Information retrieval and electronic information sources

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: pirjo.kangas@humak.fi