Internet Research Skills Optimization

The course deals with strategies of online research, familiarizing the students with using commercial directories, different types of search engines, academic resources plus the selection of key-terms and Boolean operators.

Course details

Level: General
Max. no. of participants: 20
Computer Lab: #1
Duration: 2 days
Requirements for pass: minimum attendance - 2 days
When the course is offered: see the list of courses for the current semester and/or the InfoSys

Course outline

Day 1:

• Net and netiquette (spamming vs. flamming)
• Internet groups - use as resources (google, yahoo and topica.com)
• Browser handling techniques (new window browsing, bookmars, saving text/pages/images/targets)
• Directories search (yahoo, about, looksmart, excite):
  -characteristics=subject-guide, organized by topics
  -drawbacks=links are submitted
• Search engines:
  -Meta SE (metacrawler, dogpile): used for complex research
  -SE: normal search (altavista, msn, northerlight, hotbot, google, lycos) vs. querry search (brainboost.com, ask.com)

Day2:

• Search engines techniques:
  -Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, BUT NOT, +, _ )
  -nesting () - parenthesis
  -truncation/wild cards (*)
  -capitalization
  -proximity search
  -search by page title (INTITLE:), by URL (URL:) and by definition (DEFINE:)
  -advanced search options (multimedia & picture search). SE specialized for pictures (picsearch.com)
• Forums as resources
• Pros and cons of directories & SE. Specialized SE (clusters - vivisimo, oriented - teoma, flexible copyright for creative work - creative commons.org, academic - bubl link (http://bubl.ac.uk/), subject directories - infomine (http://infomine.ucr.edu/), Librarians’ Index to the Internet (www.lii.org))

Useful online resources

Boolean operators - http://www.personal.ceu.hu/comp/boolean_operators.htm
Good tips on searching strategies and resources - http://searchenginewatch.com
Guide to library research - http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/home.htm
Guide to electronic searching - http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/adv_searching.htm

NOTE: all links open in new windows.