WISER Social Sciences: Finding Quality Information on the Internet
Angela Carritt and Penny SchenkBodleian Law Library
Two different approaches:
Search engines advantages
• broad reach, everything on the web that has been indexed or “crawled”
• Lets you to pinpoint an exact phrase or concept
disadvantages
• brings back too much information, if searches are not limited
• sources may not be authoritative
Web directories and gateways advantages
• quality control
• Makes browsing in a topic area easier
disadvantages
• does not encompass everything, you might miss good material
• may not be current
• focus/emphasis may not be what you want
Search engines
Google Blog Search Google Scholar Clusty Metacrawler
The Google family
Scholar Preferences• Library links – allows Google to
link to full text within Oxford subscriptions
• Bibliographic manager – allows you to set defaults for exporting to Endnote, RefWorks etc
Advanced Scholar Search gives you more control over your search terms
Link to abstract or full text
Find other versions in the group e.g. related pre-print, article, conference paper
Number of times this item (or related items in the same group) has been cited
Oxford Full Text : checks Oxford databases for full text version
Full text also available through DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
Click here to view article online
Download citation to Endnote, RefWorks or Reference Manager
Print holdings
Choose more >> from Google home page See what bloggers are saying on a topic Advanced options allow you to choose specific
authors, dates, sites etc.
Google Blog Search
advanced optionssearch by words contained in posts
restrict by words in the blog title
can restrict by blogger
can restrict by language
restrict by date range
results
alerts based on blog search
several options for receiving ongoing updates when search terms are matched in blogs – email alert, gadget on Google homepage, subscription in a feed reader
Clusty
Sorts results into related “clusters” Useful for zeroing in on what you were looking for
and ignoring irrelevant results Can group results by cluster, source or domain
clusters on left
results sorted by sub-topic
preview sites with magnifying glass icon
results sorted by source
results sorted by domain
Metacrawler – use multiple search engines at the same time
Top results should be quite targeted since multiple engines returned them
Evaluating web resources
How reliable is the web page you are looking at?…how much does it matter? Don’t get caught out.
Who wrote it? (person / organisation)
Do they belong to an organisation?Look at the URL of the web page
•Do they belong to an organisation you trust?
•University (.ac.uk, .edu)•Government (.gov)
•Pressure group (biased? Reputable/Alarmist?)
• BBC?
How up to date is it?•Last updated statement•Last event mentioned?
•Last article cited?
How knowledgeable are they? (check their facts against what you know)
Could it be a hoax?Check
Who’s linking to it?Are key web sites web sites?
Is it on Intute / other portals that you trust?
Is it mentioned in key research guides?
Why did they write it?
Who are they? (If its really important do a search
on their name)•Library catalogue
•Indexing and abstracting service•Google
Web directories and gateways
A different approach
Selected resources Fewer results Better results….depends who selected them!
Directories created by subject experts = assurance of high quality / reliable resources
May not include all the relevant resources Organised – resources are usually listed by subject /
genre etc = can Browse or Search Can often limit your search to particular document types
(e.g. full text journal articles, conference papers, primary materials, blogs…)
Examples
Intute – Gateway created by the UK academic community
InfoMine – Gateway created by a consortium of Universities based around University of California
OpenDOAR – Gateway of papers held in UK repositories DMOZ – Gateway of resources selected by the web
community Finding specialist gateways for your subject
http://www.intute.ac.uk From the UK academic community High quality resources selected by
academics, subject specialists, librarians
Browse options
Search across the whole of Intute / broad subjects
Allows you to limit your search to particular document types e.g. articles, primary sources, research guides and directories
Browsing Intute
Each Intute page has a search box allowing you to search within a subject
Browsing Intute
Each Intute page has a search box. This allows you to search within a subject
Link to the resource
Link to the full description – includes keywords
Add to marked list (for saving, printing etc)
Using Filter by….
Filter allows you to limit your search to particular document types (e.g. journal articles, conference papers, research guides)
Searching Intute What are you searching? - the descriptions on
Intute (not the web sites Intute lists) Want to search the web sites? - Once you
have run a normal “Intute search” you will have the opportunity to see results from the “harvester”. The harvester scans all of the web sites listed on Intute for your keywords. It will give you more results but they are likely to be less relevant.
Search results on Intute
Your results – Records where your keywords are included in the Intute description (does not include results from the harvester).
Click here to see results returned by the harvester
Advanced Search
•Allows you to search across subjects•Allows you to limit your search to particular document types - Use “Resource Guides and Directories” to find specialist gateways
My Intute
•Receive e-mail alerts for new resources in your chosen subject area•Save records on Intute•Save searches
http://infomine.ucr.edu/ Resources collected by consortium of US
libraries US bias Expert resources / Resources gathered
by “robot” Includes free and subscription resources
– Oxford has subscriptions to many of the “pay for” resources
Infomine
Searches across Infomine
Advanced search allows you to search across several topics and to limit your search by field
Browse options
Get RSS feed when new resources are added
Read the Infomine blog
• Expert created - resources selected by subject expertExpert + Robot also includes resources gathered automatically (less quality control)
•Free / Fee based. Many of the fee based (subscription resources) are available to Oxford users via Oxlip
Limit your search to particular fields. Note “full text” field looks at the text of home and top level pages only
Choose Broad subjects
Document types
Infomine - Searching
InfoMine results screen
Opportunity to include/exclude robot selected sites and/or fee based resources
Longer description including keywords / subject headings.
Mortar board – shows resources selected by an “expert”
More info…
Library of Congress Subject Headings / Keywords - click to see all resources using the same keyword
Browsing InfoMine
Browse options•Subject – Library of Congress Subject Headings•Keywords To find resources by subject check both subject and keywords
Browsing InfoMine
Choose the correct part of the alphabet
http://www.opendoar.org/ Directory of academic institutional repositories What is an “academic institutional repository?”
Collection of documents created by members of a University
Usually pre-publications drafts, working papers, conference papers, theses..
OpenDOAR allows you to search for papers held in academic repositories around the World It will only find scholarly papers Good assurance of quality
OpenDOAR
Search for papers and other documents
Searching OpenDOAR
Searches the full text of all papers
Results…
http://www.dmoz.org/ Web directory created by web users
To contribute content users must be able to demonstrate subject knowledge
Dmoz homepage
Browsing DMOZ
Browsing Dmoz
Browsing Dmoz
Apply to be an editor – contribute content etc
Searching Dmoz
Results
“Categories” (subject) from which results are drawn. These may influence your browsing later on.
Each resource includes a link and a brief description.
digg - “collaborative editing”
Finding specialist directories for your subject Intute allows you to filter your results by
document type - “Research guides and directories” includes web directories / gateways (Make your search – open the filter drop down menu – choose “Research guides and directories”)
Ask your subject librarian! Web resources section of relevant research
guides If you find a directory via a search engine – don’t
forget to evaluate it!
Citing electronic resources…some general tips and examples
Make sure you give enough information for the reader to find the resource
Giving the URL is not enough…the web page may have moved or been deleted
Consult the citation guide for your faculty or department … this will lay out specific rules … and tell you how to format your citations
General
Citing online equivalents of print publications
If the online version is exactly the same as the print version (including pagination) cite the print version
e.g. Scanned version of print journal
When citing a web page, include Author (personal or corporate) Year published / last updated (if
available) Document or page title (if available) Title of the “complete work” (name of the
website or type of document) URL Date you accessed it
BBC 2007 Musharraf vows polls in February (BBC News) Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7084839.stm [Accessed 8 November 2007]
Wikipedia, last updated 8 Nov 2007 Pervez Musharraf (Wikipedia) Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf [Accessed 9 Nov 2007]
Musharraf, P 2005 President's address at international seminar on global terrorism (Presidential Speeches on President of Pakistan web site). Available at http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/FilesSpeeches/Policy/8302005111013PMPresidents%20address[1].pdf [Accessed 9 November 2007]
How do you cite a quotation if there are no page or paragraph numbers?
According to APA Cite the heading and the number of the
paragraph following it to direct the reader to the location of the material
e.g. Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1
HarvardBBC 2007 Musharraf vows polls in February (BBC News) [online] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7084839.stm [Accessed 8 November 2007]OscolaBBC ’Mushaffaf vows polls in February’ (BBC News) 8 November 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7084839.stm accessed 8 November 2007
Summary
Use a variety of approaches, there are many options in addition to “googling it”
Be aware of the quality of the source
Cite electronic sources carefully
URLs: Search engines
Google Blog Search @ http://www.google.co.uk/blogsearch/
Google Scholar @ http://www.google.co.uk/schhp/
Clusty @ http://clusty.com/ Metacrawler @ http://www.metacrawler.com
/
URLs: Web directories and gateways Intute @ http://infomine.ucr.edu/ Infomine @ http://infomine.ucr.edu/ openDOAR @ http://
www.opendoar.org/ DMOZ @ http://www.dmoz.org/