Transcript Anne Manuel [email protected]  Introduction – What do we mean by ‘quality’ ?  What’s wrong with using Google?  Havens of academic quality.

Anne Manuel
[email protected]
 Introduction – What do we mean by
‘quality’ ?
 What’s wrong with using Google?
 Havens of academic quality on the
Internet
 Searching for quality in the visible and
invisible web
 How to recognise a quality resource
 Hands-On
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A resource fit for purpose –in academic
settings that might mean peer-reviewed, but
might just mean credible – e.g. information
found on the British Library website
In some circumstances could be informal
sites, news sites or sites expressing an
opinion
Still some criteria which can be universally
adopted to evaluate whether sites are worth
using
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Google Searches are often just what is needed
 E.g. British Library website
Not always helpful for academic research
Too many hits, too unfocussed, sorting is by
‘popularity’ some types of site e.g. news sites are
favoured
 Also, websites are not evaluated, results
compiled by robots, what is being searched?
 Web is big! Important to use a portfolio of
methods as nothing is or can be comprehensive
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An example :
You want to compare the ways that governments
of different countries address the issue of ‘music
piracy’ i.e. illegal uploading and downloading of
music on the Internet
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Music Piracy
 Google
 Gateway
 Specialist search engines
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Ring-fenced field of web resources that are
selected and catalogued by subject and also
often by resource-type – often using
controlled vocabulary. Makes browsing
particularly useful.
Pros – Hand-picked by experts, transparent
selection procedure, browsability, searching
using thesaurus
Cons – labour intensive, expensive, relatively
small pool of resources.
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www.intute.ac.uk
Intute is a free online service created by a
consortia of 7 universities in the UK
Subject specialists (academics and librarians)
review and evaluate thousands of resources
and add them to the Intute database,
annotated, classified and indexed
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Subject based
Browsable and searchable
Hand selected and reviewed by UK
academics and library subject specialists.
Customisable (alerts, saved searches, etc)
Maintained for another year – after that?
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Dmoz Open Directory Project
 www.dmoz.org
 Edited by selected volunteers and self-policed but
abides by policies and procedures.
 Some useful sites, well organised but not
necessarily of academic quality – though should
conform to evaluation criteria – i.e. current,
reliable source, verifiable information etc
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Visible web – what can be reached by ‘spider’ robots
crawling and indexing websites. E.g. Conventional search
engines including Google Scholar
 Google scholar Pros
▪ Useful, focussing on academic websites
▪ May often pick up book chapters which can be hard to find
▪ Has been researched and shown to find a high proportion of the items
that bibliographic databases find
▪ Can download to reference manager software
▪ Can often link in to full text though Find it in Oxford
 Google Scholar Cons
▪ Can be inaccurate (picks up items from bibliographies)
▪ Often randomness about results
▪ Won’t go into all institutions/databases/repositories
▪ Older items often listed first as more often linked to
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Invisible web – items that are not found by
conventional search engines because:
 Within sites that have been blocked by owners
 Spiders cannot penetrate them
 Created dynamically by the searcher
 Are not linked to by other sites so not found by
spider
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Examples – institutional repositories,
databases, many commercial sites
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OAIster
Infomine
Solo (though only searching Oxford
University resources)
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Virtual Training Suite
 www.vts.intute.ac.uk
 60 subject specific guides E.g. ‘Internet For
American Studies’
 Key sites, what to look for and how to use what
you find
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Oxford Bibliographies online
“OBO is a library of disciplined-based subject modules.
In each subject module, leading scholars have
produced a literary guide to the most important and
significant sources in an area of study they know best.
The guides feature a selective list of bibliographic
citations supported by direct recommendations about
which sources to consult. Each topic has a unique
editorial commentary to show how the cited sources
are interrelated. The citations promote discoverability
as they link out to the sources via your library
collection or through Google books and more.” OUP
2010
Many sites that will teach you about this :
e.g. Internet Detective www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective
Dmoz – website evaluation
Key considerations:
 Authority – who has written it? What are their credentials? What institution
are they affiliated to (if any)? Is it peer reviewed? Who else thinks this is
good?
 Currency – when was this written? When updated? Are the links live?
 Reliability/Verifiability – Are there references to other credible
sites/publications? Are statements backed up? Who is allowed to edit/add to
the site?
 Standpoint – what’s the purpose of the site? Why has the author written it?
Are there obviously unbalanced arguments?
 Fit for purpose – Is the information of an appropriate breadth and depth for
your purposes? Who is the intended audience? Does the information add to
information obtained from other sources?
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Things to look out for:
Authority
 URL – .edu .ac .gov address?
 ‘About ‘ section
 Other publications/references by the author
 Institution home page
 Link: feature in Google to find out who links to it
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Currency – things to look for
 Updated date (often small print at the bottom)
 Test a few links
 Dates of any references
 References to current events
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Reliability/verifiability - things to look for
 Sponsoring site (check URL stem)?
 Adverts?
 Links to the page
 Typos/ mistakes/inaccuracies/popular myths
 Contact details – where? Who?
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Standpoint – things to check
 Google author
 Google URL
 Read content!
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Fit for Purpose – things to look for
 Original content?
 Statement of intention/intended audience
 Title/author/ date – minimum needed for citation
 Site map – to give an overview
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Before searching the Internet consider
 Purpose – why use the Internet? Would Solo be
better? Or a bibliographic database?
 Strategy – think through what sort of information you
want and where you might expect to find it. Make
sure you are clear and focussed about your research
area – time wasting is very easy on the Internet
 To0ls – Use a range of Internet tools (gateways and
specialist search engines) and consider them as
starting points to find journals/authors/research
centres that you can then browse more systematically