Evaluation Frameworks Explained

Choose an approach that helps you investigate the questions relevant to your task.

These approaches overlap. You do not need to complete every framework for each source.

For an AI-generated answer or summary, use Evaluating AI outputs. A framework can help you evaluate the underlying sources, but you must also check how accurately the AI has represented and combined them.

CRAAP groups source-evaluation questions under five headings:

• Currency: Is the information current enough for your purpose? Has it been updated or superseded? Older sources may remain important.

• Relevance: Does it address your question, context and assessment requirements?

• Authority: Who produced it, and do they have relevant expertise or experience?

• Accuracy: What evidence supports the claims? Can you check that evidence and whether it supports the conclusions?

• Purpose: Why was the source created? How might its intended audience, interests or aims affect its content?

Use your answers to decide whether and how to use the source. An authoritative author or recent publication date does not settle the other questions.

SIFT gives you four actions for investigating online information:

1. Stop: Identify what you need to check before relying on or sharing the information.

2. Investigate the source: Find out who is behind it, what relevant expertise they have and why they produced it.

3. Find better coverage: Look for independent reporting or analysis that explains its evidence and addresses the same claim.

4. Trace the original context: Find the underlying study, data, quotation, image or video. Check whether it has been represented accurately.

Lateral reading means leaving the page you are evaluating to investigate it through other sources. This can help you check an unfamiliar author, organisation or claim rather than relying entirely on what the page says about itself.

Several websites repeating the same claim do not provide independent confirmation. Finding the original source also does not prove the claim: examine the original evidence and its limitations.

For a fuller checking process, see Spotting misinformation and disinformation.

PROMPT helps you examine six aspects of a source:

• Presentation: Can you follow its argument and evidence? Clear presentation does not prove accuracy.

• Relevance: Does the information meet your particular needs?

• Objectivity: What assumptions, interests or perspectives may influence its interpretation? Is relevant contrary evidence considered?

• Method: How was the information gathered and analysed? Are the methods appropriate to the question?

• Provenance: Who produced it, and what relevant expertise and publication or review processes can you identify?

• Timeliness: Does the date of the information meet your needs? Has knowledge or practice changed since it was produced?

Example: using PROMPT to make a decision

This hypothetical example shows how evaluation can affect your use of a source.

An employer’s report claims that its four-day working week improved productivity. Its evidence consists of a staff survey asking whether employees felt more productive.

Applying PROMPT reveals that:

• The report concerns one workplace, so its relevance to other organisations needs consideration.

• The employer may have an interest in promoting the scheme. This is a reason to examine how evidence was selected and reported, rather than proof that the report is unreliable.

• The survey measures staff perceptions. It does not independently establish that productivity increased. You would also need to examine the questions, who responded and the survey’s limitations.

Possible decision: If the survey methods are suitable, use the report to discuss staff perceptions at that workplace, explaining its limitations. Seek appropriate productivity measures and stronger evidence before claiming that the scheme increased productivity.