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WISER Focus on

WISER Focus on. Subject Gateways and Web Services for Research An introduction to search engines (and the pros and cons of Google), internet gateways, usenet groups and RSS feeds, mailing lists and other electronic networking opportunities Written by Roger Mills and Grazyna Cooper

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WISER Focus on

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  1. WISER Focus on Subject Gateways and Web Services for Research An introduction to search engines (and the pros and cons of Google), internet gateways, usenet groups and RSS feeds, mailing lists and other electronic networking opportunities Written by Roger Mills and Grazyna Cooper Presented by Sue Bird

  2. “One of the major issues academics will face over the coming years is how to utilise, and teach students to utilise, the Internet in their research” Professor Dolowitz (2004) Department of Politics, University of Liverpool

  3. Well trodden paths… “A high proportion of all staff interviewed tended to rely on the same sources. Work is needed to persuade people to look outside their "comfort zone" for information in order to ensure they are locating the best information for their purposes”. “Big Blue” Final Report (2004), Manchester Metropolitan University

  4. The problem …finding relevant, high quality, authoritative information on the Internet

  5. Is Google enough? Pros: Easy Very fast Huge scope Sophisticated search algorithms Cons: Far too much retrieved No evaluation Does not search ‘deep’ web – databases, priced content etc Search algorithms are secret Can’t save or combine searches Using search engines

  6. Google is not enough • So Google have introduced Google Scholar • http://scholar.google.com • Searches some ‘deep web’ content – but we don’t know what – no list • Can be set up to link direct to locally-available full text • Has new features – ‘cited by’ link, grouping of different versions, web search, document delivery (BL Search) • But algorithms are still secret • As is frequency of update – slower than Google

  7. Battle of the giants • Microsoft has just entered the fray with Windows Live Academic (http://academic.live.com/) • Competing with Google Scholar • Coverage currently limited to computer science, electrical engineering and physics from scholarly societies • Coverage list published http://academic.live.com/journals • Microsoft has just entered the fray with Windows Live Academic (http://academic.live.com/) • Competing with Google Scholar • Coverage currently limited to computer science, electrical engineering and physics from scholarly societies • Coverage list published http://academic.live.com/journals

  8. Saving & refining searches • Most general search engines don’t allow this • Requires local software e.g. Blue Squirrel’s WebSeeker - a meta-search engine which saves results to a local database, allowing filtering, combining, e-mailing of results etc • Or use SCOPUS http://www.scopus.com which searches web sites as well as journal articles and allows export to Endnote etc. • Some subject-specific databases are adding similar web searching capabilities, but most don’t

  9. Academic subject gateways Often better than general search engines: • Link to evaluated resources • Focused on specific subject areas • Up-to-date • Variety of information and services provided • Ability to customise • Useful descriptions of resources

  10. Resource Discovery Network (RDN) • JISC-funded: a free national service for the learning, teaching and research community • A collection of Internet resources • 100,000 resources and rising • Subject-specific services via hubs • http://www.rdn.ox.ac.uk

  11. 8 Existing RDNhubs • ALTIS - Hospitality, Sports, Tourism and Leisure • Artifact - Arts and Creative Industries • BIOME (Health (OMNI) and Life Sciences) • EEVL (Engineering, Maths, Computing) • GEsource - Geography and Environment • HUMBUL (Language, Literature, Archaeology, Philosophy, History, Theology, Classics) • PSIgate (Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Earth Sciences) • SOSIG (Politics, Law, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Business, Economics, Anthropology, Geography etc) becoming 4…

  12. www.intute.ac.uk

  13. Evaluate what you find Authority / Author / Source Purpose / Audience Coverage / Scope Accuracy Objectivity / Point of view Currency Design / Multimedia etc

  14. Virtual Training Suite (VTS) The RDN Virtual Training Suite teaches you how to use the Internet more effectively via subject-based tutorials. Forty tutorials are currently available, with more coming along all the time…. Each tutorial has four sections: • TOUR: take a ‘site-seeing’ tour of the Internet for your subject • DISCOVER: how to improve your Internet search skills • REVIEW: learn the skills needed to critically evaluate Web sites • REFLECT: practical ideas for using the Internet to support learning and teaching

  15. http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/

  16. Branch out! • Searching the web is not research! • Search Engines • general (first and second generation) • subject specific • meta • country specific • Invisible web resources

  17. Search service limitations • Indiscriminate: automatic search engines cannot judge the quality or provenance of data • The ‘Invisible Web’: millions of Internet resources cannot be indexed by search engines • Automated descriptions: these do not always convey what one really wants to know about a site • The result? Lack of precision in search results…difficulty in identifying relevant, high quality resources

  18. First generation Alta Vista http://www.altavista.com/ Second generation Google http://www.google.co.uk/ Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ All the Web http://www.alltheweb.com/ Wisenut http://www.wisenut.com/ The major players

  19. Subject specific search engines

  20. The invisible web • Direct Search http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm • Complete Planet http://www.completeplanet.com/ To keep up with research on ‘deep web’ searching: See Marcus P. Zillman’s blog ‘Deep Web Research’ on http://deepwebresearch.blogspot.com/

  21. Meta-search engines • Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/ • Clustering tools: sub-group results by topic: • Vivisimo http://vivisimo.com/ • Clusty http://clusty.com/ • Ixquik http://www.ixquick.com/ • Ithaci http://www.ithaki.net/indexu.htm

  22. Features 1 keyword text-searching women Buddhism (concepts) women Buddhism woman Buddhist female Buddha feminist India, Thailand, religion phrase searching “the role of women in Buddhism” truncation/word stemming wom* for woman, women, womb, womanhood, womanize, womankind, womanly, womenfolk, womenkind variant spelling colo*r concept searching elderly for senior citizen and aged

  23. Features 2 natural language queries what is the weather in London? boolean AND / OR / AND NOT all of these words (AND) - any of these words (OR) - must not contain (NOT) grouping words and phrases kayak AND “Fiji Islands” use of parentheses (college OR university) AND “financial aid” pollution AND NOT (air OR noise) pseudo-boolean operators + or - +anorexia -bulimia +fairy +tales -grimm,+”city guides” +Oxford proximity ADJ / NEAR / BEFORE

  24. Features 3 • field searching (date, title, url, image, audio, video, links, page depth). title:“New York Times” image:butterflies link:info.ox domain:uk host:www.hcu.ox.ac.uk url:edu • case sensitive: “Emily Dickson” Turkey v turkey Polish v polish

  25. More guidance • Tool kit for the Expert Web Searcher http://www.ala.org/ala/lita/litaresources/toolkitforexpert/toolkitexpert.htm - A regularly updated evaluated list of various types of search engine

  26. Social or collaborative technologies • Mailing lists and usenet groups • RSS Feeds • Weblogs or Blogs • WIKIs

  27. Mailing lists • Discussion lists on Jiscmail http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ - mainly for academic communities and most academic subjects covered. • Usenet news are mainly at http://groups.google.com - millions of topics and it is searchable.

  28. RSS feeds • “Push technology” – an alerting service from web-sites you have selected • OUCS provides training in using and creating them – see http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/presentations/ • Hand-out available with lots of detail on finding RSS feeds at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/presentations/bytesize1/handout.xml?style=printable • BBC news - good example http://news.bbc.co.uk/ • For a ‘layman’s description’ of how RSS (= Really Simple Syndication) works see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm • There are several icons that indicate newsfeed availablity from a web site:

  29. Keeping up • Rather than keep visiting a long list of favourite sites, use RSS newsfeeds where available • When the site is updated, a link will appear in your RSS reader or compatible web browser (not Internet Explorer (yet), but Firefox, Mozilla, Opera work) – just click to see the new content • Some search sites (e.g. SCOPUS) allow you to create an RSS feed based on results of your search, providing easy current awareness

  30. Weblogs or Blogs • A web-site where journal entries are displayed in reverse chronological order • Can be used as a communication tool (eg during Iraq War) • Weblogs feature – reflective tools, highlighting path of progression of ideas, strengthening evaluative tools, allowing community building • Journals can have companion weblogs • Might be useful for student portfolios? • Eg Weblogs in higher education http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog.php

  31. WIKIs • A WIKI is a web-site that allows you, or anyone else, to add, modify or delete content easily. • Classic example is the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page • An Oxford example is http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/JISC_Digital_Repository_Wiki

  32. Locating places / people • Cutting-edge method! ASK! • Contact – at Oxford • http://www.ox.ac.uk/contact • Go directly to the institution – Google “I am feeling lucky” or just type directly your query in the navigation toolbar • World-wide Universities email addresses • JISCMAIL

  33. Search tips read search engine's help screens use specialised resources first don’t waste time! use mirror sites bookmark remember cases word order check your spelling use synonyms URL’s are case sensitive truncate URL guess URL

  34. Gullible's Travels • “Our students love the net, which is OK. The problem is, they also trust it, which is not”. Block, M. (2004). Library Journal

  35. Best strategy • No searching service is perfect • Be knowledgeable about the types of subject-oriented tools. • Develop skills in using basic syntax, boolean operators etc. • Define what you seek! • state what you want to find in few sentences • select keywords, underline the main concepts • select synonyms and variant word forms • combine synonyms, keywords and variant word forms • Find resources on the Invisible Web • Be patient or get up early! • Experiment and be flexible!

  36. Conclusion • Maintain a balanced diet! • Five a day… • Google, Scholar, Intute, subject-specific database, RSS…

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