Transcript Web-based research - Education Scotland

Researching Chemistry
Web-based Research
Learning objectives
In this lesson, you will learn to:
• evaluate websites for reliability, level and
bias
• reference websites to allow another
person to find the same information.
Why carry out literature-based
scientific research?
• To find out what is known and what remains
to be discovered about a topic.
• To stay up to date with research in a
particular field.
• To find information to help develop new
ideas and design new experiments.
Finding out what is known
about a topic
Scientists use a number of communication methods:
• conference presentations
• published articles
• other communications
– websites
– blogs
– manuals
– videos, etc
• Which of these do you think is/are most reliable?
Finding out what is known
about a topic
Scientists use a number of communication methods:
• conference presentations
• published articles
• other communications
– websites
– blogs
– manuals
– videos, etc
Published articles
Scientific articles are often published in:
• science magazines (eg New Scientist, Chemistry World)
• scientific journals (eg Science, Nature).
Scientific journal articles are ‘peer reviewed’. Peer-reviewed
journals are reliable but expensive. Scientific magazines are
more widely available.
The most likely source of scientific information in school is
the internet.
Internet research
• The internet is an excellent source of information,
but it can be difficult to establish reliability.
• The world wide web is the fastest growing area of
the internet. It is a collection of documents on
thousands of computers worldwide.
• The web is not controlled. Anyone can publish
almost anything on it: you must decide if the
information you retrieve is reliable and valid.
Evaluating website information
• When using information from a website,
you should consider the following key
questions:
– Who does the site belong to?
– Why was it written?
– When was it written and most
recently updated?
Who does the site belong to?
• The domain gives the type of organisation and the
country of origin of the website:
.gov
.ac
.edu
.org
.co or .com
government body
UK educational institution
US education institution
non-profit organisation
UK or US commercial site
.uk
.us
.au
United Kingdom
United States
Australia
Why was the site written?
• To inform or explain – purely factual sites, eg
government or university.
• To sell – commercial sites that sell a product
(may be disguised).
• To persuade or indoctrinate – sites designed to
convert you to a particular point of view, eg
some charities and religious organisations.
Referencing
• In Higher Chemistry you must clearly state the
source of your information.
• Make sure you write down the correct web address
when referencing a website.
• Check the address yourself by typing it into the
browser.