Internet

1. RESEARCH IN MEDIA
EDT 513
Educational Technology Department,
School of Science and Technology Education (SSTE),
Federal University of Technology, Minna
(c) 2023
Prof. GAMBARI, Amosa Isiaka
E-mail: gambari@futminna.edu.ng
Phone No: +234 803 689 7955
Week 5: Searching the Internet

2. WEEK 5
Searching the Internet

3. Talk Objectives
– Introduction to the
Web and searching
on it
– 4 W’s and an H of
search engines:
• Why?
• Where?
• What?
• Who?
• How?

4. What can you find on the
Internet?
• Email
• Electronic texts
• Government documents
• Special databases
• Museum collections
• Photo and film, sound
and music archives
• Maps
• Newsgroups
• Internet discussion lists
and their archives
• Reference works
• Transcripts of
synchronous
conversations
• Web-based periodicals
(e.g. Weekly Trust)
• Original documents,
journals, letters,
manuscripts….

5. The World Wide Web (WWW)
• The World Wide Web or WWW or "The Web" consists of
documents which have been turned into web pages which are
stored on computers around the Internet. These pages are
interconnected by hypertext links. Each group of related pages in
one location on the network is called a web site. Information on
any of these pages can be in any data format including text,
graphics, tables, sounds and movie clips. Pages are written in the
HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML is text with
embedded codes (tags) that represent instructions for the display
of the text and any images.
• URL is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator (pronounced
YU-AHR-EHL) is the address of a computer file or resource
accessible on the Internet. Sometime you may find reference to
URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) or URN (Uniform Resource
Name) which are the same as URL.
• These are a string of letters and punctuation in a set format. The
URL contains the name of the protocol required to access the
resource, a domain name that identifies a specific computer on the
Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on the
computer.

6. Architecture of a Web Address
• http://www.buk.edu.ng/Departments/edu
cation
• http = hypertext transfer protocol
1. www.buk.edu.ng = host name with domain
2. Departments/education/lecture.html = the
file path

7. Domain
• .com
• .gov
• .edu
• .org
• .net
• Countries -- de; fr; ng; hk; au, uk…

8. Why learn to search?
• Mastering the Web: A real challenge!
– Vast amounts of material
– No organization
– Sites come and go
– Constant change
– What’s reliable?

9. Search Engines
• A search engine is a software program
that goes out on the Web, seeking web
sites and cataloging them.
• Search engines constantly visit sites on
the Web to keep them up to date.
• Site descriptions save you time in your
search.
• Provided/financed by commercial
providers

10. A Few Popular Search Engines
• Provided / financed by commercial providers
– WebCrawler http://www.webcrawler.com
– Lycos - http://www.lycos.com/
– Excite - http://www.excite.com
– AltaVista - http://www.altavista.digital.com/
– Yahoo! - http:// www.yahoo.com
– MetaCrawler -
http://www.metacrawler.com/
– Infoseek - http://www.infoseek.com

11. Why use a search engine?
• To familiarize yourself with a range
of search tools in order to develop
an array of search techniques.
• To take advantage of the
inexhaustible resources available
on the Web without wasting hours
of your time on irrelevant material.

12. How does a search engine work?
• A spider is a type of software
that continually searches
through Web documents,
identifying text that is the basis
for keyword searching.
• Sometimes they are called
wanderers or robots.
• The information is then indexed
and placed in a database on a
host computer.

13. Each search engine
• has its own:
– Database of sites;
– Command language;
– Search capabilities; and
– Method of displaying results.
– Get to know particulars about
specific search engines by clicking
on”about us” or “info” at the search
engine’s home page.

14. Constructing a Search
• You must first construct a Search Query.
The Search engine will then conduct a
keyword search for you.
• A document returned to you from a search
query is called a "Hit".
– In the case of queries, too many "hits"
returned means that your query is too vague.

15. Search Results
• The most likely matches (relevant)
for your text string appear first in
the results list.
– Scan the displayed results to see if a
site contains the information you are
searching for.
– Site names are clickable links. After
visiting a site, you can return to the
search site by clicking the Back
button on your browser.

16. Determining Relevancy
• A search tool orders the query results
by their level of relevance, according to
methods the tool’s developer chose.
– Sometimes it’s based upon how close to
other keywords in the document.
– Another, how many times the word(s)
appear in the document.
– Range reported: 100 (most relevant) to 0
(least relevant)

17. Search Basics
• The search site home page has a text
box for typing the words to use in your
search.
– For the best results:
•Check spelling
•Use descriptive words and
phrases
•Use Synonyms and variations
of words
If you don’t find what you are looking for,
connect to another site.

18. Varieties of search engines
• Simple search tools
• Major search
engines
• Meta search engines

19. Simple search tools
• Yahoo
• Hierarchical index
• Created by people who are trained to categorize
information and think like librarians
• Very selective because created by human beings,
not computers
• See also
– Alpha Search –
http://www.calvin.edu/library/searreso/internet/as/
– BUBL Link – http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link
– Infomine – http://infomine.ucr.edu

20. Standard Search Engines
• Send out software “robots” or “spiders” to
all points on the Web
• The engines calculate mathematically how
relevant each page is to your search –
highest at top of results
• See
– AltaVista – http://www.altavista.com
– Excite – http://www.excite.com
– Go Network – http://www.infoseek.go.com
– HotBot – http://www.hotbot.com

21. Meta Search Engines
• Search other search engines
• No single search engine hits everything,
so a meta search scans more sites
• Downside – lowest common denominator
• See
– Dogpile – http://www.dogpile.com
– Inference Find – http://www.inferencefind.com
– MetaCrawler – http://www.metacrawler.com

22. Alternative Search Engines
• Take various approaches to ranking and
sorting data; also “popularity” approach.
• Often more helpful than standard
• See
– Northern Light – http://www.northernlight.com
– Ask Jeeves – http://www.askjeeves.com/
– Google – http://www.google.com
– Oingo – http://www.oingo.com – “We know what
you mean.”

23. Specialized Search Engines
• Mailing lists -- www.liszt.com
• Newsgroups -- www.dejanews.com
• Daily news reports -- www.newsbot.com
• e-mail or physical addresses and telephone numbers
-- www.whowhere.com
– Can be unreliable
• Medical information
• Medline
• HealthAtoZ

24. Education Searches
http://millennium.fortunecity.com/babar/269/215.html#
kidsaf
• AskERIC
• BigHub Education
• eduport
• Educate (NSW) Educational Links Search
• Education Virtual Library
• Education Topics - Librarian’s Index to
Internet
• ePALS Classroom Exchange
• InfoJump Education

25. Boolean Logic
• …is the term used to describe certain
logical operations that are used to
combine search terms in many
databases
– and retrieves documents that contain both terms
– or retrieves documents that contain either term
– not retrieves documents that contain one term
but not the other term

26. Examples of Boolean Operators
• Either/Or
– Rainforest or rain forest
– Dog or canine
• Include first word but not second
– Russia not Soviet Union
• Includes both words in same
document
– Arabic and California

27. 5 Steps to Better Searching -- #1
• Adapted from http://edweb/sdsu/edu
webquest/searching/sevensteps.html
• Include and exclude when searching
• - or +
• No space between the - or + and the word but
space between words
– I.e. +tournament +golf

28. 5 Steps to Better Searching -- #2
• Use a “wildcard”
• +dates makes you miss all those sites
with date
• Add a * to your search
– i.e. +date*
• In general do not search for plural of
word

29. 5 Steps to Better Searching -- #3
• If you want the words to hang
together as a phrase use double
quotes
• I.e. “English literacy” or “writing with
computers” not English literacy or
writing with computers

30. 5 Steps to Better Searching -
- #4
• Use lowercase
• Some search engines are case
sensitive

31. 5 Steps to Better Searching -- #5
• Locate pages that are primarily about
the thing by doing a title search.
• Not all search engines will allow this
• i.e. title:frog*
– No capitalization
– No space between : and name of page
– Will net more than title:frogs

32. Learn how to:
• Use 3 or 4 search engines well
• Type a string of all possible key words
• Put quotes around words you want to keep
together in a document
– “Soviet Union”
– “Bill Gates”
– “Special education”
• Use capital letters for proper names to get fewer
unusable hits:
– China vs china
– Kano vs kano

33. Remember
• Spelling!
• Use synonyms
• Use a simple search
engine first
• Truncate!
• + means word must
appear
• - means word must not
appear
• Type name of company
or Web site
• Know what’s online at
your local or college
library, e.g. British
Council
• Learn how to create your
own virtual file cabinet of
information.
– Bookmarks – Netscape
– Favorites – Explorer
• Understand about
reliability of Web sources

34. Know your search engine!
– Search Engine Showdown: A User’s
Guide to Search Engines --
http://www.notess.com/search
– Search Engine Watch –
http://searchenginewatch.com
– A definitive guide –
http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html –
not to be missed!

35. Find out more
– From the Landmark Project – select Searching
the Internet Parts 1, 2 & 3 from the left frame --
http://www.landmark-project.com/fotb/
– Comparative guide to search tools –
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/search.html
– “Where can I find such-and-such?” –
http://cougar.collegiate.ind.k12.va.us/~lwibberl/i
search.html
– Top searching tips --
www.learnthenet.com/english/html/19tips.htm

36. Never Forget
that…
The internet is like a huge,
disorganised library. It will
only be useful if you know
what you are looking for and
how to look for it.

37. We Are NOT through yet!
Now that you know how to locate your
information on the Internet.
But how do you determine its validity
and reliability?

38. Evaluating what you find...
The Internet is an uncontrolled medium
and so there are no standards. It is
important that researchers be very
critical of the information they find
online.
Some main points to keep in mind are:
– Authorship
– Accuracy
– Reliablity
– Purpose / Scope
– Objectivity
– Currency

39. Authorship- Who is Responsible?
Before accepting the information located on
a site as fact, you should know who is
responsible for putting it together.
• Is the author identified? What can you
find out about the author?
• Is there contact information such as an
email address?
• Is there biographical information linked to
the document indicating the author’s
credentials?
• Can you locate any information about the
author- from a professor or in a library?
If you are unable to verify the legitimacy of
your source, you should re-consider using
the site as a source.

40. Accuracy- How Reliable is the Information?
• Has the author included a bibliography of the
works that they cited in preparing the
document?
• Are statistics and direct quotes clearly
referenced?
• Are there grammatical errors?
• Is there an explanation of how the data was
gathered?
• Can you find another source to verify the
information?
• How stable is the site?

41. Reliability
• What does the URL tell you about the
site?
• Is an author listed on a Web site?
What evidence is given for the writer’s
authority on the topic?
• Is the site dated? Last update?
• What kind of links to other sites?

42. Purpose / Scope
• Can you identify the reason for
the site’s existence?
• Is it clear what information is
included and why?
• Are the links appropriate to the
subject?

43. Objectivity
• It is important to consider that neutral information
can be difficult to locate. There are questions you
can ask yourself in order to help you identify the
bias.
• Can you identify the reason for the page’s
existence? What are the goals of the page?
• Is there advertising on the page? If so, is it
appropriate for the subject?
• What opinions or biases are expressed by the
author?
• Who is the intended audience for the page?

44. Currency of the
Information
• The currency of the information can be
crucial to its accuracy and reliability.
• Can you identify when the site was last
updated?
• Is there a date provided of when the
information was published?
• How updated are the links?
• What do the dates of the references
reveal about the currency of the
information?

45. How to cite Internet sources
• American Psychological Association
• http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.htm
• Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgement
• Maintained by Dartmouth College, this site
offers examples of many different citation
styles.
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/contents.html
• The National Library of Canada guide to citing
electronic sources
• http://nlc-bnc.ca/services/eciting.htm

46. Free Resources for Education!
• You can get free online journals with
full text articles here:
http://www.lcls.lib.il.us/ste/ejournals.htm
http://www.library.wwu.edu/ref/subjguides/ed/edfreejrnls.htm
http://libwww.syr.edu/research/internet/education/ejournals.html
http://www.nationalforum.com/index.html
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/kholmes/libguides/edjournals.html
http://nhncml.leidenuniv.nl/nhnlibrary/Free%20online%20journals.htm
http://edu38.lehman.cuny.edu:300/curriculum/journals.htm
http://www.nationalforum.com/index.html
They cover almost every cluster of education discipline! You can
print, or download almost all the articles immediately!