Online Resources & Search Skills for Forced Migration Studies Sarah Rhodes, Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, African and Commonwealth Studies Kate Beeby, Senior Library Assistant (Scholarly Communication)
Overview Set up a Refworks account Create a search strategy Bibliographic databases Other sources: Grey literature Theses Statistical data News
Reference Managers
Reference Managers
Availability Desktop but can also transfer to Endnote web Cost Buy from OUCS Web based Web-based Web browser extension and desktop Free via our subscription Free via subscription (inc alumni) Freely available (but limited storage space) Web-based and desktop (but no automatic syncing) Freely available Word processing MS Word Open Office Pages MS Word Open Office MS word MS Word Open Office MS Word Libre Office Cross platform support Not compatible with Linux Word processor plugin not compatible with linux Refmobile mobile phone app Mobile apps available Iphone/Ipad interface Database interaction Web of Science / Web of knowledge Proquest For more detailed table see http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/content.php?pid=294548&sid=2418329
Libguide for Reference Managers http://ox.libguides.com/reference-management
Task 1 Create a Refworks account
Good book on methodology Supervisor recommended this book Useful literature review in this paper Classic paper to use in the introduction Your Research Paper supports my argument in section 2 Good comparison study in this paper NGO project evaluation, good evidence for chapter 5 Lots of country data on this site
Reference chasing You know relevant books and papers already so follow the references, but don t rely on this approach alone. Ask people Recommendations are a good starting point and you have to read what your supervisor suggests but this not a comprehensive solution. Approaches to finding the literature The systematic approach Plan your search, list your search terms, hit the databases, systematically manage your references and papers Google Scholar It is the biggest database and covers books as well. A useful starting point but it is hard to control and causes frustration.
Start with a clear research question
Example research question Identify the search concepts in your research question: Feminist examination of exclusion from the refugee regime For each search concept, brainstorm keywords, broader and narrower terms, synonyms etc: e.g. for feminist thought also search for feminism, gender theory, women s rights, sexual equality etc. Try also the International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (ITRT) via Refugee Studies Libguide or directly http://www.refugeethesaurus.org/
Building a structured search An example of one possible approach Research Question: Feminist examination of exclusion from the refugee regime Row 1 Concept 1: feminist Concept 2: exclusion Concept 3: refugee regime Row 2 Feminism Gender Women Exclusion Clause Criminality Human Rights Refugees Regime Convention International Law Row 3 #1 = femini* OR gender OR wom* #2 = exclusion clause OR crimin* OR human right* #3 = refug* regime* OR convention OR International law Row 4 #1 AND #2 AND #3 (N.B. # means search number) (femini* OR gender OR wom*) AND (exclusion clause OR crimin* OR human right*) AND (refug* regime* OR convention OR international law) - this is what the search looks like on the IBSS database
Search syntax: Boolean logic AND university and oxford NARROWS SEARCH OR university or oxford BROADENS SEARCH NOT university not oxford NARROWS SEARCH
Search syntax: wildcard characters Truncation may be used in a number of ways: * for right side truncation (e.g. plurals and alternative word endings) feminis* retrieves feminist, feminists, feminism? for a single character (e.g. alternative spellings) organi?ation for organisation or organization $ for one character or zero characters behavio$r* retrieves behavior, behaviour, behavioral, etc Check the database online help (the symbols given above are common but not universal)
Task 2: Create an Advanced Search String
Exporting references from SOLO
Exporting references via the e-shelf
Articles from OU e-journals (link from SOLO)
SCOPUS Indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, working papers. Limited coverage of political topics and social theory Jstor full text database, lots of classic journals back to their beginning, lacks most recent years Major databases Proquest Platform Searches scholarly journals, theses, news and commercial publications Google Scholar Searches journal articles and books some other content (but not government, NGOs, policy institutes etc.)
Databases via OxLIP+ (link tab on SOLO or http://oxlip-plus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk )
SAGE Research Methods Online Link via OxLIP+
Proquest Platform- IBSS
Google Scholar Preferences
Libguides http://ox.libguides.com/refugee-studies
Task 3: Run your advanced search in Proquest
Grey literature Key sources for forced migration studies working papers, conference papers and policy briefs include: MigrationOxford Dfid UNHCR FMO IDS Eldis CIAO PolicyFILE IOM UNBISnet See the LibGuides for other useful links
Theses Search for previous MSc theses on SOLO ( msc thesis forced migration studies ) Proquest Dissertations & Theses: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection (full-text). Mainly US but some global content. EThOS. UK theses digitized by the British Library (not all universities, no Oxford theses)
Statistical data services UNdata: http://data.un.org/ UNHCR Statistical Online: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm MPI Data: http://migrationinformation.org/datahub/ World Bank data: http://data.worldbank.org/ WHO: http://www.who.int/research/en/ U.S. census: http://www.census.gov/ UK National Statistics: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ LibGuides: http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/ OECD ilibrary
Social science data services John Southall (Social Sciences Data Librarian) john.southall@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/data
News databases: Nexis UK Company profiles / industry news / biographies / UK legal case studies Searching by source, topic or country Over 24000 news. Trade and reference sources
News databases AllAfrica's news and information archive, dating from 1996, is a growing collection containing over two million articles and documents from allafrica.com, the leading Africa information source on the Internet. AllAfrica collects and aggregates articles from 130 African news organizations, as well as documents and releases from several hundred governmental, nongovernmental and international institutions
http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/iskills Workshops for postgraduates & researchers Topics covered: information discovery and finding scholarly materials reference management (Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero & Mendeley) keeping up to date measuring research impact copyright and intellectual property open access publishing managing research data
Any questions?