Finding information online

1. Finding information online Information literacy lecture Delivered by Dr. U. D. Onuoha

2. Surrounded by too much information • Beyond what we can process • “Information explosion”, “Information over-abundance”, “information overload”, “Infobesity”. • Consequence= distraction

3. Develop a focused search strategy Be specific about your information need • Too broad • University education in Nigeria • More specific • Funding university education in Nigeria

4. Use of keywords “comparison of information seeking using search engines and social networks” might be broken down into: • Information seeking • Use of search engines • Social networks

5. Phrase searching Retrieves two or more words only when they appear next to each other as a phrase. • use quotation marks around the phrase, e.g. "higher education" • Use phrase searching with care: searching for a phrase could also eliminate useful records. For example, a search for "language teaching" may not find the words "teaching of language".

6. Link search terms/keywords with AND (+)eg: soccer and injury

7. Use OR when there are alternative terms to describe your topic. • e.g. woman or female, or when you are interested in either term • e.g. knee or ankle. Records will be retrieved if either (or both) term is present.

8. Practical example Topic: Effect of television violence on young adults (focused topic) Step 1:Pull out the key words or major concepts • EXAMPLE: television   violence   young adults Step 2:Create a list of synonyms • Television:   TV,   movies,  cartoons,  news. • Violence:  guns,  murder,  rape,  gangs,  war. • Young adults:  teenagers,  adolescents,  teens,  youth. Step 3:Use and (+) (or) where applicable • (television OR TV OR cartoons OR news) AND (violence OR guns OR murder) AND (teenagers OR youth OR adolescents) Step 4: Use phrase searching to tighten your search • “Television violence” + (teenagers or young adults) where you want the exact phrase “television violence” to appear in your search

9. Using any topic of your choice do a web search using the strategies discussed • To what extent is your search result improved?

10. Know your sources

11. Encyclopedias for basic understanding of topics

13. Dissertation/Projects

16. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/search.html

17. Using any subject of your choice, download a dissertation/project

18. Books • http://www.doabooks.org/

20. Using any subject of your choice, download a book

21. Journal articles (academic source) @ https://scholar.google.com/

22. A search for challenges of education in Nigeria using Google scholar

25. Using Google scholar find the latest articles on insurgency in Nigeria

26. Lecture notes • Take advantage of open courseware (OCW) • Course lessons created at universities and published for free via the internet • http://www.nou.edu.ng/NOUN_OCL/

27. open courseware

31. Other siteshttps://www.oercommons.org/ http://sharecourseware.org/

32. Using any open courseware of your choice, download a lecture note in your field of study

33. Make use of open librarieselibraryUSA @ https://nigeria.usembassy.gov/

38. The British Library is not left out @http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

40. Register with anopen library