Information Literacy By Arnold Mwanzu
Information Literacy defined
icipe IRC resources
EVALUATE INFORMATION CRITICALLY
Everyone can search so what s the problem? Overuse of Google Horizontal information seeking Navigation Viewing time Squirreling behaviour Only accessing full-text when available online (ignoring print even when it s the only source)
EVALUATING WEBSITES WITH INFORMATION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aem3jahbxfk
Search Strategies Using Keywords Free-Text/Natural Language Searching A keyword is a word or phrase, significant to your search topic, which will enable you to retrieve references. A keyword search uses free text to identify all records containing the word or words that you enter in your search field. Results may come from within any part of the record e.g. title; abstract; subject heading within library catalogues, databases and websites. However, websites rely almost exclusively on free text searching while databases will be more likely to be indexed using controlled vocabulary.
Search Strategies Using Thesauri - Controlled Vocabulary - Searching A controlled vocabulary thesaurus is a set of predefined terms assigned to describe the content of an article. A controlled vocabulary search will map the free text word or phrase to the controlled vocabulary heading/term.
Search Strategies Boolean Logic The principles of Boolean Logic enable you to relate concepts to one another in sets. Consisting of the 3 logical operators or connectors, AND, OR, NOT, Boolean operators allow you to more efficiently link 2 or more terms, thereby retrieving more precise results. AND narrows a search; OR broadens it, while NOT excludes references, containing specified search terms, from your results. These operators will always need to be entered in upper case.
Search Strategies Using a truncation character allows you to broaden your search by retrieving varying endings of your search term. For example, in the database Web of Science, a search for Child* will retrieve documents that mention Child, Children, Truncation Childcare, Children s, Childhood. When using a phrase truncation search, only the final word in the phrase can be truncated. It should also be noted that you may retrieve some irrelevant material.
Search Strategies Related to truncation are Wildcards which help you search for internal variations of spelling within your search term. An example in Web of Science is wom?n which will retrieve articles that mention women and woman. Wildcards Wildcards are also useful in dealing with American spelling variations. For example computeri?ation finds computerization and computerization
Search Strategies Proximity searching is a way of narrowing your search using different operators. It allows you to search for documents where your search terms must be either in the same sentence or paragraph. The operator SAME will only locate articles where your terms are in the same sentence of an article e.g. breast SAME cancer Proximity While the operator PARAGRAPH will locate those within the same paragraph e.g. breast PARAGRAPH cancer
Search Strategies Phrase Searching allows you to use a string of words instead of a single one. Many databases allow you to search for an exact phrase such as Climate Change or Genetically Modified Organisms. Results found will highlight the phrase exactly as typed. Phrase Searching However, some databases will require the use of Inverted Commas while others will require the use of brackets. You are advised to check the HELP section of each database. This is particularly advisable when using the internet.
IL potentially involves: Learning outcomes and frameworks Access, Locate, Evaluate Critical thinking Ethics, Referencing, Copyright, Plagiarism turnitin Ethos INTEGRATED approach throughout library functions Moving towards corporate literacy Expertise Multiple formats Accreditation Embedding Blended learning Uncertainty Core library competency
PLAGIARISM
LEGALLY AND ETHICALLY AVOID PLAGIARISM
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Online Scholarly Presence What Online are Scholarly you hoping to get out of an online scholarly Presence presence? Networking? Putting your work out there? Making a name for yourself? What do you have time to manage? How can you make the systems work for you? Do you want your presence to be personal? Professional? Both?
Online Scholarly Presence Content Platforms Purpose Caveats Personas Academia.edu The purpose of academia.edu is to allow academics to share their research, monitor the impact of their research, and track the research of other academics they follow. Has one of the largest membership bases Networked Google Scholar The Google Scholar profile is public and allows you to track the number of citations to your articles and calculate your citation metrics. Anyone can see the number of times your work has been cited as well as the scores assigned to it Formal LinkedIn LinkedIn is a social networking tool for professionals that is especially useful for promoting your image and finding out about potential employers/employees. Premium accounts available for a fee, the cheapest starting at $19.95/month Networked
Online Scholarly Presence ORCID ORCID is an cross-disciplinary service that creates and maintains a registry of unique researcher identifiers and then links research output to these identifiers. Different membership/subscription fees for organizations Formal ResearchGate ResearchGate is a social networking tool for scientists and researchers that provides the opportunity to connect and collaborate, make your research visible, and obtain stats and metrics. Very interactive, oriented towards collaboration and discovery Networked Twitter Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to follow other users. Micro-blogging means only 140 characters per "tweet" Networked Comprehensive
Best Practices and Tips Maintain your profiles Be consistent! Use your full name Keep discoverability in mind Twitter handles, ORCID, DOIs on publications/ CV Cross-link your different profiles ORCID Assessment How do I figure out if I have improved? Google yourself again! Increased discoverability Consistent communication with others Less or no false/ misleading information Possible creation of research relationships Altmetrics Impact Story as a tool How are you conversing with the community at large? Tweets, bookmarks, link sharing, storage Data, multimedia projects, digital publications
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