2. Mechanisms of academic knowledge distribution using the internet

2.2. Search engines

The explosion in the amount of information available on the web means that is increasingly impractical to merely `surf' around, if you are in need of a particular type of information. Internet search engines allow one to considerably increase the chance of finding information if it is out there, and one's search target is quite specific. However, it does not allow one to filter on quality, standard of presentation or the like. Thus they are very difficult to use if one wants information on a topic upon which there are many available pages. Further more this is a problem that is unlikely to be able to be fixed by purely technical solutions, since the competition for readers in popular areas means that the web authors will constantly adapt to exploit the qualities of these web engines whatever they are.

A Proposal for the Establishment of Review Boards - Bruce Edmonds - 16 MAR 99

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