Assessing Australia

         Using the rubric designed by fellow team member and myself, I will assess a website used by the general public that is related to our groups topic. This is very ingenious; as it will test our rubric-making abilities as well as generate any possible issues with the marking strategies we came up with or even show us some vital component that we are missing.

Below is a copy of our rubric that we constructed.

I chose a website entitled “The Aboriginal Memorial” which is by the National Gallery of Australia. The link to this website can we found at the bottom of the entry. Now breaking down the website into our rubrics categories, this is how I would grade it.

Organization: 4/4. The layout of the webpage is very clean and easy for the eye to follow, also giving the site a more professional look. All of the information is presented very appropriately with well-constructed paragraphs and subheadings.

Quality of Information: 4/4. All of the information discussed was relevant to the set topic. The writings include various examples and supporting details.

Cooperative Work: N/A. Since there is no way to tell who did what, who did and did not contribute to this website, the category can’t apply. In this case, I’ll exempt the category from the final score.

Content: 4/4. The information and theme of the website was clear and consistent throughout. No unnecessary or irrelevant information was presented.

Spelling and Grammar: 3/3. There were no spelling or grammar mistakes.

References: 1/4. This website was odd in the fact that it didn’t have any references. They did have a very small section on acknowledgements, but that was it. Within the acknowledgements, they did mention some of the people that they obtained data from, but lacked the specific details.

Total: 16/19 or 84.2%

Overall, I would say that the website is quite professional and informative. The clean layout of the website is very influential on the impression of the reader and leaves the reader with a positive experience. The inclusion of pictures is not only a pleasant plus, but also a useful tool. The information offered, although very interesting, is very questionable. The lack of source proof, the information could have all been fabricated for all we know!

My suggestion for improvement of this website would be to make sure that they use a proper method of referencing to cite their sources. With the verification of their sources, the reader can then be assured that the data is not counterfeit.

The website that was used to test the rubric can we found at http://nga.gov.au/AboriginalMemorial/home.cfm