Ever found a really interesting article or book on a subject, but not sure how much you should trust the author as an authority? This is a common problem researchers have over and over and over.
There are several quantatative methods to figure out how much credibility or authority rank to give that author. Take a peek at the methods over at Deep Web
http://deep-web.org/how-to-assign-authors-authority-rank/
Some tools for deep web work great, other tools OK. Occasionally, you'll find a tool that does wonderous things, and today we've found one.
It is called Touchgraph, and it shows relationship websites clustered together. http://www.touchgraph.com/seo/launch?q=solar%20power
Using this tool, we've located new deep web assets for several of our projects that we were missing before. Do give this tool a look over.
Deep Web research is a critical skill for many academics, engineers, and businesses. It is a means to find the right road forward.
However, I had the opportunity to teach Deep Web 101 to a Metal Detecting Club, as it is very useful in helping them find historic location to hunt.
A video presentation of the talk is available at --
http://deep-web.org/treasure-hunting-deep-web-research-video/
We've all been stuck in that spot - digging thru deep web on a project and find a possibly valuable snippet of a report but no author listed and we aren't sure about the source. What do you do?
Here what you can do - go down the merry path to find the author and evaluate him or her as best you can. Possibly unlock their identity, address, and ultimately establish their level of authority on what they wrote.
Here is 10 steps to vet online sources.
A good example of a useful deep web asset is historic aerial imagery
http://learninggis.com/videos-out-on-how-to-get-free-aerial-imagery
there are some tutorials on using USGS to obtain historic imagery for GIS or other purposes.
Thursday I presented the first of a 3 part series on the use of Deep Web for finding leads for treasure hunters. This will be made into instructional videos available online soon.
Part 1: Deep Web 101 -Basics of Deep Web, how to do good research, how to do Deep Web research, how to vet sources, and an example problem.
The main take aways are:
Part 2: Digging in the Deep Web - Will go back and show how to get the most of the Surface Web before delving more about Deep Web resources. At the end I'll tease with some aerial photographic resources that can be used.
Part 3: Deep Web Aerial Photography - Covering the main resources for finding historic aerial photos, and then we'll go deep into how to do remote sensing to find the footprint of houses long gone. If time permits, we'll cover aerial archeology to find other man man features.
I've found a useful Deep Web tool of tracing relationships when trying to vet the authority of some websites. The software tool is put out by a company called Panterva (http://www.paterva.com/web5/client/overview.php), which I think is designed for computer security. However, it is rather useful but unfortunately complex. Expext to spend 1-3 hours understanding the tool itself. BTW, you must register to download the software. It is free, however.
