ITC125 Information Superhighway

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• Week 4 - Searching the Internet
• Objectives
• At the end of this lecture you will be familiar
  with how to search
• Library catalogues
• Search Engines

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• Finding information on the Internet
• Internet is still growing at a rapid rate.
• We need to be able to effectively access the
  quality of the information.
• Search resources a means to locate information.
• a number of tools exist.

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Remember

• In the New Yorker newspaper (July 5, 1993) a
  cartoon was published with two dogs sitting
  before a terminal looking at a computer screen
  one says to the other
• "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog
• There are some real "dogs" out there, but there's
  also great treasure.
• The burden is on you - the reader - to establish
  the validity, authorship, timeliness, and
  integrity of what you find.
• Documents can easily be copied and falsified or
  copied with omissions and errors -- intentional
  or accidental

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Things to think about ..

• Consider the site where the data originates
  http//www.kendallcars.com/cars.htm
• Consider the authors credentials / qualification
  and evaluate carefully.
• Be careful of personal homepage information
• Consider the type of site
• COM Commercial
• EDU Educational
• GOV Government
• MIL Military
• NET Network
• ORG Non-Profit Organization

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Other things to consider

• Is documentation thorough?
• Links or references to other authentic sites
• Do the links work?
• Recently updated?
• What is the motive for the information
• Is there a sponsor for the page?
• Is there a hidden agenda?
• Are the arguments balanced?
• Consider the information presented only as one
  part of the total argument.
• Dont forget to acknowledge all materials cited.

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Searching

• How do we locate information on the Internet?
• when searching the Internet do not confuse this
  with only searching the WWW.
• you need to use one of the different search
  resources BUT which one?
• Critical to consider your data requirements.

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Library based information

• books on shelves
• library computer (in library or on the web)
• on-line databases
• ABInform
• Encyclopedia Britannic
• Medline
• Dow Jones
• etc etc

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Library Catalogue

• Use catalogue to search for books / journals in
  the library
• based on author / subject / title / keywords
• allows for searching CSU, NSW or Australia wide
  catalogues

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Online databases

• Huge number of online databases available - many
  with fully text articles (without tables and
  images)
• no need to physically have a copy of the article
  anymore
• search engines associated with the databases -
  possible to specify key words etc

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Examples of databases available

• ABInform - International business and management
  information. Citations abstracts from more than
  1000 journals of which 600 are full text.
  Coverage from 1986
• Public Affairs Full Text (APAFT) - 120 full text
  Australian journals relating to a range of
  subjects of general interest.
• Dow Jones Interactive a large database that
  gives access to thousands of newspapers and
  journals in full-text and is updated daily
  including the Age and SMH
• - Academic Research Library - Current affairs,
  business and industry news and analysis, cultural
  events and issues, and general interest. Covers
  significant articles from general and academic
  journals, with the full text of more than 600 of
  them. Coverage from 1986 -

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• How to search effectively....
• be as specific as possible
• be aware of the capabilities of the search engine
• where appropriate refine or narrow your search
• as a general rule - true research requires access
  to a library search engine, general research can
  best be accessed through WWW search engines.

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Read the HELP files on search resources.

• No standard syntax to use.
• Almost all accept " "
• A few accept Boolean AND, OR, and NOT.
• Some only accept or -
• Some default to OR, some to AND
• - can be used by some as a wildcard

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• Boolean instructions
• AND means that all the terms you specify must
  appear in the document
• OR means that at least one of the terms you
  specify must appear in the document
• NOT means that at least one of the terms you
  specify must not appear in the document
• and - some search engines use these instead of
  Boolean operators to include and exclude terms.

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• More search suggestions .....
• NEAR means that the terms you enter should be
  within a certain number of words of each other.
• The best way to learn them is to read the help
  files on the search engine sites and practice!
• Most of the search engines return results with
  confidence or relevancy rankings

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File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

• it is an agreed protocol for sending / receiving
  files over the Internet.
• requires both a client and a server to be running
  the FTP software.
• about 1200 FTP sites exist
• problem where to find the required files
• Answer archie

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• ARCHIE
• allows for searching of indexes for specified
  files located on FTP servers around the world
• an index of all files available for transfer
  exists on each FTP site.
• sites duplicated for quicker access
• an ARCHIE server will limit concurrent access.
• problem - you need to know the file name.

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• Gopher
• - next technology was gopher - like the web -
  text menus only pointing to files.
• - Veronica search tool was able to search gopher
  servers on the Internet.
• - Very easy rodent-oriented net-wide index to
  computerised archives.
• - does not really exist anymore.

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ITC125 - Information Superhighway

• WWW search engines
• - many search engines exist
• search method varies depending on the search
  engine.
• Quantity in results does not equal satisfaction.
  
• Which one do you choose?

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Search resources what are the differences?

• Search engines
• are huge databases compiled by computers.
• they return Web pages back to you after
  considering key words sent by you and matching
  them to web pages of text in their databases.
• Often rank the level of compliance with your
  query.
• Subject directories
• are selections of web pages usually evaluated and
  organized into subject categories by people. You
  can search or browse the contents of directories.

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How Search Engines work .

• Search engines use software robots to survey the
  Web and build their databases.
• Web documents are retrieved and indexed.
• When you enter a query at a search engine
  website, your input is checked against the
  search engine's keyword indices. The best
  matches are then returned to you as hits.

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Examples of search engines

• Examples
• 1. InfoSeek (owned by Disney.com)
• - search 80 computer journals
• - 10000 news groups
• - 500,000 WWW home pages
• - not huge by todays standards
• - Search within results." Very powerful and
  easy

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More search engines .

• 2. Google search engine
• - Search within results." Very powerful and
  easy!
• - simple interface use Advanced search
• - No Boolean as such accepted but allows and
• 3. WebCrawler meta search engine
• - regarded as best of the meta search engine
• - returns a rating showing the relevancy of each
  returned item.

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Still more examples

• 4. Yahoo search directory
• - has huge number of web directories.
• - organised in a hierarchical menu by subject-
  there are submenus within each subject.
• - does not allow Boolean searches.
• 5. Alta Vista Advanced - search engine
• - claimed to be biggest ( of course the best).
• - Use the Advanced Search with Boolean operators
  and result ranking options in SORT.

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MetaSearch Engines

• Meta search engine process
• you submit keywords in its search box
• it transmits your search simultaneously to
  several individual search engines.
• the output are results from all the search
  engines queried.
• they do not own a database of Web pages they
  send your search terms to the databases
  maintained for other search engines.
• they only spend a short time in each database and
  often retrieve only 10 of any of the results in
  any of the databases queried.
• examples MetaCrawler, Copernic, WebFerret,
  DogPile

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What should a good search result return?

• Information on the required topic
• Maximum 50 links returned
• Ability to determine the quality of the
  information
• Look for refereed articles.
• Ability to narrow down your search
• Full text articles

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Plagiarism ..

• No material may be used unless it is referenced
  or knowledge in your work.
• If you dont you are implying it is your own work
  this is called plagiarism.
• If you plagiarise work you will fail the
  assessment item as well as the subject itself.
  The university does not condone plagiarism.

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When do I reference .

• When you have taken a direct quote from another
  piece of work and included it in your own
  assignment.
• When you take an idea of another writer and
  include it in your assignment this adds
  credence to your work.
• Reference extensively .

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How many references do I need?

• No answer to this question?
• The more references, especially in an assignment
  at this level, indicates that you have read
  widely
• I would expect to see EVERY paragraph to have at
  least one reference.

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Conclusion

• - you need to be able to effectively search the
  Internet
• - you must expose yourself to the different
  search engines
• - do not blindly accept the results obtained -
  try different combinations.
• - it is now up to you.