For professional or academic purposes

1
Online Searching

• For professional or academic purposes

2
Structure of the module

• First day Academic databases
• Characteristics of academic databases
• Demonstration of search process and information
  retrieval
• Case study
• Second day Academic search engines
• Presentation of results of case study
• Academic databases
• Google Scholar
• Scirus
• Live

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Academic Databases - I

• Content specializations
• Humanities and Social Sciences
• Science and technology
• Multidisciplinary
• Context
• At the heart of the cyclical process of academic
  research and publishing
• Document typology. References or full text of
• Journal articles of peer review journals
• Reports, books, patents and theses, etc.
• Users
• Researchers (Universities) and engineers and
  developers (Corporations)
• University students and professors
• In general authors of academic journal articles,
  reports or books
• Access
• Not free. In fact they are extremely expensive
• Access only by subscription or by pay per view
  (pay per document)
• Only subscribed to by universities or
  corporations (not by private persons )

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Academic Databases - II

• Main protagonists
• Scientific publishers of journals or books
• Elsevier
• Springer
• Independent producers
• Universities
• Private companies
• Distributors of tens or hundreds of different
  databases
• Ebsco
• Dialog
• Authors
• Researchers and developers
• University students and professors
• Authors of journal articles or books
• So authors are both users and contributors

5
The Process of knowledge production
6
The Peer Review Journals

• The most respected kind of scientific journals
  and the typical content of the academic databases
• Process
• Author submits their papers to a peer review
  journal.
• The journal asks the opinion of at least,two
  experts in the field.
• If approved, and only if approved, by the
  experts, the article will be published, probably
  with corrections and additions suggested by the
  experts.
• The whole process is anonymous the author is
  unaware of the identity of the referees
  (evaluators) and vice versa.

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The Search Process

• Identification of the information need of the
  user and the keywords that express the main
  concepts of the information need.
• Occasionally, identification of the proper names
  (persons, corporations, countries, etc.).
• Identification and selection of the most suitable
  database.
• Selection and execution of the query (basic or
  advanced search).
• Review of the references in the database results
  page.
• Occasionally, refinement of the query and
  obtaining new keywords to repeat the process.

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Main interdisciplinary international databases

• ISI Web of Knowledge the most influential
  database in the world. Provides access to tens of
  thousands of the most important international
  journals (Thomson).
• Science Direct the database of the most
  important scientific publisher of the world.
  Access to one thousand two hundred journals
  (Elsevier).
• Wiley Interscience the database of one the most
  important scientific books and journals publisher
  (Wiley).

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International databases by specialization

• Computers (but related with Art, Society and
  Humanities)
• ACM
• Technology and computer engineering
• IEEE Xplore
• Humanities
• Humanities Index
• Arts and Humanities Citation Index
• Social Sciences
• JStor

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And in Spain

• Multidisciplinary
• CSIC The most influential in Spain and one of
  the most important in Spanish speaking countries.
  Provides access to all peer review Spanish
  journals.
• Other databases by specialization
• News EfeData and MyNews Online
• Law Aranzadi

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To access databases in UPF

• To access academic databases via UPF
• www.upf.edu gt Library gt Databases gt Alphabetic
  list
• Example
• www.upf.edy gt Library gt Databases gt Alphabetic
  list gt A gt ACM Digital Library

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Off Campus
13
Off Campus (II)
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Database List
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ACM Digital Library
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Exercise Case Study - I

• Select a set of keywords
• Select a database
• Make tests with the set of keywords in selected
  database
• Write a report about the database with this the
  elements indicated in next slides

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Exercise Report content

• Database name
• Content description topics covered by the
  database and typology of documents (journal
  articles, books, proceedings, patents, etc.) Tip
  See the help page, or the about us page, etc.
• Main search facilities (only a list of the two or
  three main options).
• Possible relevance of the database content in
  relation to the student topic of interest is the
  content relevant, is the information up to date,
  is there enough information about the topic?,
  etc.
• Subjective user satisfaction does the database
  have friendly user interface? are the search and
  navigation options understandable? is the
  overall system usable?, etc.
• Annexes
• The list of the keywords used by the students to
  test the database.
• One screenshot of the search page of the
  database.
• One screenshot of the database results page after
  a search with one of the keywords of the student
  list.