research, skills, finding information, how do databases work

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IT
Research Skills

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What is the evidence?
Finding the evidence supports
your research, arguments,
and conclusions.
Not all evidence is alike, some
evidence will add more
weight.

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Oh the roads you will travel!
Become a question asker and information
gatherer!
Academic/ Published
Information- Library
Freely info-
web
Private information/
personal communication-
workplace policy
documents and client
interviews
Professional
knowledge

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How do you find the library?

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http://www.cdu.edu.au/library/
Search the
library
Referencing
Ask Us
Service and
Workshop
Calendar

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The LibGuide can help you get started
http://libguides.cdu.edu.au/IT

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Library
Search
Google
Scholar
Databases
Journals
Articles
Search Tools
Hierarchy of searching
Science DirectEbscoHost IEEEEmerald ACM
Journal of Computing
and Information
Technology
Information
Technology &
Libraries
International
Journal of Online
Engineering
Communications
of the ACM

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8
It’s all about selecting the right tool
and strategy

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Successful Soothing Search Strategies
Break your research down into a step-by-step process. It
is hard to research for an project topic without knowing
something about your topic.

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Step 1: Analyse your topic
Break down the question, what do you need to
know to answer the assignment question?
• Read through all the unit requirements
Choosing a Topic:
• Read through the topics that interest you
• Summarise what you think you will need to do for
this project topic
• What will you need to do?
• Find (literature/sources)
• Method/s (measure/investigate)
• Build/ implement
• Produce
• What do you already know?

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Writing your plan
Read through the topic you have been assigned.
Summarise what you think you need to do for this
project topic.
What will you need to:
• find (literature/sources)
• method/s (measure/investigate)
• build/implement
• produce
What do you already know
What questions do you immediately have?

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Step 2: Brainstorm and reading
Brainstorming and reading about your topic can help you
understand some of the major concepts surrounding your
assignment question. Start with a Google search. Then try tools
such as Google Scholar and then Library Search.
Tips:
• Do a simple search on your
topic.
• Read the abstract of a few
articles- are there any issues
that stand out?
• Refine your search by trying
different keywords and
different search refinements
(e.g. dates of publication or
resource type such as
article/book).
• Try different tools.

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Brainstorming for keywords
Topic: Social Media in Business
• “Social Media”
• “Social networking”
• “Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn”
• “Business, companies, workplace,
• commerce, marketing, brand”
Keyword: the word that acts to a
cipher.

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Step 3: Combine your search terms
Now you have your keywords combine them
together to start searching for resources.
Use tools such as:
• Library search
• Databases
• Google Scholar
• Google

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Search with the library search

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Search with Google Scholar

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Pros and Cons
Library Search
Pros
• Can limit to resource type e.g. a book
or a journals.
• Can limit your results to peer-review
articles
• Can limit to subject area
• Full text access to resources that you
can find anywhere else
Cons
• Searches can be more complicated,
knowing your what keywords
describe your topic will help.
• Won’t search in every database or
most free material that is online.
Google Scholar
Pros
• Friendly searching, it will tell you if
your spelling is incorrect, and suggest
other searches.
• Great for snow ball searching (more
about that later).
• A very broad search across a lot of
material.
Cons
• Don’t get full text access to
everything.
• Wont’ search every database.
• You can still get material that isn’t
academic.
• Search algorithm may not bring back
the most relevant results.
Both are useful tools for research

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Look at the results what story to they tell you?
Do you need to refine?Do you need a different tool?

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What else can you use?
• Look at the databases on the LibGuide- do you need a
specialised database?
• Use Google Scholar to look for scholarly material
• Look at government documents and official websites

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Professional/ Industry/ Commercial
• Web materials
• Newspaper articles
• Videos and films
• Blogs
• Photos
• Data sets

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Snowball or Cascade Searching
If you find a particularly important article you can see
what citations they used and find further evidence.
Greenhalgh, T & Peacock, P 2005, ‘Effectiveness and efficiency of search methods in systematic reviews of
complex evidence: Audit of primary sources’, BMJ, vol. 331, no. 7524, pp. 1064-1065.

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What sources are you using?
Systematic
Reviews
Peer Reviewed
Journals
Case studies
Textbooks
Trade Journals
Opinion pieces

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Evaluate your resources
CRAAP stands for:
• Currency- when was the work published, is it out
of date for the topic?
• Relevance- does it have detailed analysis, what is
the readership level?
• Authority- who are the authors and their
credentials- is it peer reviewed?
• Accuracy- can you verify the source, are there
other sources cited in the bibliography?
• Purpose- is there bias in the work, is there are
particular perspective?

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Would I use this in my research?
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Some great resources here!

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Would I use this in my assignment?

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Building literature for your review

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EndNote
http://libguides.cdu.edu.au/endnote

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