Evaluating Sources with The CRAAP Test

Evaluating Sources with the CRAAP Test

Craap Test -evaluation

The CRAAP Test is a test to check the reliability of sources across academic disciplines. CRAAP is an acronym for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.

Due to the vast number of sources existing online, it can be difficult to tell whether these sources are trustworthy to use as tools for research. The CRAAP Test is a way to assess a source’s validity in an academic setting.

Primarily scientists and science students use the CRAAP Test to determine if articles are acceptable for use in an academic setting, though the test can be applied to the humanities.

Why is the CRAAP test important?

CRAAP test - Evaluating source credibility. Evaluating the credibility of the sources you use is of key importance to ensure the credibility and reliability of your academic research. California State University developed the CRAAP test to help evaluate the credibility of a source.

What does the Acronym CRAAP mean?

CRAAP is an acronym for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Use the CRAAP Test to evaluate your sources. When was the information published or posted?

Who developed the CRAAP Test?

The CRAAP test, developed by Sarah Blakeslee and her team of librarians at California State University, Chico (CSU Chico), is used mainly by higher education librarians at universities. It is one of the various approaches to source criticism.

Evaluating Sources with the CRAAP Test

craaptest

We want to share a source evaluation tool that we developed along with two teachers from our school. Our moment of inspiration came during the excellent July 2015 workshop, Are You Research Ready? .

In discussing how the library taught evaluation, we explained to the teachers in the group that we did so as needed, sharing questions that students should consider or pointing them to websites that could help.

But we librarians were interested in developing a more formalized system for teaching source evaluation at our school—one that teachers would be comfortable sharing in their classrooms. We were aware of some tools and acronyms that other folks used and decided to build on that work to create another system.

This system probably works best for students at the high school or middle school level. It is not a scoring tool; it just provides questions for students to consider so they can determine if a source works for their needs.

Conclusion

It is generally accepted that the current information aspect places an increasing burden on the information consumer.

The lack of editorial control in a web environment, coupled with personalized search engine results and filter bubbles of disinformation on social media makes obvious the need for keepers to grow our guidance to teach and encourage lateral, fact-checking behaviors and dispositions.