Competency N: Evaluate programs and services using measurable criteria.
Introduction
Evaluating programs and services can mean that one dives into planning a school project. Evaluation can also use keywords and subject headings to search for specific information or topics. While beta evaluation can use keywords and website design to make looking for clothing an easier task.
Evaluation
Evaluation is more than just assessing programming, it can dive deeper into planning. There is a strategy for evaluation. In the first evidence I discuss evaluation of one school-year’s worth of planning. I landed on one research paper to evaluate what the student is to learn during that month. “Papers presenting the first approaches for stemming were reviewed to extract their main features, benefits and drawbacks. Additionally, papers dealing with stemmers for non-English languages or with some more recent proposals were also consulted and compiled.” (Moral et al., 2014). Stemmer means, “This is used by search engines and other information retrieval systems to match words with the same root, improving the accuracy of search results.” (Gemini, 2025). Reviewing or evaluating research papers are expected to touch on main features, benefits and drawbacks as stated above. Planning and evaluating the research papers for accuracy as the goal with Black History Month, for example, are done when students are in the library during class time or are outside of class time.
Evaluating Searches
While evaluating searches, one uses keywords to find what they are looking for. “This study asked, what proportion of records retrieved by a keyword search has a keyword only in a subject heading field and thus would not be retrieved if there were no subject headings? It was found that more than one-third of records retrieved by successful keyword searches would be lost if subject headings were not present, and many individual cases exist in which 80, 90, and even 100 percent of the retrieved records would not be retrieved in the absence of subject headings” (Gross, T. & Taylor, A., 2005). Keyword usage is very important to have. For example, Evidence 2 has keywords prevalent while searching for search terms like “dogs” and “happiness” (Leatham, 2024). By using keywords and the Boolean word “and” made evaluating searches easier.
Beta Evaluation
Beta evaluation is the precursor to the main research evaluation. The beta evaluation of a website that sells t-shirts relies on keywords as well as website design. “Design [which] is at the core of professional work. Information professionals not only design sources of information such as websites and collections, but also use them for information retrieval” (Weedman, 2017). As far as beta evaluation is concerned, how a website is built matters when it comes to the buyer finding what they are looking for. Simple keywords like having “artist” and “genre” to search for a t-shirt is intuitive design. Whereas, just using size alone won’t yield as many results. One must be specific to find what they want. When having a t-shirt website, for example, being descriptive is important. There are different types of t-shirts that can have links at the top of the web page. One could put links to different genres for instance, rock, pop, and electronic at the top of the page to be more specific.
Evidence
1 – INFO 233: School Library Media Centers: Scope and Sequence – Rationale/Reflection
For my first piece of evidence for Competency N I discuss evaluation. In this essay I was to pretend I was a school librarian who was planning a calendar year’s worth of programming. Part of that programming was evaluating the instructional focus. I would hypothetically work with students and teachers in order to research using books and other media as well as help the teacher evaluate content for research papers. For instance, research paper 3, or a research paper on Black History Month. Evaluating and inquiring for Black History Month was also paired with the word explore for instructional focus. “Black History Month is a required topic that students are to research and use their evaluation skills, inquisitiveness, and exploration senses in order to complete Research 3 in February” (Leatham, 2025). Evaluating the types of content that students are to use in their essays must relate to Black History Month programming and what is so important about it. Evaluation pops up eight times and correlates with a different theme each month for research papers.
2 – INFO 202: Information Retrieval System Design: Discussion 3: Evaluating Searches
For my second piece of evidence for Competency N I discuss evaluating searches. For this assignment I was to type in two search engines, Google Scholar and San Jose Public Library specific search terms. These search terms were “dogs” and “happiness” (Leatham, 2024). I was then to answer and evaluate the following points: “What access points are available in each of the two search engines? Find articles with all of the words and search the catalog by keyword” (Leatham, 2024). After that, I was to evaluate a retail website like Converse shoes and search for “attributes like color, style, size, target user, purpose” (Leatham, 2024). I was then to evaluate which three search options were the most important to me. The most important terms were “Custom”, “Sale”, and “Launch” (Leatham, 2024). In order to evaluate searches one must use key terms and search engines using appropriate search terms and knowing one’s way around a website. Knowing one’s way around a website depends on how the website itself is constructed and laid out. Is it intuitive? That would help evaluate searches.
3 – INFO 202: Information Retrieval System Design: Rules for Group 9 – Band T-Shirts – Beta Evaluation Report
For my third piece of evidence for Competency N I will discuss a beta evaluation report for band t-shirts. In this evaluation I was to type in the size that I needed. For instance I evaluated, “In the Search and Report page, when selecting the Gender of the T-shirt one can see that there are various sizes available for Men, Women, and Unisex. However, by looking to the right at Size there appears Sizes. Yet, for the selection screen for the average Size there only appears to be one Large, when I saw more Large entries when looking at Gender Unisex. This means that the backend rule works for Gender but not for Size” (Leatham, 2024). What worked in the evaluation of the website was, “Style, Color, and Material worked and selections appeared” (Leatham, 2024). What the group didn’t add was the terms “artist” and “genre”. Having those would make searching for band t-shirts easier to do. Afterall, it was supposed to be an evaluation of a band t-shirt website.
Conclusion
I learned that evaluating can extend to researching and turning in papers. Evaluating searches involves keyword research and using the right search engines and words to get what information one is looking for. I also learned that beta evaluation is an important step in the research and programming process. Evaluation of research of keywords is what keeps programs and services front and center.
References
Google. (2025). Gemini (Large language model). Google.
Gross, T. & Taylor, A. (2005). What have we got to lose? The effect of controlled vocabulary on keyword searching results. College & Research Libraries. 66(3). http://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/15726.
Leatham, J. (2024). Discussion 3: Evaluating searches. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vve4u4IPcMSTccMnzMaf0TYa0U3BozZqHpyYGtvwMG8/edit?usp=sharing.
Leatham, J. (2024). Rules for group 9 – Band t-shirts – Beta evaluation report. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17WO-YlvKzCjq4T0NYkhinU4knGX8u-EX2mTEInPCXYs/edit?usp=sharing.
Leatham, J. (2025). Scope and sequence – Rationale/reflection. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15kE3612pRVSXZxjKjTr3qU7-n2r_0l-_iQ37HpmvEMU/edit?usp=sharing.
Moral, C., de Antonio, A., Imbert, R., & Ramirez, J. (2014, March). A survey of stemming algorithms in information retrieval. Information Research, 19(1). http://www.informationr.net/ir/19-1/paper605.html#.UyY2IJK9KSM.
Weedman, J. (2017). Designing, querying, and evaluating information retrieval systems. Brooke Sheldon & Kenneth. (2nd Ed.).171-185.
Juanita Leatham e-portfolio 