Trust us, we're academic

At the same presentation reported on at the beginning of this column a woman tried to help me out with the complaint that was directed toward me. What's the problem, she told her. If the address of the page contains "edu" then it's academic and you can trust it.

I certainly don't mind getting a bit of help, but this time I had to say "no thanks". The fact that a URL originates from a server that's sitting in some academic institution means just that - the server is located in a college or university. It says nothing about the accuracy of the information. But having become accustomed to thinking that if it's on a library shelf it must be accurate, or that if I found the information in an encyclopaedia then it must be trustworthy, I suppose that it's logical that people make the same sort of assumptions about web pages. We're always on the lookout for signs that will help us know what to think without devoting too much effort to really examining the information.