Transcript Slide 1
UPLift! is designed to work with Microsoft Office 2007. If required, a viewer can be downloaded from here. To interact with UPLift! view as a Slide Show Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills This section of UPLift! is aimed at students who want to further develop their information literacy skills. It focuses on using resources in the university library and beyond. For example, it will help you to keep your research up-to-date by using additional features of databases such as storing and re-running searches and setting up RSS feeds. Perhaps you know how to do some of these things already? Take the short quiz to find out. Perhaps you need to develop a particular skill? Take the link to find out more. If you would like some more help click on the Help! button, otherwise move to the next page using the arrow icon. First of all, select Slide Show, then From the Beginning. Click on Q&A to link to a short quiz to see if you can do the basics of this skill. Tick the box when you have completed the quiz. Click on the ? icon to find links to information, guides, video clips etc. to help you develop this skill. Move between slides by following the navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Skill Can I do this? Find out more Select subject terms from databases’ thesaurus or subject index Construct a complex search using Boolean operators Explain how to create RSS feeds or email alerts from your most important databases Explain how to save and re-run searches in your most important databases Identify a key database which provides impact factor data and suggest why this is important Suggest why it is important to critically evaluate research papers. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Select subject terms from databases’ thesaurus or subject index Articles in databases are indexed according to an agreed list of subject terms. Link out to Business Source Complete to find out what term the indexers of this database use for the following keywords. Choose Thesaurus from the purple tool bar when you link out to the resource. Your keywords Human resources management Art in advertising Higher education institutions Which term does the thesaurus suggest you use? HRM or Personnel management Commercial art or Graphic design Universities & colleges or Universities Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Select subject terms from databases’ thesaurus or subject index Information about search techniques including using the thesaurus or subject index of a particular database, can usually be found on the databases own Help pages. On Business Source Complete database you can find the information in several places: Click on Help or ? in the box above to reveal the EBSCO Help menu Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Construct a complex search using Boolean operators Imagine this ice-cream is a piece of academic research. It is the perfect result of your search: Vanilla ice-cream in a wafer cone with chocolate sauce, nuts and a flake. Paul Wilkinson, Ice-cream, nuts and flake CC. From Flickr How might you construct “vanilla ice-cream” AND your searchsauce” strategy to get “chocolate AND this result? Click on the flake AND nuts AND ice-cream a possible (wafer NOTfor waffle) AND answer. OR cone) (cornet Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Construct a complex search using Boolean operators It is useful to understand how Boolean Logic works when you want to be a super-searcher. The Boolean Logic guide explains what it is and how to use it effectively. The Applying a search strategy worksheet will help you to think about doing this well. Ice cream Flake Nuts Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Explain how to create RSS feeds or email alerts from your most important databases Stella is reading emails on her phone. She is hoping to find out whether anyone has cited the journal article that she has published. She set up a Citation Alert from the Web of Science database so that she could be updated automatically. Link out to the database by clicking on the box below. Set up a Citation Alert for a subject that interests you. You will need to Register from the Sign in option then go to My Tools. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Explain how to create RSS feeds or email alerts from your most important databases Many databases allow you to set up email alerts or RSS feeds to help you keep up-todate with your research topic. When a new articles are published and added to the database, it automatically sends the information to wherever you access your emails or read your feeds. You usually need to create a separate sign in to do this. Visit the Web of Science Help pages: Citation alerts Look out for similar options on other databases, for example you can create alerts from your search history on the library Discovery Service. Visit the Research Support section on the library website for further tips. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Explain how to save and re-run searches in your most important databases Toby had a good idea – an idea that could save him lots of time with his research What if I could save my search strategy and let the database tell me when new articles on my topic are published? Can you explain to Toby how to set this up on the Library Discovery Service? Can he be informed via the following methods? Click on the correct answer/s. Email Twitter RSS feed Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Explain how to save and re-run searches in your most important databases Many databases will allow you to sign in and save your searches. You can re-run your searches when you next login and retrieve any new results that have appeared on the database. Web of Knowledge database allows you to do this: Help: Save Search History Some databases will email you regularly with the latest results relating to your saved search history. The Library Discovery Service allows you to do this. The Help section gives you guidance on saving your searches as well as setting up alerts to your favourite journals. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Identify a key database which provides impact factor data and suggest why this is important Can you give a reason as to why some journals have higher impact factors than others? Click on the picture to find out One measure of the importance of a journal is the frequency with which papers in that journal have been cited by other authors. This is described as the journal’s impact factor and is a measure of that journal’s importance. Newsstand, 32nd Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan CC. New York Public Library. From Flickr Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Identify a key database which provides impact factor data and suggest why this is important You can find out impact factors for many journals by looking at the Journal Citation Reports, which are available as an ‘additional feature’ on the Web of Knowledge website. Click on ‘Play’ to watch this video h. It explains what impact factors are and how to find them on the Web of Knowledge database (also known as Web of Science). Further information can be found on the library website – Research Support: Bibliometrics. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Suggest why it is important to critically evaluate research papers Why is it so important to critically evaluate research papers? Surely if they’ve been published and are in the library they’re okay to use? Snowflake Study, Smithsonian Institution CC. Flickr Critical evaluation is important to ensure that papers are relevant, and Tend to agree? Tendcredible to disagree? accurate and that the information is Why? Why? objective and scholarly. Critically Click for our Click for our analyse and synthesise the information thoughts thoughts so that you can confidently assert why your own (further) research is necessary. Searching for information using specialist databases Advanced Skills Suggest why it is important to critically evaluate research papers Critically Analyzing Information Sources from Cornell University Library provides a useful guide to analysing the basics, such as author, date and publication, as well as considerations for analysing the content. Information Source Evaluation Matrix from De Montfort University is useful for helping you get to grips with the concept of critical evaluation. It suggests that you think in terms of scoring the information source you are evaluating.