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Information retrieval and electronic information sources for EUMASLI students 23.9.2013
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Information retrieval and electronic information
sourcesPirjo Kangas
23.9.2013 EUMASLI
Presentation plan
• Introduction to information seeking
• General information searching tools and methods
• Some electronic informations sources
• Exercises in information seeking
Information seeking
• Always based on a need• Information needs often divided into
two types– Professional information needs– Non-professional information needs
• Type of information need determines the sources that can be used to solve the problem– Studying / work vs. free time
Information seeking as a process
1) Initiation
2) Selection
3) Exploratio
n
4) Formulatio
n
5) Collection 6) Closure
(Carole Kulthau)
Different kind of information sources
• Different kinds of information sources are suitable for different situations– Electronic (internet)– Printed (books, magazines)– Informal (friends, colleagues)– Official documents (records of meetings
etc.)
• Sometimes it is necessary to use more than one type of information source
Information searching tools
• Things you can do to improve your search results
• Central ways to do that are– Choosing your search terms carefully– Combining search terms–Using different ways to limit the
search results: • full text only, • limiting date, type of publication,
language
Information searching tools: search terms
• Terms most likely to be used in the text covering your topic
• Thesauri, vocabularies help you to find search terms– Synonyms
• Pearl diving method– books and articles about the topic are
also useful in finding new search terms
Broader and narrower terms
Narrower terms
Related terms
Broader terms
Languages
Sign language
American sign
language
Finnish sign
language
Special languages
Legal language
Official languages
”Main term”= sign language
Formulating search statements: Boolean logic
• Helps in limiting or expanding your search results
• Three operators– AND / OR / NOT
• Most of the databases use this logic
Boolean logic
Boolean logic: AND
• Poverty AND crime• Retrieves records
where both two terms are present
• ”with all of the words”• The more terms
combined with AND, the fewer results
• Google: automatic
Boolean logic: OR
• College OR university• ”any of my search
terms”• The more terms
combined with OR, the more results
• Useful when searching for synonyms
• Google: OR
Boolean logic: NOT
• Cats NOT dogs• Retrieves records
where one of the terms is present but the other one not
• Excludes results from your search list
• Be careful with using NOT
• Google: cats -dogs
Boolean logic
Information seeking strategies
• The hoped result defines the best strategy– For a quick search, combine a few terms
”sign AND language AND acquisition”– For a wider range of material, use synonyms
”sign AND language AND (acquisition OR learning)
• If you can’t find any or enough sources, reconsider your strategy– Search terms, sources that you use, the way
you have combined search terms
Research Tools
”A lost link is a useless link”
• Reference Managers– Mendeley: http://www.mendeley.com/ – Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/
• Other kinds of programs:– Evernote (”remember everything”): https
://evernote.com/intl/fi/– Instapaper (web pages):
http://www.instapaper.com/ – Others?
Plagiarism detection
• Humak uses a plagiarism detection software called Urkund– thesis– Sometimes for other course work
too– Students know when a software like
this is used– The lecturers tell you the details if
the system is used
Discuss
• Discuss (5 mins!) in a group of 2-3 students the topics talked about in class– Does the information seeking
process make any sense?–Was there anything new to you in
different information seeking strategies?
–How do you arrange your work / references?
Electronic resources provided by libraries
• 3 institutions, 3 different systems
• University libraries have subscriptions to different kinds of databases– Databases work in the institution IP
range• walk-in users
– Sometimes it is possible to use them even from home for the students/staff• systems vary
Open access sources• Thesis:– http://oatd.org/– A few thesis of the previous EUMASLI
program available online: http://publications.theseus.fi/handle/10024/2068
• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): – http://www.doaj.org/
• DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books): – http://www.doabooks.org/doab
Academic Articles
• Examples of databases you can use to search academic content, full-text might not be available for free– Google Scholar:
http://scholar.google.fi/ – Eric: http://eric.ed.gov/? – Sage Journals Online:
http://online.sagepub.com/–Humak also subscribes to EBSCO &
ProQuest
E-books
• Google Books– http://books.google.fi/books– Full text in its entirety/at all might
not be available
• Subscription e-book databases– Ebrary, Dawsonera etc. – Depends on your institution
Social information seeking
• Online networks• Main idea: ”someone I know
probably already has the information I need”– Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn,
blogs
• social elements in Google search: personalized results based on earlier search behaviour– Filter bubble?
In-class exercises
• A few exercises about the electronic resources
• You can work in pairs if you prefer that
• The exercises can be found online: http://tinyurl.com/eumasli
• You don’t need to hand in the exercises
Share information!
• Don’t forget to share information and useful sources with each other!
• Questions, comments: [email protected]