FINAL PROJECT

IRLS 622 - Verifiable Information
Fall 2002
Don Fallis

Background Information

When a person goes to look for information on the Internet, that person (the receiver of the information) usually wants the information to be accurate. Unfortunately, given the lack of the traditional editorial controls that many other sources of information have, the receiver cannot simply count on information on the Internet being accurate. As a result, the receiver has to do some work to determine if the information is accurate. How much work s/he has to do is a measure of the verifiability of the information.

Of course, we do not have to leave all the work to the receiver. The producer of a piece of information can try to make it easier for the receiver to verify that the information is accurate. (If, as is often the case, the producer wants the intended audience to know that the information is accurate, s/he will be motivated to try to make it easier for them to verify that the information is accurate.) For example, when a mathematician wants to inform other mathematicians that a particular mathematical proposition is true, s/he does not just send the proposition itself. Instead s/he also sends a proof of the proposition which allows (qualified) individuals to verify the truth of the proposition for themselves.

In order to increase the verifiability of some information, the producer needs to make it easier for the audience to access good evidence that the information is accurate. For example, the producer might try to send a good signal that the information is accurate. (A good signal is a message that the producer would be unlikely to send - and that the receiver knows that the producer would be unlikely to send - if the information were not accurate.)

What it means to make information verifiable (and some of the techniques for doing so) will be discussed in the coming weeks. The final project for this course gives you an opportunity to apply some of these techniques and to develop techniques of your own.

The Project

The final project for this course is to produce some verifiable information on the Internet. In other words, you need to create a web site containing some verifiable information. You need to pick something that you want to inform a particular audience (or the world in general) about. (I, Don Fallis, do not have to be part of your intended audience - though I could be.) For instance, you might want to inform teenagers that smoking causes cancer. This information can be something that you personally want to transmit or it can be something that you are helping someone else to transmit.

The Document

This information will be accompanied by a three to five page document. This document will explain the features that make the information verifiable. For example, the document should describe the intended audience and explain why it is relatively easy for this audience to verify that the information is accurate. You can either turn in a hard copy of this document or you can link it to your web site.

Some Tips

In order to produce some verifiable information, you will need to know exactly what verifiable information is. Toward that end, I have posted an excerpt from one of the upcoming lectures. This excerpt is titled "What is Verifiable Information?" I went ahead and posted it now in case you want to start thinking about the final project.

There is at least one really trivial way to produce a piece of verifiable information. Namely, you can tell your audience something that they already know to be true. (Such a piece of information is highly verifiable because the audience does not have to do any work at all to verify it.) However, if our overarching goal is to promote the acquisition of knowledge, then sending out "old news" is not going to go very far toward advancing our goal. So, for this project, you should pick a piece of information that is intended to overcome ignorance (or error) on the part of the intended audience. (This is the reason why informing teenagers that smoking causes cancer is probably not a good choice for this project.)

You can pick information from just about any subject area. In grading this project, I am only going to be concerned with the verifiability of the information. Of course, some types of information will work better than other types of information. In particular, fairly "concrete" pieces of information (e.g., that 984 feet is the height of the Eiffel Tower) tend to work better than more "abstract" pieces of information (e.g., that George Washington was our greatest president). In any case, you should try to not pick a piece of information that would be difficult to make verifiable whether or not it was posted on the Internet. For example, the claim that there are extraterrestrials living in the Andromeda galaxy is simply intrinsically difficult to make verifiable. By contrast, even though it is often somewhat difficult for lay people to verify the accuracy of medical information on the Internet, it is often feasible to make such information verifiable (e.g., by providing access to conclusive medical research on the topic).

Finally, your goal is not merely to convince the intended audience that the information is accurate. There are a lot of techniques that can make information convincing, but that do not increase the verifiability of the information. (Such techniques can be used to make inaccurate information as well as accurate information more convincing.) You should avoid using such techniques on this project.

Further Details

Most importantly, you need to get my OK on what you plan to do before you get too far along. In particular, you should send me a brief paragraph via WebCT Mail describing what you plan to do. You should send this to me no later than the midterm.

Your final project is due on Tuesday, December 3rd.

Please send me questions about this assignment via the "Final Project Questions" forum or via my WebCT Mail.

Note: Within WebCT, I will be posting a few projects that students have done in the past for this assignment. This is intended to give you an idea of just some of the possibilities for this assignment. However, you should keep in mind that these are only examples. There are a number of other interesting ways to carry out this assignment. I am happy to provide you with feedback on what you plan to do.

Note: You can post your final project on web space provided by your own ISP. Alternatively, you can get free web space when you apply for your UA email account.