Online: Trending Now

Unique biweekly insights and news review
from Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA

Search in the Post-Truth Era

Google has dominated search for 20 years. But results today are far too often tainted with information that is incomplete, misleading or false. MIT aims to address that problem with the knowledge graph Underlay.

I recall the very early days of Google’s search engine — just after it changed its name from BackRub (really!). It was renamed Google after googol — a numeral one followed by 100 zeroes — and the URL was found within the domain stanford.edu. Google quickly outdistanced its peer search engines. But others survived; even in 2018 there are alternatives to searching with Google — many with interesting and useful features.

From the beginning of the web in 1992, there were concerns and questions about the validity of information online. The challenge has only become worse as more and more individuals and organizations with partisan motivation and malign intent have taken to the web to promote misleading, biased, untrue and malicious material. Libraries over the years have developed guides to help students assess the validity of internet-sourced information. I developed a modest reference metasite 20 years ago that I have regularly updated and shared with my students to help them assess the sites they find.

Though I update the site occasionally, one favorite, yet underutilized, strategy remains prominent. It is the “link” search term operator. For example, go to Google and enter a search for “link:www.upcea.edu” or “link:insidehighered.com” (without the quotation marks). This will render the sites that link to the URL, helping you to determine which other sites find the original site to be valid and useful.

One of the key value points of Google is the knowledge graph. It’s the box of condensed information that appears to the top right of results in the full web version and at the top of the mobile version. In October 2016, Google reported that their knowledge graph included more than 70 billion facts. It has become increasingly important as the knowledge graph is used to feed answers to questions voiced on Google Home and Google Assistant.

Yet, the value of Google search increasingly is tarnished as more and more nefarious players have become sophisticated in promulgating their materials on sites that look more like places that we have come to trust. And, of course we are constantly combating sites that install malware and steal information from browsers.

This has not gone unnoticed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Danny Hillis, SJ Klein and Travis Rich are developing Underlay — a new knowledge base. As described at the MIT site, the concept of Underlay is to provide deeper citations of sources in order to better inform users:

While much knowledge is uncontested, the Underlay stores contested or contradictory statements, along with detailed context and chains of provenance. Evaluations of fidelity or accuracy can make use of this information, and can themselves be stored in other layers. The focus on provenance and iteration supports refinement, revision, and replication of observations. The structured granularity enables alignment of unrelated datasets, bulk analysis, and machine learning.

All of this is done in machine-readable format so that advanced AI tools can further refine, format and apply the results. At this point the Underlay is still very much under development. However, it is a great example of what may become a new generation of search engines that is able to sort through the fact, opinion and misleading information of the “post-truth” era.

We can look for more developments in the search engine field in the coming months.

 


This article was first posted November 14th in Inside Higher Ed’s Inside Digital Learning. 

A man (Ray Schroeder) is dressed in a suit with a blue tie and wearing glasses.

Ray Schroeder is Professor Emeritus, Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) and Senior Fellow at UPCEA. Each year, Ray publishes and presents nationally on emerging topics in online and technology-enhanced learning. Ray’s social media publications daily reach more than 12,000 professionals. He is the inaugural recipient of the A. Frank Mayadas Online Leadership Award, recipient of the University of Illinois Distinguished Service Award, the United States Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame Award, and the American Journal of Distance Education/University of Wisconsin Wedemeyer Excellence in Distance Education Award 2016.

Other UPCEA Updates + Blogs

UPCEA Announces 2025 Association Award Recipients

8 Individuals and 7 Programs Receive Association’s Highest Honors WASHINGTON, November 4, 2024 – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, has announced the recipients of the 2025 Association Awards. The UPCEA Association Awards program includes recognition of both individual and institutional achievement across the UPCEA membership. Since 1953, UPCEA has recognized its members’ outstanding…

Read More

Department of Education Warns Institutions on Misleading Representations, Urges Compliance | Policy Matters (October 2024)

Major Updates Department of Education Warns Institutions on Misleading Representations, Urges Compliance The US Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) recently released an announcement bulletin that highlights activities that could indicate institutions are engaging in substantial misrepresentations—such as misleading claims about program costs, job placement, or licensure—and as such, face serious penalties. The bulletin…

Read More

UPCEA Launches Virtual Week to Celebrate Membership and Expand Connections

Higher Education Institutions Invited to Join the Leading Association in Online and Professional Education Washington, D.C. (October 30, 2024) – UPCEA, the association for online and professional education, proudly announces its upcoming week-long virtual event celebrating the impact of membership and invites higher education institutions to become members. Taking place from Wednesday, November 13 through…

Read More

Beyond Degrees: How Credential Innovation is Closing the Gap for 42 Million Learners

A Movement, Not Just a Community Convergence is emerging as the place where the credential innovation community for higher ed comes together. But more than a community, it’s a movement. Not a movement to make degrees less valuable, let alone obsolete. Rather, it’s a movement to complement degrees by meeting the needs of those for…

Read More

Lessons Learned from Star Trek

I am part of Generation X. I was born in 1965 and which makes me one of the cohort’s older members. Although I am a part of Generation X, I at times align with the “Next Generation” … the Boomers. Growing up around Boomers and being an older Gen X’er meant watching I Dream of…

Read More

New Survey Explores Intersection of AI and Credentialing in Higher Ed

UPCEA and Instructure recently released the results of a survey on whether institutions are utilizing AI to enhance learner outcomes and records, and if so, how? Most survey respondents are heavily involved in developing learner experiences and tracking outcomes, though nearly half report that their institutions have yet to adopt AI-driven tools for these purposes.…

Read More

Whether you need benchmarking studies, or market research for a new program, UPCEA Consulting is the right choice.

We know you. We know the challenges you face and we have the solutions you need. We speak your language and have been serving leaders like you for more than 100 years. UPCEA consultants are current or former continuing and online higher education professionals who are experts in the industry—put our expertise to work for you.


UPCEA is dedicated to advancing quality online learning at the institutional level. UPCEA is uniquely focused on excellence at the highest levels – leadership, administration, strategy – applying a macro lens to the online teaching and learning enterprise. Its engaged members include the stewards of online learning at most of the leading universities in the nation.

We offers a variety of custom research options through a variable pricing model.


Click here to learn more.

The Nation's Top Universities Choose UPCEA Consulting

Informed decisions. Ideas that work. The data you need. Trusted by the top universities in the nation.