Presentation for BSc Earth System Science course on Information literacy

1. Information Literacy ESS
Fall 2015
Ellen Fest & Hugo Besemer

2. Finding Information
 House keeping
 Information needs
 Orientation
 In depth
 Data
Illustration © Loet van Moll 2009

3. Finding Information
 House keeping
 Information needs
 Orientation
 In depth
 Data
Illustration © Loet van Moll 2009

4. Assignment & -no- test
● Assignment
● Submit as a group
● Find information on your subject
● Instructions in BB >> assignment
● No_familyname1_familyname2_familyname3.docx
● Upload in report format via Turnitin in Blackboard at
the latest Saturday 6 December 00 00
● 5.5 is compulsory to get a grade
● Test
● No separate test for Information literacy
But there will be a question
about IL in the general test

5. Finding Information
 House keeping
 Information needs
 Orientation
 In depth
 Data
Illustration © Loet van Moll 2009

6. Information needs
 Orientation
● Scientific
● Societal
 In depth
● Comprehensive or not
● For example if you are working at a model
● Find existing models
● Model parametrization
● Model validation
● Context (who else is working on this)

7. Syntax and
operator: Module 2

8. Choice where to search: module 2

10. Material and how to get 1: module 1

12. Finding Information
 House keeping
 Information needs
 Orientation
 In depth
 Data
Illustration © Loet van Moll 2009

13. The issue
 Central question: What happens to the temperature of
the atmosphere after the yellowstone volcano explodes?
 Hypothesis: The temperature drops, leading to a new ice
age.
As we said, we do an in-depth search
to help
• Find existing models
• Model parametrization
• Model validation
• Context (who else is working on
this?)

14. Quick and dirty to get ideas

15. Quick and dirty to get the
snowball running
• Not much about
Yellowstone
• We are
interested in
“supervolcanoes”
• A (relatively)
recent explosion
is “Toba”
• We found a
number of
models !
We got more than
we deserve…..

16. Toba is a good example
(so we change volcano)

17. Comprehensive search ……

18. Context: Source

19. Context: author

20. Context: Affiliation

21. Context: More about the most proficient
author

22. Volcanoes
Toba
Yellowstone Atmosphere
Temperature
Other?
Aerosols
Ash?
takes some thinking Questions o.a.
Set A:
• Other volcanoes?
• Only supervolcanoes
or will any volcano do?
Set B
• Other atmospheric
factors (radiation?)
Set C
• Do we need it, or is A
AND B good enough

23. Managing your information
 Information about citing and plagiarism
● http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Expertise-
Services/Facilities/Library/Expertise/Write-cite/citing.htm
 Managing references: Endnote and Mendeley
● http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Expertise-
Services/Facilities/Library/Expertise/Write-cite/citing/EndNote-and-
Mendeley.htm
Working what you have found:
Module 3

24. Finding Information
 House keeping
 Information needs
 Orientation
 In depth
 Data
Illustration © Loet van Moll 2009

25. Findig data: the bad news first
There is no “Google” or “Scopus” for data

26. Parametrization for “Yellowstone”
looking for the right repository

27. But do we
believe data?
Not
necessarily,
if we look at
this example
=>

28. Example: Data on Europe’s population
(according to Eurostat)

29. Example: Data on Europe’s population (according to
Eurostat) 2: What happened?

30. To be complete: Asia’s population
according to Eurostat
So: data is meaningless without proper
documentation at different levels (project, file,
parameters)

31. Questions?