The Credibility Commons is an experimental environment enabling individuals the opportunity to try out different approaches to improving access to credible information on the World Wide Web. Tools will be provided to researchers as well as the public, allowing them to try out search strategies, collections and other approaches to improving access. The Commons can be viewed as a collaborative space in which to share ideas, data sets, results and innovations. This project is sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation.

The Credibility Commons receives startup funds from the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Funds from MacArthur will fund the initial activities of the Commons and to attract a wide range of commercial, educational, governmental, and not-for-profit into exploring credibility of Internet information.

One of the initial projects of the Commons is the development of Reference Extract. Reference Extract is an experimental web search engine built on the reference work of librarians. Librarians have long been seen as arbiters of quality and credibility. These librarians are now answering the questions of their users online through digital reference services. Reference Extract shall mine these questions and answers to create a new type of search engine. This search engine builds on the expert judgments of librarians in a modern, easy to use interface. Imagine searching the bookmarks of thousands of librarians and scientists. You can now try the prototype in its early stages of development.

The Internet Credibility and the User Symposium was held April 11-13, 2005 at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel - Seattle, Washington
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Read notes from the Seattle Symposium held in Seattle April 11 ?�� 13, 2005.