take control of your phd journey: literature search for technology and the natural sciences

Take control of your PhD journey: Literature search for technology and the natural sciences

How to search for literature in technology and the natural sciences

25. Oct. 2016Lars Figenschou and Sissel Helene Hansen

The slides will be available at

http://www.slideshare.net/UiT_takecontrol/

Expectations…….?

What do you need?

Where do you find it?

Within the disciplines of medicine and health sciences, for example, it`s being released over 25.000 journals annually

Hard to understand your own information needs?

Search strategy….

In general…..:What`s the problem?

Search strategy - Recipe

Systematic search

Accurate search words and reasonable use of refining options will give good search results.

Use central terms in your topic question, include technical terms in your subject area and look for keywords in database articles.

Climate change AND Solar activity

Warming OR Temperature increase

Solar activity NOT sunspots

Combine words with AND, OR or NOT.

www.uit.no/ub - Library web pages

• Portal for access to all resources available through library subscriptions

• Subject specific databases, as well as interdisciplinary databases

• Online dictionaries/encyclopedias

• Library PressDisplay – newspapers, magazines

Subject librarians in technology and the natural sciences

Chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacy

sissel.h.hansen@uit.no

Physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering

lene.ostvand@uit.no

Biology, geology and fisheries

lars.figenschou@uit.no

Foto: Bjørn Kåre Iversen

Sissel Helene Hansen

Lene Østvand

Lars Figenschou

Use VPN to gain access to the resources when you are not on campus.

http://vpn.uit.no

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Download AnyConnect.

Trouble? Check out the oracle’s websitehttp://en.uit.no/om/orakelet/tema?p_document_id=318063

Munin is an open archive with master’s and doctoral thesis, articles, reports, etc.

www.munin.uit.no

Oria shows both books, articles and other resources in print and electronic format.

http://uit.oria.no

My library shows all resources available at UiT. Go to All libraries to search resources at other institutions.

Click on Get it to find where physical items are located.

KS=Culture and Social SciencesNH=Science and HealthPJ=Psychology and Law

Click on View it to get the web link to electronic resources.

Choose Find databases to search individual databases.

Standing on the shoulders of giants…

ScopusThe world’s largest interdisciplinary abstracting & indexing database. Main coverage from 1996 and onwards, but pre-1996 indexing is growing!

Web of SciencePopular database. Coverage from 1900. Fewer titles indexed than Scopus, but smaller doesn’t necessarily mean less useful!

These databases overlap, but also index different sources. Use both databases!

Scopus versus Web of Science:

• Scopus:

– ~21 500 journals (Jan 2016)

– Updated daily

– European

– Controlled vocabulary

– >1996

• Web of Science:

– ~12 000 journals

– Updated weekly

– American

– No controlled vocabulary

– -1900

Default search fields are different in Scopus and WoS

• Scopus:

– Article title, Abstract, Keywords

• Web of Science:

– Topic

More on finding good search terms and relevant literature:

• Do you already have a very good paper? Look it up in Scopus and Web of Science, and take a look at the index terms (keywords). This may give you some new terms to search for!

• Look at the function Cited by when you have found your article in Scopus/WoS. This will give you newer articles that has cited your paper, and these may be of interest to your research.

Document your search!

Make a personal account in the databases you are using. Then you can keep track of what you have searched and set up alerts to keep up with new research!

Make your literature search reproducible – keep a search journal:

• State which databases you have searched – and year span of search• State your search terms• Include the date of the search• Include the limitations of your search

Google Scholar is easy to use, but gives more «search noise»

Look for the UIT link to see if we have access to the source

Google Scholar has disadvantages compared to other scientific databases.

• Less degree of control and insufficient metadata.• Inflated search results.• Not as regularly updated.• Does not list more than the first 1000 hits.

Mikki, S. (2010). Comparing Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science for earth sciences. Scientometrics, 82(2), 321-331.

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Teacher's name: Lars Figenschou/Sissel Helene Hansen

Date: 25.10.16

Course code/name: TC-H16

Go to: http://bit.ly/ubevalen