There is sometimes a narrow focus when using criteria to critically evaluate the reliability of information sources both online and hardcopy. The failure can be through the sometimes deep reflection on a single source, which can appear on the surface to be accurate, but fails to look at a wider context of the information environment. The CRAAP Test is used widely (as are others with more classroom appropriate acronyms) to drill down and guide students and teachers through critical reflection on a single source of information (Benedictine University Library, 2022). It works to a point. It allows users to appreciate what is within a webpage for instance and how it measures against the CRAAP criteria.
The failure argued by experts like Oddone (2022) is that this methodology often misses gaps in the wider information ecosystem, where wider research of contextual and even contrasting information would provide a clearer picture to a critical evaluation of the reliability of the source.
Caulfield (2019) has put forward a different version of methods to investigate information reliability which does not focus on just a source-at-a-time approach, but asks the information viewer to navigate the wider information ecosystem. SIFT is the method of Stopping, Investigating a source, Finding better coverage, and Tracing information that has been used. This approach incorporates the gaps that CRAAP left out; it actively asks that the critical reflection of sources be in the context of other information sources, and goes as far as the legal concept of ‘Best Evidence’. This is where the original source is always assumed to be the best, and relying only on a secondary source, where information may be misrepresented, omitted, cut, cropped and otherwise altered is second best.
Benedictine University Library. (2022) Evaluating Sources: The CRAAP Test. https://researchguides.ben.edu/source-evaluation
Caulfield, M. (2019). SIFT (the four moves). Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
Oddone, K. (2022, June 8). Is CRAAP…crap? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/07v2Q-Cmfs0