Research methods: information retrieval, evaluation and integration

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Research methodsinformation retrieval,
evaluation and integration

• March 25th, 2004

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• Activity of
• Recognising need for info
• Identifying an appropriate source
• Formulating search strategy
• Retrieving information
• Evaluating the information
• Integrating knowledge, ideas into assignment,
  core values
• is called

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• Information literacy
• Australian and New Zealand information literacy
  framework electronic resource principles,
  standards and practice. 2004. 2nd ed.

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• Information literacy is
• a key generic skill
• essential for life long learning.

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• The Library is a national treasure
• Available to you now!
• Use it to enrich your work
• To assist you to do well!

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• The University of Sydney Library is 152 years old
• Support teaching and learning
• Largest in Australia after NLA
• Have 200 staff members
• Have 20 libraries in 2004
• Science Technology Library
• Favour electronic delivery
• Create electronic material/SETIS
• Promote information literacy

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• Topic mobile commerce
• Do some work early as in the time before the
  deadline youll become aware of connections and
  sources
• Read the assignment sheet twice
• Let the topic brew in your mind!

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• What task have you set yourself?
• Know your research problem!
• Identify key concepts
• Define the key concepts
• Explore the relationship between the concepts

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• Key concepts synonyms
• Plural/singular or both?
• Acronym and/or spelt out
• SLA or Service Level Agreement
• Broader/narrower terms?

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• Expressing the relationship between the terms in
  your search strategy
• Boolean operators
• AND
• OR
• NOT

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• In order to define and engage with your problem
• Look at The literature

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• To frame the problem under scrutiny
• To identify relevant concepts, methods/techniques
• To position the study will your work add
  something new to the body of knowledge?

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The Literature
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• Indexes to the literature
• Library catalogue
• Electronic databases
• Search engines

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• Library catalogue
• http//www.library.usyd.edu.au/Home.html
• Holdings of twenty libraries within Univ you
  can borrow from any of these libraries
• Fisher Library contains IT items Engineering
  and other libraries may hold items of interest to
  you.

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• General overview
• Monographs
• Subject heading
• Key word search
• Note that monographs (books) may be in print and
  electronic form
• Safari Tech book online electronic texts

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• Journals
• May be searched by Journal title in the library
  catalogue
• For an index to the contents of the journal -
• Electronic databases

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• Electronic databases provide the
• citation of relevant articles and
• often the fulltext of the article itself.
• Remote access
• The four databases that we cover today are
  available off-campus via
• an Extro account or via our Remote access system
  your name library barcode number

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• To find a database, visit the Databases
  Electronic Resources page

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• Databases and Electronic Resources
• A- B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
  - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y -
  Z subject listing of databases Remote Access
  Quick List Password Access Quick List On-campus
  Quick List About off-campus access to databases,
  e-journals and e-reserve Obtaining Library
  Passwords learn database searching e-resource
  troubleshooting tips databases on trial new
  databases.

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• Each database has its own search program.
• Check Search tips to see how to enter your search
  in that database often enter phrases in
  parentheses to that words are searched as a
  phrase.

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• ACM Digital Library
• Association for Computing Machinery
• the full-text for articles published in ACM
  periodicals and proceedings since 1985.

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• IEEE Xplore
• Full text access to IEEE and IEE journals,
  transactions, magazines, letters and conference
  proceedings published since 1988 plus selected
  content back to 1950 all current IEEE standards.

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• Abstract and fulltext of each article
• In the Abstract index terms for the abstract are
  provided and these may provide useful clues for
  other relevant terms.

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• IEEE states its Peer review
• policy
• implemented a rigorous peer review process to
  ensure the high quality of its technical
  material.

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• all scientific papers and communications
  published in regular IEEE periodicals shall be
  reviewed by at least two referees who are
  competent and have experience in the area of the
  subject matter of the paper.
• Editor decides whether to publish and with what
  changes.

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• ABI Inform
• American Business Index Inform

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• ABI Inform is on the Proquest suite of databases.
• Might as well choose to search all databases
  include Proquest Computing.
• Can limit searching to fulltext and scholarly
  (including peer-reviewed) articles.

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• ScienceDirect
• Published by Elsevier which is the worlds
  largest publisher of science, technology and
  medical information.
• Contains nearly six million fulltext articles

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• Searching is a dynamic process
• Create search strategy
• Enter the strategy into a database
• Assess the search results
• Are the retrieved references covering the areas
  you want?

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• Do you need to narrow the search results by
  adding another or different word to the search
  strategy?
• Do you need to use terms that cover a broader
  subject area?
• Are there synonyms mobile commerce is often
  referred to as m-commerce

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• How does the database record inform you about
  your topic?
• Does the abstract give some useful hints to
  broader/narrower terms or synonyms?
• What about related terms how does m-commerce
  relate to e-commerce?

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• How does wireless relate to m-commerce?
• Are there author keywords or index terms on the
  record that will inform you?

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• You may need to review the search strategy and
  search with the new strategy and continue the
  process until you are satisfied that all relevant
  references have been located.

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• Think about the topic
• Talk to your friends, classmates
• Bounce ideas around with them as information
  literacy is a social activity!

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• Material held or made available by the Library is
• Published
• Peer-reviewed
• Purchased by the Library

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• Assignment calls for 4/5 papers should be
  peer-reviewed research papers.
• 1/5 could be technical reports,
• newspaper articles or online articles.

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• ABI Inform/Proquest has lighter, newspaper
  articles.
• Online for the assignment means internet
  articles.

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• Internet
• Anyone can publish an internet page
• A Google search retrieves a whole range of pages.

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• Search engines Google
• Key features
• Results are relevancy ranked.
• Adds ADD to the search strategy so that looks for
  all words
• Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
  mobile commerce

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• Boolean option OR is not available
• No advanced search options
• Links to sites are cached view the contents of
  the web page when Google indexed it information
  may not be up-to-date

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• Evaluating an internet page
• Reliability
• Scope
• Currency
• Accuracy
• Commercialism
• Design

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• To conclude
• Check out the Librarys resources
• Have a go at the databases
• Locate the fulltext
• Think about your search strategy, refine it if
  necessary
• Be wary of internet pages

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• Powerpoint is at
• On Information Technologies subject guide on
  Library homepage
• Julie Olston
• j.olston_at_library.usyd.edu.au
• x16914