Acknowledgements
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View ArticleNext steps
After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:Finding information in business and management (LIB_2)Finding...
View Article1.6.6 Professional bodies and societies
Consider joining a learned society or professional organisation. They can be very useful for conference bulletins as well as in-house publications, often included in the subscription. Don't forget to...
View Article1.6.5 RSS
RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’ or ‘Rich Site Summary’) newsfeeds supply headlines, links, and article summaries from various websites. By using RSS ‘feedreader’ software you can gather together a...
View Article1.6.4 Blogs
The founder of Technorati claims that the number of ‘blogs’ doubles every five months and that the creation rate is approaching two per second. One estimate I read in July 2010 put the number at 400...
View Article1.6.3 Mailing lists and newsgroups
Mailing or discussion lists are email-based discussion groups. When you send an email to a mailing list address, it is sent automatically to all the other members of the list.The majority of...
View Article1.6.2 Alerts
Online bookshops and some of the major search engines offer ‘Alerts’ services. These work by allowing you to set up a profile once you have registered on their site, and when there are items meeting...
View Article1.6.1 Introduction
The process of keeping up-to-date in your chosen subject area is useful for your studies and afterwards, for your own personal satisfaction, or perhaps in your career as part of your continuing...
View Article1.5.9 Plagiarism
Referencing is not only useful as a way of sharing information, but also as a means of ensuring that due credit is given to other people’s work. In the electronic information age, it is easy to copy...
View Article1.5.8 Bibliographic software
If you are considering taking your studies further you might like to consider using bibliographic software. Bibliographic software can be used to sort references, annotate them, manage quotations or...
View Article1.5.7 Referencing
We mentioned above that we need to reference sources to ensure we abide by copyright legislation. But there is another reason we need to give accurate references to items we use – so we can share...
View Article1.5.6 Copyright – what you need to know
An original piece of work, whether it is text, music, pictures, sound recordings, web pages, etc., is protected by copyright law and may often have an accompanying symbol (©) and/or legal statement. In...
View Article1.5.5 Social bookmarks
If you find you have a long unmanageable list of favourites/bookmarks you might like to try social bookmarks as an alternative.Activity – what you need to know about social bookmarksRead 7 things you...
View Article1.5.4 The 5 Ds
If you don’t use a system at all, then you could suffer from the effects of information overload:losing important informationwasting time on trying to find thingsending up with piles of physical and...
View Article1.5.3 Desktop search tools
Finding your paperwork or electronic files can be a problem. You may find that even if you do have some sort of filing system, your structure soon gets quite large with files in multiple locations,...
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1.5.2 Ways of organising yourself
How do you organise yourself?ActivityMake a note of how you organise your:emailsinternet bookmarks or favoritescomputer filesyour household paperwork, for example bills, insurance documents,...
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1.5.1 Why is it important to be organised?
87% of items that are filed into a filing cabinet are never looked at again. STANFORD UNIVERSITYTIn 2010, the world’s digital information output was estimated to pass 1.2 zettabytes– A zettabyte is a...
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1.4.8 Summary
In this section we have introduced you to the PROMPT checklist as a useful tool for assessing the quality of any piece of information. If you use it regularly you will find that you develop the ability...
View Article1.4.7 T is for Timeliness
The date when information was produced or published can be an important aspect of quality. This is not quite as simple as saying that 'good' information has to be up to date.ActivityHere is an example...
View Article1.4.6 P is for Provenance
The provenance of a piece of information (i.e. who produced it? where did it come from?) may provide another useful clue to its reliability. It represents the 'credentials' of a piece of information...
View Article1.4.5 M is for Method
Method is about the way in which a piece of information is produced. This is quite a complex area as different types of information are produced in different ways. These are a few suggestions to look...
View Article1.4.4 O is for Objectivity
One of the characteristics of ‘good’ information is that it should be balanced and present both sides of an argument or issue. This way the reader is left to weigh up the evidence and make a decision....
View Article1.4.3 R is for Relevance
Relevance is an important factor to consider when you are evaluating information. It isn’t so much a property of the information itself but of the relationship it has with your question or your...
View Article1.4.2 P is for Presentation
By presentation, we mean, the way in which the information is communicated. You might want to ask yourself:Is the language clear and easy to understand?Is the information clearly laid out so that it is...
View Article1.4.1 PROMPT
There is so much information available on the internet on every topic imaginable. But how do you know if it is any good? And if you find a lot more information than you really need, how do you decide...
View Article1.3.14 Summary
There is a lot of information available on education via the internet. Try the activity below to start exploring what is available.ActivityUse the Intute 'Education' tour’ to find out the types of...
View Article1.3.13 Choosing the right tool for the job
Before searching it is always a good idea to check what the source you have chosen covers to make sure it will unearth information that matches your search need (you will notice that all the resources...
View Article1.3.12 Internet resources
There are many websites where you will find useful information for education. With all information on the internet you need to make a judgement on the reliability of the information.UCAS (Universities...
View Article1.3.11 Statistics
There is a lot of statistical data on the internet relating to education.UK National StatisticsThis website contains an extensive range of official UK statistics and information about statistics. Under...
View Article1.3.10 Official publications
It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the plethora of green and white papers, reports of advisory committees, guidance notes and circulars relating to education. You may be able to get...
View Article1.3.9 Reports
Often research results, policy documents, conference papers etc. do not always get published through official channels in journals, books or conference proceedings. Consequently they may be more...
View Article1.3.8 News sources
Many news sources are now available online. Searching an online version of a newspaper is easier, quicker and more effective than searching through printed indexes, microfilm or actual...
View Article1.3.7 Encyclopedias
Encyclopedias can be useful reference texts to use to start your research. There are some available online, such as:WikipediaA freely available collaborative encyclopedia.Encyclopedia BritannicaThis...
View Article1.3.6 Journals
Journals and articles written by academics or experts are an excellent source of information. Journals are usually published monthly or quarterly, and contain a selection of articles providing details...
View Article1.3.5 Images
Images can also be found online. Some useful image databases are:FlickrA photo sharing website that contains pictures relating to all subjects. Note that in order to reuse a picture from this site you...
View Article1.3.4 Databases
At a basic level, a database is a collection of information which can be searched. It is a way of storing, indexing, organising and retrieving information. You may have created one yourself to keep...
View Article1.3.3 Books and electronic books
Books are a good source of information. The publishing process (where a book is checked by an editor before publishing, and often reviewed by another author) means that books are reliable sources of...
View Article1.3.2 Search engines and subject gateways
Although both search engines and subject gateways will help you find the resources that you need, the types of information that you find will differ.Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! search the...
View Article1.3.1 Introduction
You can find a lot of information about education on the internet.To find this information you might choose to use:search engines and subject gateways;books and electronic...
View Article1.2.3 Basic principles
Whatever resource you choose to use to find information on the internet, many of the same principles apply. Each source that you use will probably look quite different from the one you tried before,...
View Article1.2.2 Choosing keywords
Keywords are significant words which define the subject you are looking for. The importance of keywords is illustrated by the fact that there is a whole industry around providing advice to companies on...
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1.2.1 Planning your search
Your approach to searching will depend to a great extent on what kind of person you are. In an ideal world, when searching for information for a specific purpose, we would all find what exactly we were...
View Article1.1.6 Keeping up-to-date
How familiar are you with the following different ways of keeping up to date with information; alerts, mailing lists, newsgroups, blogs, RSS, professional bodies and societies?5 – Very familiar4 –...
View Article1.1.5 Organising information
How confident are you that you know when it is appropriate to cite references (refer to the work of other people) in your written work?5 – Very confident4 – Confident3 – Fairly confident2 – Not very...
View Article1.1.4 Evaluating information
How well does the following statement describe your approach to evaluating the information that you use?When I come across a new piece of information (e.g. a website, newspaper article) I consider the...
View Article1.1.3 Searching for information on education
How well does the following statement match what you do when you begin a new search for information?Before I begin a new search for information (maybe for an assignment, or to help you choose your next...
View Article1.1.2 Key resources
When you need to find information in education, how confident are you that you know the best places to search (e.g. search engines, subject gateways, online databases etc.) to find the information you...
View Article1.1.1 Assessing your current level of knowledge
If you explore all the resources and activities in this unit, you might need to allow between two and nine hours to complete it.Before you read this guide, why not use the self-assessment questions on...
View ArticleLearning outcomes
By the end of this guide you should be able to:conduct your own searches efficiently and effectively;find references to material in bibliographic databases;make efficient use of full text electronic...
View ArticleIntroduction
This unit will help you to identify and use information in education, whether for your work, study or personal purposes. Experiment with some of the key resources in this subject area, and learn about...
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