Information retrieval and electronic information sources for EUMASLI students 23.9.2013

1. Information retrieval and
electronic information sources
Pirjo Kangas
23.9.2013 EUMASLI

2. Presentation plan
• Introduction to information seeking
• General information searching tools and
methods
• Some electronic informations sources
• Exercises in information seeking

4. 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

5. Information seeking as a process
1) Initiation 2) Selection
3)
Exploration
4)
Formulation
5) Collection 6) Closure
(Carole Kulthau)

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Boolean logic

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Boolean logic

16. 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

17. 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?

18. 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

19. 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?

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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?

25. 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

26. Share information!
• Don’t forget to share information and
useful sources with each other!
• Questions, comments:
pirjo.kangas@humak.fi