WISER Social Sciences: Finding Quality Information on the Internet Angela Carritt and Penny Schenk Bodleian Law Library

Two different approaches: Search engines advantages broad reach, everything on the web that has been indexed or “crawled” Lets you to pinpoint an exact phrase or concept disadvantages brings back too much information, if searches are not limited sources may not be authoritative Web directories and gateways advantages quality control Makes browsing in a topic area easier disadvantages does not encompass everything, you might miss good material may not be current focus/emphasis may not be what you want

Search engines Google Blog Search Google Scholar Clusty Metacrawler

The Google family

Scholar Preferences Library links – allows Google to link to full text within Oxford subscriptions Bibliographic manager – allows you to set defaults for exporting to Endnote, RefWorks etc Advanced Scholar Search gives you more control over your search terms

Link to abstract or full text Find other versions in the group e.g. related pre- print, article, conference paper Number of times this item (or related items in the same group) has been cited Oxford Full Text : checks Oxford databases for full text version

Full text also available through DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Click here to view article online Download citation to Endnote, RefWorks or Reference Manager Print holdings

Choose more >> from Google home page See what bloggers are saying on a topic Advanced options allow you to choose specific authors, dates, sites etc. Google Blog Search

advanced options search by words contained in posts restrict by words in the blog title can restrict by blogger can restrict by language restrict by date range

results

alerts based on blog search several options for receiving ongoing updates when search terms are matched in blogs – alert, gadget on Google homepage, subscription in a feed reader

Clusty Sorts results into related “clusters” Useful for zeroing in on what you were looking for and ignoring irrelevant results Can group results by cluster, source or domain

clusters on left

results sorted by sub-topic

preview sites with magnifying glass icon

results sorted by source

results sorted by domain

Metacrawler – use multiple search engines at the same time

Top results should be quite targeted since multiple engines returned them

Evaluating web resources

How reliable is the web page you are looking at? …how much does it matter? Don’t get caught out.

Who wrote it? (person / organisation) Do they belong to an organisation? Look at the URL of the web page Do they belong to an organisation you trust? University (.ac.uk,.edu) Government (.gov) Pressure group (biased? Reputable/Alarmist?) BBC? How up to date is it? Last updated statement Last event mentioned? Last article cited? How knowledgeable are they? (check their facts against what you know) Could it be a hoax? Check Who’s linking to it? Are key web sites web sites? Is it on Intute / other portals that you trust? Is it mentioned in key research guides? Why did they write it? Who are they? (If its really important do a search on their name) Library catalogue Indexing and abstracting service Google

Web directories and gateways

A different approach Selected resources Fewer results Better results….depends who selected them! Directories created by subject experts = assurance of high quality / reliable resources May not include all the relevant resources May not include the most recent resources Organised – resources are usually listed by subject / genre etc = can Browse or Search Can often limit your search to particular document types (e.g. full text journal articles, conference papers, primary materials, blogs…)

A few examples Intute – Gateway created by the UK academic community InfoMine – Gateway created by a consortium of Universities based around University of California OpenDOAR – Gateway of papers held in UK repositories DMOZ – Gateway of resources selected by the web community Finding specialist gateways for your subject

From the UK academic community High quality resources selected by academics, subject specialists, librarians

Browse options Search across the whole of Intute / broad subjects Allows you to limit your search to particular document types e.g. articles, primary sources, research guides and directories

Browsing Intute Each Intute page has a search box allowing you to search within a subject

Browsing Intute Each Intute page has a search box. This allows you to search within a subject Link to the resource Link to the full description – includes keywords Add to marked list (for saving, printing etc)

Using Filter by…. Filter allows you to limit your search to particular document types (e.g. journal articles, conference papers, research guides)

Searching Intute What are you searching? - the descriptions on Intute (not the web sites Intute lists) To search the web sites (rather than Intute descriptions) choose “harvester” later

Search results on Intute Your results – Records where your keywords are included in the Intute description (does not include results from the harvester). Click here to see results returned by the harvester

Advanced Search Allows you to search across subjects Allows you to limit your search to particular document types - Use “Resource Guides and Directories” to find specialist gateways

My Intute Receive alerts for new resources in your chosen subject area Save records on Intute Save searches

Resources collected by consortium of US libraries US bias Expert resources / Resources gathered by “robot” Includes free and subscription resources – Oxford has subscriptions to many of the “pay for” resources

Infomine Searches across Infomine Advanced search allows you to search across several topics and to limit your search by field Get RSS feed when new resources are added Read the Infomine blog

Infomine - Searching Expert created - resources selected by subject expert Expert + Robot also includes resources gathered automatically (less quality control) Free / Fee based. Many of the fee based (subscription resources) are available to Oxford users via Oxlip Document types Note “full text” field looks at the text of home and top level pages only

InfoMine results screen Opportunity to include/exclude robot selected sites and/or fee based resources Mortar board – shows resources selected by an “expert” Longer description including keywords / subject headings.

More info… Library of Congress Subject Headings / Keywords - click to see all resources using the same keyword

Browsing InfoMine Browse options Subject – Library of Congress Subject Headings Keywords To find resources by subject check both subject and keywords

Browsing InfoMine Choose the correct part of the alphabet

Directory of academic institutional repositories What is an “academic institutional repository?” Collection of documents created by members of a University Usually pre-publications drafts, working papers, conference papers, theses.. OpenDOAR allows you to search for papers held in academic repositories around the World It will only find scholarly papers Good assurance of quality

OpenDOAR Search for papers and other documents

Searching OpenDOAR Searches the full text of all papers Truncation / wild cards don’t work very well

Results…

Web directory created by web users To contribute content users must be able to demonstrate subject knowledge

Dmoz homepage

Browsing DMOZ

Browsing Dmoz

Browsing

Browsing Dmoz

Editing DMOZ Apply to be an editor – contribute content etc

Searching Dmoz

Results “Categories” (subject) from which results are drawn. These may influence your browsing later on. Each resource includes a link and a brief description.

Finding specialist directories for your subject Intute allows you to filter your results by document type - “Research guides and directories” includes web directories / gateways (Make your search – open the filter drop down menu – choose “Research guides and directories”) Ask your subject librarian! Web resources section of relevant research guides If you find a directory via a search engine – don’t forget to evaluate it!

Summary Use a variety of approaches, there are many options in addition to “googling it” Try advanced search options Be aware of the quality of the source

URLs: Search engines Google Blog Google

URLs: Web directories and gateways