that these are Dr. Sanders's files on the University server. (When you see a tilde "~" in the URL like this, it usually indicated the personal Web space of a university student or faculty member.)

  http://www.uvm.edu/

  This is the University home page. The fact that we end up here confirms the fact that the information we found is hosted by the University.