Researching Online

Tips to help you discover and manage information online.

Overview

• Where to start?

• Google products

• Library databases– International– New Zealand information

• Information management

Presenter

Presentation Notes

So where do we start? This is the point where we will either save ourselves time, or add hours of frustration. These are a few of the sources of information that we can turn to… we often use our favourites, but are they the best for each situation?

Questions to ask yourself…

• What information do I need to find?– What are the main questions?– What are the associated questions?

• What type of information do I need?– Public opinion, or academic research?

• What limits do I need to consider?– New Zealand, or international?– Current only, or is historical acceptable?

• Keep your search simple and focused

• Try the Advanced Search for more options

• Check the page for options – search images, blogs, news, time frames etc

• Commonly used search operators:– Phrase searching “Florence Nightingale” history– OR bullying youth OR teenager– Eliminate synonyms +childhood

Other search operators…• Search a site or domain diabetes site:moh.govt.nz

• Definitions– Web definitions define:self-determination– Web search define self-determination

• Conversions 65 F in C

• Calculator 56*84

• Fill in the blank Madame Curie died in *

• An introduction for many into the world of academic research

• Results based on ranking – where published, author, citation count, date of publication etc

• Same core search operators as Google web:– Phrase searching “matthew bannister” adorno– OR john clayton e-learning OR online learning– Eliminate stop words +de knuth

Check out Advanced Search

Click Scholar Preferences

Search for Wintec

Tick Wintec – Wintec Article FinderClick Save Preferences

Full text on Google Scholar

Look for the links to the right of the result list.

If you’ve set-up your Scholar Preferences, you’ll see the Wintec Article Finder links, which will try to find the full-text of the item in our databases.

Managing information with Google

• Enable Google history– Google will personalise based on your search history – See what searches you’ve done

• RSS feeds– Click Latest results and you’ll usually see alert options

at the bottom of the result page

• Use services such as Shareaholic or Web Slices

• Google Reader

• Allows you to gather, read and share interesting blogs and websites

• Requires a Google account

• Use the Note in Reader bookmarklet to share interesting websites with colleagues and friends

Note in Reader

When on the page you want to share:1. Click on Note in Reader to

make the sharing box appear2. Add a note to highlight why the

page is being shared3. Click Post item

4. Go to Google Reader5. Click on Shared items and

see your newly shared website

Shared items

• See what others are sharing with you

• You can then comment, re-share or star those items – this can be a great way to find new feeds and websites

Folders

1. Subscribe to the feed

2. You’ll be sent to Google Reader where you can organise the feed

3. Your new feed will appear in the nominated sort order

Star items

• To save items for later, star them

• Another way to manage and keep items together

• http://oaister.worldcat.org/

• Search the largest harvester of Open Archive Initiative repositories– Predominantly research carried out at academic

institutions

• Similar search operators to our Library Catalogue:– Truncation bull? School (find bully, bullies, bullying

etc.)– OR bull? teenager OR youth

Also check out…

• New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC)– Full-text New Zealand books out of copyright– Needs an epub reader such as Stanza (mobile) or

Adobe Digital Editions (computer)

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)– Full-text, open access scientific and scholarly journals

• Also, don’t begin and end with any one search engine, become familiar with at least one other and use it.

• Great multi-disciplinary database

• Select databases based on your topic

• Advanced Search is strongly recommended

• Commonly used search operators:– Phrase searching “Florence Nightingale” history– Truncation child* “early childhood education”– OR bull* (youth OR teenager)

Other search operators…

• Wildcard organi?ation

• Near diabetes N5 zealand– Find the search terms in any order within X

number of words

• Within diabetes W8 zealand– Find the search terms in the order entered within

X number of words

Use the Search Screen options…

Use the Advanced Search boxes to construct your search

Search modes expand or limit your search.- Find all my search terms will combine terms with AND- Apply related words will also search synonyms- Also search within the full textcan be useful if you don’t get many results

Limit your results to Full Text, Peer reviewedand a Published Date, as wanted

Use subject headings or the Thesaurus to modify your search

Hover over the magnifying glass to check for keywords in the Abstract… Searching is a learning process!

In this case, I altered the search to SU Subject Terms.

Then added some items to my folder to manage. This is the easiest and quickest way to manage your results from a search. You can send the results to a reference manager or email them.

More result management is available when you Sign in

From the Alert / Save / Share tab:• Add search to folder to manage the search• E-mail Alert will email new articles matching your search (you must be signed in to use this)• RSS Feed will send the new articles to your RSS Reader (e.g. Google Reader)• Use the Persistent link to embed a search into your Moodle course• Bookmark the search in one of many options

While signed into My EBSCOhost, you can print, email, save and export the articles as usual, or you can share them with others -create a New folder and go from there...

1. Create the new folder

2. Add the items to the folder

3. Your new folder appears, containing the articles

1. Enter as many email addresses as you want2. Chose whether you want to restrict use to a

single access3. Click Invite4. Each person invited will receive an email with

instructions – they need to be using the email you used as their My EBSCOhost login

• Great multi-disciplinary database

• Some nursing databases need to be searched separately – scroll down the list

• Advanced Search is strongly recommended

• Commonly used search operators:– Phrase searching “Florence Nightingale” history– Truncation child* “early childhood education”– Wildcard organi?ation– OR bull* (youth OR teenager)

Similarly to EBSCOhost, construct your search

Add any limits – in this case, a Date range of After this date, Full text and Scholarly journals

To try and eliminate irrelevant results, Exclude Book Reviews. Sorting by Most relevant first will help to determine if the search is on track

1. Click on a relevant title

2. Check for new keywords within the Subject headings and Abstract –again, it’s all about learning as you go

As with the EBSCOhost search, I changed the search to bullying as a Subject

Tick any relevant articles to place them in My Research, where you can create a bibliography, email, export the citations or create a webpage from them

1. Click on Set Up Alert

2. Nominate a Schedule for the alerts3. When they’re to Stop4. What Email address they should go to5. Enter a descriptive Subject heading6. Click Save

1. Click Create RSS Feed

2. Either copy and paste the RSS URL into your Reader, or click on the RSS icon

3. Choose your RSS Reader from the drop-down menu

4. Click Subscribe Now – you’ll be redirected to the Reader to manage the feed

If searching for Business related content, you might want to check out the Topic and Browse tabs. These will help you drill down to relevant subject headings

• Great multi-disciplinary database

• Advanced Search is strongly recommended

• Commonly used search operators:– Phrase searching “Florence Nightingale” history– Truncation child* “early childhood education”– Wildcard organi?ation– OR bull* (youth OR teenager)

1. Choose Advanced Search

2. Enter your search terms

3. Limit to Subscribed sources

What’s interesting, is that the Topics don’t list a word directly to do with bullying. Indicating we might be searching the wrong database for this topic. But you may want to pick-up on words such as Internet and Abuse instead to search around the topic

Email, Export citations and Download multiple articles from the Results page

The green icons indicate full text availability

Login to Save this search orSave as search alert

1. Click RSS Feed

2. Copy and paste the URL into your preferred Reader, or click on the iconprovided. Alternatively get a feed of the latest content for your webpage

New Zealand Databases• Index New Zealand

– Similar search to the Library Catalogue– Only has the abstracts, check the Library Catalogue or

Search for a journal to see if the full text is available

• FindNZarticles– Similar to Index New Zealand, but with a wider range of

sources– Abstracts only

• Newztext Plus– Full text of daily newspapers, newswires as well as

selected national and international magazines

RSS Readers

• Web based– Google reader– My Yahoo

• Computer based– Gruml

• These are just a few of many. Find one that you feel comfortable with and use it!

Bookmarking

• Delicious– Organise your bookmarks online– Tagging– Create tag clouds, RSS feeds and lists based on tags– e.g. http://www.delicious.com/wintecnursing

• Diigo– Bookmarking and information management– Highlight, screenshots, notes etc

Bibliographic management

• Zotero– Great if you have consistent access to FireFox– Collect, organize, cite and share your research sources

• EndNote– Limited access at Wintec– Quite cumbersome to set-up, but excellent once you

get past the learning curve

• See other options here

Social Networks

• Twitter– Through the noise, you can find people sharing

excellent resources through Twitter

• FaceBook– Why not share resources through a group on

FaceBook?

Happy searching…

If you have any questions, please contact your Liaison Librarian, or

Theresa BallElectronic Resources LibrarianWintecPrivate Bag 3036, Waikato Mail Centre, Hamilton 3240Phone: +64-(0)7-834 8800 ext 8491Fax: +64-(0)7-838 8257Email: theresa.ball@wintec.ac.nzWeb: http://www.wintec.ac.nz/