1. Introduction to Web Browsers and Basic Search Strategies Using Search Engines Davina Pruitt-Mentle EDUC 478

2. Davina Pruitt-Mentle2 Outline History (WWW & Internet) Search tools Search Engines vs. Subject Directory Meta search Engines Steps for Searching Effective Strategies Narrow or broaden a search? Wildcards

3. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle3 Internet History Internet made up of thousands of networks worldwide No one in charge of Internet - No governing body Internet backbone owned by private companies

4. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle4 Looking at the Net Taken from: http://www.cio.com/WebMaster/sem2_net.html

5. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle5 Understanding the Map Computers use TCP/IP to communicate (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) Computers use client/server architecture

6. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle6 Internet Providers: Research and Educational Institutions Government and Military Entities Businesses Private Organizations Commercial Providers

7. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle7 Internet Protocols Email (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) Telnet (Login to remote host computer) FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - transfers files between server and client HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

8. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle8 History WWW or Web or W3 includes all information, text, images, audio, video, and computational services that are accessible from the internet July 8, 1999 Nature - approximately 800 million pages of publicly accessible information (1) Web continues to grow, tripling in size over the past two years (2) (1) Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles, “Accessibility of Information on the Web,” Nature 400 (July 8, 1999), 107 (2) OCLC Office of Research, “June 1999 Web Statistics” Web Characterization Project

9. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle9 WWW System of Internet servers that support hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface Almost all protocols accessible on Internet are accessible on web (email - FTP - Telnet - etc) In addition, WWW own protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol

10. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle10 HTTP Hypertext - means of information retreival Contains links that connect to other documents Links selected by user Virtual “web” of connections

11. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle11 HTTP (cont) Produce HTTP through HTML HyperText Markup Language Way of writing or creating with “tags” added to tell information –i.e. Bold yields Bold

12. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle12 More History Internet initially conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Particle Physics Lab in Switzerland) Needed a wide variety of information to be shared and distributed to many different computers and platforms “Universal readership”

13. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle13 Web Popular Because: Easy to use Easy to navigate Combines words, graphics, sound, video Easy to Publish Plethora of information Reach larger audience

14. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle14 Summary: Web vs. Internet What is the relationship between the web and the Internet? The Internet contains physical components –computers –networks –services

15. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle15 Web vs. Internet The Internet connects thousands of computers across the world, but it is the web that allows communication to occur Web - abstraction and common set of services on top of the Internet Web - set of protocols and tools that let us share information with each other

16. Directed Search Strategies Davina Pruitt-Mentle July Design Institute July 20, 2000

17. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle17 How Do I Find Information on the Internet? Join an email discussion or USENET newsgroup Go directly to a site if you have the address Browse Explore subject directory Conduct Search

18. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle18 How Does Information Get Indexed by the Search Tools A publisher of a web page can register the site with the search engine or directory Database collects data autonomously

19. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle19 Browsers Netscape Navigator (Communicator) –Product of Netscape (Now owned by AOL) –Originally was dominant –Multi-platform (all operating systems) Internet Explorer –Product of Microsoft –Current Dominant Browser –Not available for all operating systems Browser compatibility problems can cause web page problems

20. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle20 Netscape Search

21. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle21 Netscape Search 1: Access to different search engines 2. Type words or phrases into text entry box 3. Click Button 4. Preserve favorite search engine

22. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle22 Internet Explorer Search Separate Panel In Browser Uses MicroSoft Network search

23. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle23 Internet Explorer Search Direct access to only Microsoft Network’s search engines Allows easy access to different types of search –Web pages –People –Businesses –Maps

24. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle24 Internet Keywords Type straight in location bar of Netscape/Explorer Simple words instead of URL (uniform resource location) Words tie to websites Can be tied to language preference Example: Typing in maryland converts to http://www.state.md.us/

25. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle25 Know your URL’s “Address” of a file on the Internet Contains type of protocol followed by the computer name, directory and file name Examples –http://www.capecod.net/Wixon/wixon.htm –gopher://gopher.boombox.micro/ –ftp:// wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/windows/psp3.zip –mailto:kschrock@capecod.net

26. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle26 Anatomy of a Web Address protocol://host/path/filename See handout “Anatomy of a Web Address”

27. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle27 Two Basic Approaches to Searching (although not really “basic”) Search Engines Subject Directories

28. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle28 Search Engines vs. Directories Search Engines Computer built index of information on web More inclusive Used to find specific resources Searchable by keyword Excessive “hits” Every page of a Website is indexed Better for general searches, but can be used to find specific information Directories Human aided, organized list May be general or subject- specific May be able to “search” directory –Google - general –NetTech Educational Technology Coordinator Website - subject specific User has control of browsing Fixed vocabulary Links go to Website home pages only Better at general searches

29. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle29 What are Search Engines? Designed to assist you in searching through the enormous amount of information on the Web No single search tool has everything Each engine is a large database which utilizes different search techniques and tools (spiders or robots) to build indexes to the Internet (some also utilize submissions and administration)

30. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle30 Which Search Engine? Yahoo Altavista Excite Google NorthernLights Hotbot Infoseek See Handout - “The Little Search Engine that Could”

31. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle31 How to Choose Consider Size of the database (# of URLs) Currency of the database (updates) Search interface Help screens Search features Results listed (# of documents retrieved) Relevance of results

32. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle32 More About Search Engines Searches for matching terms (keywords or several keywords) Results “ranked” by relevancy (for some) Can search by –subject or category –keyword Learn about each search engine’s description, options, and rules and restrictions

33. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle33 GO TO http://www.google.com/help.html

34. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle34  Searches for exact matches  Try different versions of your search term  Example: “Boston hotel” vs. “Boston hotels”  Rephrase query  Example: “cheap plane tickets” vs. “cheap airplane tickets”

35. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle35 Automatically places “and” between words (expands search) To reduce search – –add more terms in original search –refine search within the current search results. ( adding terms to first words will return a subset of the original query ) Exclude a word by using a – sign –Example: to search bass but not speaker  bass –speaker Does not support “or” operator Does not support “stemming” or “wildcard” searches Not case sensitive

36. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle36 Finds street maps –Just enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state into the search box –Google recognizes query as a map request Try your address

37. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle37 Phrase Searches and Connectors Phrase Searches are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names “Gone with the Wind” Phrase Connectors are recognized –Hyphens –Slashes –Periods –Equal signs –Apostrophes Example: mother-in-law

38. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle38 Stop Words Stop words are ignored These rarely help narrow and slow down search –http –com –certain single digits –certain single letters to include stop words use [space]+ Example –Star Wars, Episode 1  Star wars episode +1 –OS/2  OS/ +2 ***don’t forget the space before the + - signs

39. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle39 How to Interpret Results See Handout

40. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle40  Combines in one search a very large full- text Web-page database (~160 million pages) with over 5,400 searchable full-text published (print) journals and an array of online news resources

41. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle41  You may access both relevant web-pages and relevant journals and news releases  Tagged  WWW like other search tools or  Special Collection (published, fee-for-viewing journal articles or other publication)

42. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle42 GOTO http://www.northernlight.com/docs/specoll_help_overview.html To obtain an item from the Special Collection:  Click on link  Decide if you are willing to pay fee Page provides citation so you can locate publication in library

43. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle43 Results grouped in folders listed at left Folders dynamically generated by search results –From a controlled vocabulary –Similar to library cataloging –Not fixed like subject directories Click on any folder to refine or further focus search Sub-folders allow you to further “zero in” Unique Folders Approach

44. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle44 Subjects (baseball, desserts) Source descriptors (commercial, personal, magazines, databases) Types of documents (press releases, product review, maps) Languages (major Romanized languages only) Four Types of Folders

45. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle45 Basic Search Power Search Industry Search Investext Search News Approaches to Searching

46. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle46 Http://www.northernlight.com From Home Page Allows Boolean logic Phrase in “ ” Truncation (*for many characters or % for 1 character) + requires, - excludes Basic Search

47. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle47 Http://www.northernlight.com/power.html Combines ALL basic search features in one search Limits to major language or country Can select subject or document in advance Power Search

48. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle48 http://www.northernlight.com/business.html All features of basic search Can limit by date range or industry-based subject category Default is ALL industries Industry Search

49. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle49 http://www.northernlight.com/investext.html Search or browse thousands of investment research reports written by expert analysts. Investext Search

50. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle50 http://www.northernlight.com/news.html Allows on-line news searches News Search

51. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle51 “Meta” Search Tools Multi-threaded search engines Allows access to multiple databases simultaneously or via a single interface (-) Do not offer the same level of control over search interface and logic as individual engines (+) Fast (+) Improvements –Results sorted by site used for search, or location of Website –Able to select search engines to include –ability to modify results

52. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle52 Popular Meta-Search Engines Dogpile Metacrawler Profusion SavvySearch

53. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle53 Subject-Specific Search Engines Do not index entire web Focus within specific Websites/pages within defined subject area, geographical area, type of resource Specialized search - depth rather than breath

54. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle54 Selected Subject-Specific Engines Companies Companies Online (http://www.companiesonline.com/) Hoover's Online (http://www.hoovers.com/) Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/) People (E-mail and Phone) Bigfoot (http://bigfoot.com/) WhoWhere? (http://www.whowhere.lycos.com) Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/) Switchboard.Com (http://www.switchboard.com)

55. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle55 Selected Subject-Specific Engines Images The Amazing Picture Machine (http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm) Lycos Image Gallery (http://www.lycos.com/picturethis/) WebSeek (http://disney.ctr.columbia.edu/webseek/) Yahoo! Image Surfer (http://ipix.yahoo.com/)

56. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle56 Selected Subject-Specific Engines Jobs Hotjobs.com (http://www.hotjobs.com/) Monster.com (http://www.monster.com/) The Riley Guide (http://www.rileyguide.com/) Games CNET Gamecenter.com (http://www.gamecenter.com/) Games Domain (http://www.gamesdomain.com/) Gamesmania (http://www.gamesmania.com/) GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/)

57. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle57 Selected Subject-Specific Engines Software Jumbo (http://www.jumbo.com) Shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com) ZDNet Downloads (http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/) Health/Medicine Achoo (http://www.achoo.com/) BioMedNet (http://www.bmn.com/) Combined Health Information Database (http://chid.nih.gov/) Mayo Clinic Health Oasis (http://www.mayohealth.org/) Medical World Search (http://www.mwsearch.com/) OnHealth (http://www.onhealth.com)

58. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle58 Selected Subject-Specific Engines Education/Children's Sites AOL NetFind Kids Only (http://www.aol.com/netfind/kids/) Blue Web'n (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/) Education World (http://www.education-world.com/) Kid Info (http://www.kidinfo.com/) Kids Domain (http://www.kidsdomain.com) KidsClick! (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/) Yahooligans! (http://www.yahooligans.com)

59. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle59 Subject Directories Hierarchically organized indexes of subject categories User can browse through lists of Websites by subject in search of relevant information Maintained by human May include a search engine for searching their own database

60. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle60 Examples of Subject Directories INFOMINE (Academic Scholarly Subject Directory - http://infomine.ucr.edu/) LookSmart Lycos Magellan (http://www.magellan.excite.com/) Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org/) Yahoo Many of these have aspects of both search and directory

61. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle61 Specialized Subject Directory Guide complied by subject specialist List important resources in his/her area of expertise More comprehensive than general guide Examples –Film: Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/) Includes Clearinghouses –Argus Clearinghouse (http://clearinghouse.net/) –About.com –WWW.Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/)

62. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle62 Summary Search Engines The Big Guys –Altavista –Google –Yahoo Meta-Search Tools –Dogpile –MetaCrawler Subject-Specific –The BigHub.com –Search Engine Colossus Subject Directory –LookSmart –Lycos Specialized Subject Directory –WWW.Virtual Library –About.com

63. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle63 Preparing to Search What’s the topic, question, area of interest? Identify search terms to describe your topic of interest Consider synonyms (echinoderm OR echinoidea OR "sea urchin") Consider variations of terms (restaurants, dining, gourmet) See Handout: Practical Steps

64. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle64 Search tips Enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to list only sites that contain that exact phrase –Example: “heart disease”

65. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle65 Boolean Logic Combines search terms in many databases AND, OR, and NOT or (+) and (-) Must check to see if search engines use Boolean logic

66. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle66 Boolean Logic : AND Limits your search “Oral History” & Women Only returns pages with both of these terms on them

67. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle67 Boolean Logic : OR Broadens your search Returns every page with either of these terms on them “Oral History” ORWomen

68. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle68 Boolean Logic : NOT Limits your search Only returns pages that contain one but not the other term on them “Oral History” NOTWomen

69. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle69 Wildcards Special Character that can be appended to the root of a word so you can search for all possible endings to that root Good for variant spellings and common root words Example –rocket* will yield rocket, rockets, rocketry psycholog* = psychology, psychological, psychologist –colo*r = color and colour

70. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle70 Ctrl-F Follow a link to a document retrieved by a search engine and don’t know how relevant Ctrl-F finds the relevant words in current document Example: women +“El Salavdor” +“Oral History” –Pick one link, then Ctrl-F

71. EDUC 478Davina Pruitt-Mentle71 Searching Summary Choose a search engine –Personal preference –Different engines for different purposes Syntax - quotations, Boolean logic, wildcards Ctrl-F to find search words Try to stay focused on your task