Library Resources for Mechanical Systems Engineering

I AM . . .

Melanie ParletteLRC Program Liaison for

School of Engineering and Information Technology

mparlette@conestogac.on.ca

TODAY we will…• Locate the LRC website and identify the most

relevant components of the site as emphasized during the session

• List and explain the criteria one can use to evaluate resources to ensure they are of good quality.

• Perform a search in the Library’s Discovery Service and narrow that search and create a list of results.

Off-Campus Access PIN NUMBERS - You can use your PIN to:• Access resources from Off-Campus• Renew a book, place a hold• Review your account

YOUR Research Guidehttp://bit.ly/MSE

Key Tabs: •Articles from Databases•Books . . .•Cite Your Sources•Contact Us

LRC Homepage Research Help Engineering Mechanical Engineering

Today’s Research Topic is….•Is there a relationship Facebook use and academic performance?

Finding A Source to Answer Your Question• Where do we begin?

• Google

• Wikipedia

• Other suggestions…

Types of SourcesWhat’s the Difference?

Scholarly Journals Popular Magazines Trade Journals Conference Papers Technical Reports

• Scholarly research or projects. 

• Illustrations are usually charts and graphs.

• Authors are authorities in their field. Often professors or researchers.

• Peer review process is in place where the content of an article is reviewed by one or more experts in the field.

Examples:IEEE/ASME

transactions on mechatronics

• General interest articles, entertainment, or information aimed at the consumer.  Usually colour photographs and illustrations.

• Articles are usually written by magazine staff, freelance writers, or may be anonymous.

• No peer review or refereeing process.

Examples:Wired, Popular

Mechanics

• Industry related information, news and trends.  Some illustrations.

• Authors are industry experts, professionals, or practitioners who are not always identified

• Typically no peer review or refereeing process.

Examples:ASME Mechanical

Engineering Magazine

• Author is scholar in field, academic or researcher

• Conference papers tend to be more recent than journal articles, but may be considered less authoritative depending on the review and acceptance process

• Peer Review Process may or may not be rigorous

Example:Proceedings of ASME

Heat Transfer Division

• Author is often a scholar or a scientist, engineer, government contractor, or technical personnel.

• Published by a corporation or educational institution

• Reputation is everything

• Typically not peer reviewed

Example:Design and Fabrication

of a Tank-Applied Broad Area Cooling Shield Coupon

What is Peer Review?• When an author submits his or her research article to a scholarly journal,

an editor will review it to see if it meets the criteria of that journal. If it does, the editor will send the article out for Peer Review.

[Peer Review is the process where other experts in the field will thoroughly review and evaluate the article and the research that was done. They check for accuracy of the information presented, validity and repeatability of the research, quality and appropriateness for the journal.]

• Based on the feedback from the experts (i.e. “peers”), the author’s submission will be accepted, rejected or accepted with revisions. It is uncommon to accept a paper with no revisions. In most cases an author will need to make some changes before final publication.

Source: Simon Fraser University

Academic Publishing Process

A researcher carries out research

The researcher submits their paper to a journal.

The editor reviews it and sends it out to multiple experts for peer review

The reviewers examine the article.

Sometimes the article might be outright rejected

The researcher makes some edits.

This process may be repeated until the article meets the standards of the reviewers.

The publisher and experts review the paper.

The paper is published in the journal

Other researchers incorporate the findings in their research

People engage with the findings of the article through social media

People comment on the article through letters to the editor

Open Access is revolutionizing this process.

Choosing Better Sources • How can you tell trustworthy information (the “better” information) from

less-trustworthy information (“worse” information)?

The CARS TestThe CARS Test• Credibility Look for believable, well written information

that is free of bias. Locate information about the author(s) and their credentials. How credible are the authors, what is their level of expertise on this particular topic.

• Accuracy The information should be up-to-date, clear. You

can confirm accuracy by locating information from a variety of sources. Look for a last updated date.

• Reasonableness Information should be present objective and balanced arguments.

• Support Other sources should support the information

found. Always look for a reference list, bibliography or citations demonstrating where the information came from.

Let’s begin our search…

SearchingTips:•Select “Full Text”•Narrow by Date•Determine appropriate source type•Consider narrowing by subject

What do I search for?

Mechanical Engineering

ElectronicsHeat Transfer

DesignAerodynamics

Accuracy andPrecision

FluidMechanics

AutomationSystems

Materials

Searching A Database. . .

* (the asterisk wildcard)As the name implies, * can be substituted for any number of letters. This is particularly useful to include all words with a certain term and any suffix after it. Simply apply the asterisk to the end of a term and it will return all documents containing that term, followed by anything. For example: biostatistic* will find biostatistician or biostatistics or biostatistical

Searching A Database. . .

Quotation Marks: " "Enclose specific phrases in quotation marks. This will direct the search engine to search the database for documents containing that exact phrase. A search for analytical chemist (without quotes) will return any document containing analytical and chemist with anything in between. If you place quotes around the phrase, searching for “facility management“ it will only documents with facility and management right beside each other.

WHAT IS GOOGLE SCHOLAR?

A search interface for locating citations to academic research—and accessing the full-text online (sometimes).

This is the definition of any research database.

Google Scholar is just one more in a host of research tools similar to those offered by the library (but using it is free to all).

Reading articles found in it is not free (not always, anyway).

What can you search using google scholar?“…articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.”

•Some resources are “open access,” i.e. free

•Many have a cost-per-article

•The LRC can help improve access to the costly articles (but more on that later)

Google. (2011). About Google Scholar. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.ca/intl/en/scholar/about.html

What can’t you find using google scholar?• Google doesn’t search everything, and neither does

Google Scholar

• Only searches “scholarly” sources

• So it does not search the following resources:• Newspapers• Trade Magazines• Professional Magazines• General Interest Magazines

Google ≠ Good• What exactly is included? We don’t know and Google

won’t say.• Calls into question content providers, i.e. how does Google

define “scholarly”?

• Good for “casual” research, but not acceptable as a single source for coverage of the literature on a topic.• Coverage is unknown• Relevancy Ranking of search results is questionable• Narrowing/sorting search results is rudimentary• No controlled vocabulary• Citations may be inaccurate due to reliance of web

crawling extraction (e.g. Author Name: P Login)

Jacsó, P. Google Scholar's ghost authors. Library Journal 134: 26-27.

Linking to LRC resources• Go to Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.ca)

• Click “Scholar Preferences” in upper right hand of the search page.

• On the Scholar Preferences page, in the “Library Links” section, enter for “Conestoga” in the search box and click “Find Library”.

• Checkboxes appear below the search box.

• Checkmark the Conestoga links.

• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save Preferences.”• Your searches will now show links to Conestoga LRC

resources that contain articles from your search results.

Today We…

• Located key sections of the LRC’s website• Practiced evaluating resources to ensure they were

of good quality• Performed a basic search of LRC resources,

narrowed our search and created a list of relevant results

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