Transcript What is Internet

Digital and Online Resources
By
Dr. Muhammad Sajid Mirza
Principal Librarian I Dr. M. Hamidullah Library
Islamic Research Institute, IIUI
[email protected]
What is a digital and online source?
What is Internet
International Network of Computers since 1994
Universities
Government
Business
Organizations
Individuals
 December, 1995
June, 2014 (est.)
16 millions users
3,035 millions users
In Pakistan: 2000
133900 users
2014
29,128,970 users
The Internet
• The Web and the Internet
The two are sometimes used interchangeably but
there is a difference.
• The Internet connects computers
File transfer, involving a variety of protocols (e.g.
ftp)
• The web connects pages
Hyperlinks: the http at the beginning of the URL of
every web page
Importance
A study of student research behavior (ProQuest, 2007),
found that more than 60 percent of students consider
Google to be the easiest place to start research, compared
to less than 20 percent who find library databases the
easiest starting point.
What can we do Using the Internet?
 Locate information sources
Library
catalogues (worldcat, LOC, NLP, IIU, AIOU), publishers etc.
Access online journals, e-books, thesis and databases
e.g. HEC Digital Library, PRR, JSTOR, Open Access Journals, etc.
 Import references and citations
Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero, RefWorks
 Check similarity / plagiarism
Turnitin
 Attend a webinar or online meeting
 Attend a massive open online course (mooc)
 Submit a research paper for publication/conference
 Share your research using social media e.g. Linkedin, academia.edu, etc.
 Monitor impact of your research e.g. Google scholar
 Search for fellowships/grants
 Join a mailing list
Using Internet
 Browser:
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It is a software application used to locate and display Web
pages.
The most popular browsers are Google Chrome, Internet
Explorer and Mozilla Firefox
 URL’s
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Uniform Resource Locator
The web “address” that connects you with a website
Goes in the address bar at the top of the screen
Gives you information about the website
Parts of a URL
http://www.iiu.edu.pk
 http://--hypertext transfer protocol:
the language computers use to “talk” to one another
 www—world wide web:
the body of information connected by the cables and computers of the Internet
 .iiu—domain
name:
the structured, alphabetic-based, unique name for a computer on a network

.edu—top
level domain:
gives an idea of where the document is stored
 pk-country code
Why Effective Internet Searching
 Un-organized information
 Well-prepared searches will eliminate
useless hits and wasted time.
Internet Search Tools
 Search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.)
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Are like the index in the back of a book
Let you search for specific words and topics
 Meta-search engines (webcrawler, ixquick, Mamma, etc.)
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Sends your search terms to several other search engines
at once.
Gives an overview of a topic across the Internet.
 Subject guides
(www virtual library, IPL2, An Online Library of
Literature etc.)
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Let you search for concepts or subject categories
Go from general to specific
 Specialized search tools (databases, reference sites, newsgroups etc.)
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Source of invisible information, usually called deep web
Please remember
 Common-Word Exclusion
 Google ignores some common words called “stop words”
e.g., the, on, of. Stop words tend to slow down searches without
improving results
 32-Word Limit
 Google limits queries to 32 words
 Case Insensitivity
 Google is case-insensitive; it shows both upper- and lowercase
results
 Ignoring Punctuation
 Google ignores most punctuation and special characters
including , . ; ? [ ] ( ) @ / < >
Internet Research Strategy
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Define your topic and note initial keywords
Locate background information and identify
additional keywords
Choose the proper search tools
Perform your search
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Basic Search,
Phrase search,
Complex Search
Evaluate your search results
Refine your search, if needed
Basic Search
 All search engines offer basic searching
 Read search engine’s help page
 Use “trial and error approach”
Phrase Searching
 When you construct a search with more
than one keyword, you often need two or
more words to be in a sentence one right
after the other. For such searching, we use
phrase search
 Use “quotation marks” around the phrase
Complex Search
 A complex search uses special connecting
words and symbols called Boolean
operators to define the relationships
between keywords and phrases.
 Boolean operators are:
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AND,
OR
AND NOT
 Use of advance search and filters
Using Punctuation, symbols and Voice
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Asterisk (*)
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Two periods (--)
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Add an asterisk within a search as a placeholder for
any unknown terms
Separate numbers by two periods without spaces (..)
to see results that contain numbers in a given range
of things like dates, prices, and measurements.
Example: camera $50..$100
Voice Searching
Remember….
 The best results will appear on the first
page or two of hits
 No two search engines are alike. Try
another search engine, or rephrase your
terms if you don’t get good results.
Evaluating Websites
 Book publishers weed out inaccurate
information.
 No one checks the Internet for accuracy.
Evaluating Websites
Before you start using the
information
EVALUATE!
Evaluating Websites
 Who is the author?
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Is he/she an authority on the subject?
Does she/he have an e-mail address?
 Is the information accurate?
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Can it be verified in an encyclopedia?
Is it relevant to your topic?
Does the author indicate where he found the
information?
 Is the information prejudiced?
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Is it trying to persuade you to another point of
view?
Is it trying to persuade you to buy a product?
Evaluating Websites
 Is the information current?
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When was the last time the website was updated?
Are the links broken?
Evaluating Websites
 Is the information current?
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When was the last time the website was updated?
Are the links broken?
Evaluating Websites
 Is the information current?
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When was the last time the website was updated?
Are the links broken?
Thanks