Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
Bing
Bing is a search engine owned by Microsoft. It is the successor to Microsoft’s earlier search engine Live search and was launched in June 2009.
Bing is a competitor to Google and Microsoft has said it should be seen as a “Decision Engine” instead of a search engine.
One nice thing about Bing is that it each day changes the background image on the search page. The motives are often famous places in the world.
You can read more about Bing and the various functions on the site Discover Bing.
Try Bing and compare it with Google – what differences exist? When seeking information it is important to search different search engines and databases to get as good results as possible.
Link tip – the site Bing vs. Google compares the two search engines.
/Ted Gunnarsson
2009-12-15
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a search engine that specializes in finding scholarly literature on the World Wide Web. Through the user-friendly interface you can search the web for peer-reviewed papers and articles, theses, books, abstracts, citations and other scholarly literature from many different areas of research.
The big advantage of using Google Scholar compared to ordinary Google is that much irrelevant information is filtered away. For example, if you search Google Scholar for the word “fuzzy” you’ll get articles about the topic “fuzzy logic” on the first page. On the other hand, if you search Google using the same word you’ll get pages featuring the comic “Get Fuzzy” starring the cat Bucky and the dog Satchel. As you can see from this example, searching Google Scholar can be well worth a try if you are looking for scholarly literature.
Advanced search
If you choose “Advanced Scholar Search” you’ll be able to search more specific by making certain selections and adjustments. You can, for example, narrow down your search by choosing to only display hits which include material published in a certain journal, articles written by a specific author or literature from a certain year. You can also restrict your search to a specific subject area, for example “Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities”.
If you know the title of the article you are looking for, you can enter it in the search box called “Find articles with the exact phrase”. This means Google Scholar will search for documents containing precisely the words (and in that order) that you type in.
Be sure to remember that if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for it is always best to start searching wide. Use one or two search terms initially to get a wide range of results. As you progress in your search you can begin searching more specifically by adding more search terms or other limitations to your search.
Interpret the search result
When you search Google Scholar you’ll get a list of hits, just like in Google. However, the hit list in Google Scholar includes a number of different links which can be useful to become familiar with. This picture shows the first hit in the following search: ”a new look at fuzzy connectives”.
1. Title
This links to the abstract of the article in question, or if the article is available on the Web, the full version of it.
2. Group of
Through this link you’ll get a list of other articles in the same group of documents, possibly preliminary versions, which may be accessible. Examples include preprints, abstracts or conference papers.
3. Information about the document (green text)
Here you can usually find the name of the author, which publication the document was published in and which year it’s from.
4. Cited by
This link shows a list of other documents that have cited articles in the group.
5. Related articles
Here you’ll find a list of other documents that are similar to the articles in this group.
6. Web search
Performs a search on the Web with the information from this hit. This means a search will be conducted on Google with the authors name combined with the title of the article.
7. Import to EndNote (requires certain configuration)
If you are using a reference management system, for example EndNote, you’ll be able to import your search results directly from Google Scholar. Click the link “Scholar Preferences” on the Google Scholar start page and scroll down to the section called “Bibliography Manager”. Click the button next to “Show links to import citations into” and choose your reference management system in the menu.
Don’t forget to save your preferences when you are done! The next time you search Google Scholar you’ll see a link below each hit which will allow you to import the search result to your chosen reference management system. If you chose EndNote the link will be named “Import to EndNote” as in the example above. Note that as a student at BTH you have free access to a version of EndNote called EndNoteWeb.
8. SFX@Blekinge
If you click the SFX-link you’ll get information about how you can access the document through the BTH university library. As a student you’ll often have access to the full text-version of the document if the SFX-link is located right next to the document title. On the other hand, if the SFX-link is located in the lower row of links, the document is usually not available in full text. In these cases you can use the SFX-link instead to order the document from the library. Note that there are exceptions to this rule, so be certain to try the SFX-link if you find a document you want to access.
How is the search result ranked in Google Scholar?
The hits are ranked after relevance, which means the most useful hit should appear at the top of the list. Google Scholar bases the ranking of the documents on how often they have been cited by others, which publication it has been published in, the contents of the text and on who the author is.
How do I access the documents?
Students and staff at BTH that log on using this Web address will have access to the full text resources of the university library through Google Scholar: http://miman.bib.bth.se/login?url=http://scholar.google.se/
Always use the link SFX@Blekinge if it is available in the hit list, as you’ll then automatically be linked to the full text version of the document. Note that not all documents are available in full text despite the fact that there is a SFX-link present. In these cases you have the option of requesting a copy of the document by filling out the form you reach through the link “Request document via your library”.
Tips
- When searching for information you should always endeavor to use several different information sources in order to get an encompassing search result. It isn’t unusual for a certain article to be available in full text in one database, while it is only available as an abstract in another. Therefore, Google Scholar is suitable to use as a complement to other information sources, like more subject-specific databases or library catalogues.
- Google Scholar is very useful for finding complete references to articles. For example, if you have the title of an article but don’t know which journal it was published in or which year it’s from you can, with the help of Google Scholar, often find the information you need.
- Using a reference management system like EndNote can make things a lot easier when writing a paper or thesis. Google Scholar includes a function which helps you import your search results to your computer in a simple way. A description on how to activate this function is given earlier in this text.
- There are more search engines than Google Scholar that specializes in finding scientific material on the Web. Try searching several to see how the search result differs between them. Read more about this in the section about Scientific resources.
Links
/Ted Gunnarsson
2008-12-11
Internet – introduction
It is treacherously easy to find information on the Internet, you will always find something. But surfing through numerous amounts of not so great search results is not very nice and above all very time consuming. Making more effective searches is fully possible though, by learning to handle the search tools better.
In this section about the Internet we will deal with different types of search engines and subject catalogues. We will discuss the invisible web and how to navigate there.
Scientific resources are given a special episode, and so is social navigation.
How can you tell if the information you find on the Internet is reliable?
Are there any tips on how to evaluate information critically?
Laws and regulations for publishing and using material on the Internet are also treated.
Read more:
Eva Norling
2005-06-21
Internet law
The Internet is no free zone from laws valid in different countries. On the contrary our doings on the Internet are complicated because of the fact that it is a global system and we do not always share law systems or other codes for what is moral behaviour. It is important though to assume that the laws that apply to our daily life are also valid on the Internet.
The Personal Data Act
The Personal Data Act (SFS 1998:204) allows the publishing of certain personal data on the Internet, on condition that the data is permitted for use according to the Personal Data Act. In the following text I will refer to the Personal Data Act using the Swedish abbreviation PuL. Use of personal data involves e.g. collecting, registering, storing and treating information about one or several persons, regardless of whether this is done with the help of a computer or in a hand-written register.
Harmless information
PuL approves of the publishing of harmless information on the Internet without the consent of the person registered. According to PuL, information should not really be transferred to other countries than those which can guarantee sufficient protection for the information, thus with the exception of harmless information. The question then is, what is harmless information? This can really only be determined from case to case and the starting point of such an estimation should be that the information should not be experienced as offending for the registered person.
It is thus recommended to be very cautious and to be on the safe side the information provider should still ask the consent of the person concerned.
Journalistic purposes
When personal records are published for journalistic purposes special rules apply. In those cases the only requirement is that PuL’s safety rules are met. PuL gives room for use for journalistic purposes, such as information for the public, so that this is possible without being prevented by the law. However, the exception does not apply to information of private character.
Consent
If the person the information concerns has given his consent to publishing on the Internet, and was capable of assessing pros and cons, publishing is in order. Consent can be said to exist when the registered person voluntarily and clearly has given his consent to being registered. Consent does not have to be in writing, but it is recommended.
The workplace and the university college
It is permitted for employers to publish information such as names, telephone numbers, e-mail and such without the employee’s consent. If on the other hand the employer wants to publish photos or home addresses, the persons concerned must approve of this. The same rules apply for e.g. personal data about students at a university college. Read more about what special rules apply for university colleges in the Legal handbook (in Swedish.)
Photographs
If for example you want to publish photos of classmates on the Internet you must get their approval first. A photo can be said to be information which can be connected directly to a person and therefore requires consent from the registered person. Photos are considered as personal records even if no name is connected to the photo.
Associations
A register of the members in an association are normally considered harmless information. It might be good to bear in mind that many people do not wish to display for example their home address and phone number, and therefore one should obtain their consent before publishing.
Private registration
PuL’s rules do not comprise private use of personal data. Publishing on the Internet can not be considered as private use however since the information can be viewed by a global audience. You can read more about The Personal Data Act at the web site of The Swedish Data Inspection Board.
Kent Pettersson
2006-02-06
Copyright – Internet
Copyright also comprise documents which are published on the Internet. This means that the copyright limits the rights for how you can use documents on the Internet, even if you have access to them from your computer.
Copyright and the Internet
When a computer user copies and permanently stores a work protected by copyright this means that it is a production of a copy. To multiply documents on the Internet therefore requires the permission of the copyright owner. The automatic, temporary copy that many computer programs produce when the computer user reads a document on the internet is not considered to be a reproduction however.
An Internet user has the right to make a copy of an Internet document without the permission of the copyright owner, on condition that the copy is for personal use or a small circle of family and friends. The copy must not be used for other purposes. This exception does not concern computer programs. They must not be copied.
The right to quote means it is permitted to cite from a copyright protected document on the Internet, under the presupposition that it is done according to good practice and only to the extent that is motivated by the purpose. The source must be stated correctly and the quote must not be too long. However, you must not use e.g. a quote from a work of fiction in an advertisement or to sweeten your own work.
Copyright and full text resources
Copyright also comprises those resources available in full text from the Library web site. The regulations that apply to those resources Blekinge Institute of Technology subscribes to are specified in special license agreements.
Generally speaking, these rules can be summarized according to the following:
“This service includes licensed data only intended for use in scientific work, research, education and for personal use. To alter, make compilations, copy system- or software, resell, redistribute, publish or republish data is not permitted.”
For further information about copyright see:
Section Research – part Copyright in the Search guide
Anne-Marie Pettersson
2010-02-08
Scientific resources
Finding scientific material on the Internet can sometimes seem like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but if you have the right tools and search in the right places you will find a lot of highly interesting material available for free.
Despite the fact that the original idea of the Internet was to form a network between scientists’ computers it can still be difficult to find relevant information, because the Internet contains incredibly much more information than you need just at the moment.
There are a couple of search engines that only search web sites published by colleges/universities and research institutes.
Scirus
Choose “all web sources” if you want to search for web sites with free scientific resources
OAIster
Seeks free digital resources in research archives among other places.
Google Scholar (beta)
Seeks scientific resources on the web
Live Academic Search
Seeks scientific resources on the web
See also the texts about scientific publishing and free scientific resources in the Research section. The section Database guide discusses the licensed databases libraries pay for, in order to provide access for students and staff.
Access is controlled by BTH’s IP-numbers, but if you are using a computer off campus you can still access the resources by proxy login. These licensed resources are available on the Internet, that is true, but you can not access them freely.
The changing face of the scholarly web
Here you can compare the search engine Google Scholar with the medical reference database Medline:
Eva Norling
2005-06-21
Social software
Web sites that are built on Social Software allow users to help each other find information and give tips on things you like or things to avoid.
Tags
The keywords that are listed here are the most frequently used on the Internet when it comes to different types of social software. Below there is also a list of explanations of the most well-known web sites.
Social Navigation
Techniques that allow users to grade and write reviews on items such as books, CDs, washing machines and MP3-players, are regarded as social navigation.
Collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering is what you usually call algorithms that take information from users (like which type of music you prefer) and give suggestions of other things you might like. This way the system can see that for example 500 people like a certain CD and give suggestions of other CDs they might like to each of them, since for example 250 of those 500 also had another artist as her favourite.
Folksonomy
Folksonomy means that it is the users who classify, or name the contents on for example pictures on Flickr. If I want to search for a picture with cats sitting in a basin I can easily do this with the help of picture tags. Besides Flickr, it was the bookmark site Delicious who built this technique – see below.
Tag
A tag is the same thing as a keyword.
Tagcloud
On several of the big web sites that apply folksonomy it is possible to view your tags in a so called tagcloud. It is like a kind of table of contents, but all the tags are lined up in the same way as in an ordinary text. Tags come in different sizes depending on how many posts (pictures etc) they are connected to. They can also come in different colours and transparency. It is quite simply a visual representation of a user’s tags. When you click on a tag you get a list of all the posts you have assigned that tag to.
RSS
RSS is an important part of most social software. RSS makes it possible to exchange information between systems, see for example TagCloud below. For more basic information about RSS, see the glossary.
Special web sites
The systems mentioned here are examples of how social software can work, but they are also the most notable systems when it comes to the use of this technology. They are most frequently mentioned in texts about social software.
Amazon.com
Amazon is probably one of the web sites that have been most important for the development of systems for social navigation. Here users can write reviews on books, CDs and other items. You can also grade and see the average grade for each product. One of the characteristic functions is called “listmania”. People create lists of products, mainly books and CDs, in their field of interest.
Pricerunner
Pricerunner is a web site which mainly compares the price of different articles, but it also contains reader-reviews of the products. Another great feature is consumers’ opinions about the stores that sell the articles. Stores are graded on the following criteria: Total grade, Delivery on time, would you shop here again.
CINT
Swedish website for consumers. If for example you are going to buy a new camera you can go to this website and see what other people have written about the camera you want to buy. You can see if it was a man or a woman who commented, and the age of the person. Each person gives the product a grade and a short review. The grades are then aggregated so that you can see the average grade and compare different products.
Delicious (del.icio.us)
Delicious is a system for managing bookmarks (Microsoft calls them favourites) in a web environment. It is very easy to create bookmarks which are saved on your account at Delicious so that you can access them from all computers. You can also share these bookmarks with others and search among other people’s bookmarks. Delicious is based on tags instead of hierarchical categories. Together with Flickr, Delicious was one of the first web systems who started to apply “Folksonomy”.
Flickr
Flickr was one of the first systems who started to use folksonomy with tags and tag clouds. You can keep your photo albums on Flickr. You tag the photos, and you can create tag clouds with the help of the tags. You can also search among other people’s tags.
Technorati
Technorati is a kind of search engine for blogs. The search is made with tags. You have an account where you subscribe to information based on certain tags or a combination of tags. You can get the information directly in Technorati’s interface or via RSS.
Tagcloud
www.tagcloud.com creates a ”tagcloud” based on the keywords in your RSS-feeds. You can for example create a tagcloud based on words and terms which occur in your favourite blogs.
Librarything
Keep your bookshelf online and share it with others. Books are categorized with tags like in Flickr or del.icio.us. Search other peoples bookshelves with tags. You can easily import books from Amazon.com.
GigerBlog
GigerBlog is my blog. I write quite a lot about social software there, especially the type that has lately been known as Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a new way of thinking about web development, partly regarding the user interface, but especially regarding business models. One of the core elements of web 2.0 is that which is often called collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is based on user participation and smart algorithms (often like Collaborative Filtering). I like to call this type of intelligence “hybrid intelligence”.
Peter Giger
2005-12-10
The invisible web
The invisible (hidden or deep) web is not reached through search engines. Instead you must search directly on the web site where the information exists.
Search engines can not search the whole Internet. What is not reached though search engines, but is still available on the Internet is called the invisible web (also known as the hidden or deep web). In some cases this is due to the fact that search engines do not want to index “everything”. The biggest search engine has approximately 15-20 % coverage.
Among other things, the invisible web consists of:
- Pages without links. Search engines (the spiders) can not reach a page which is not linked.
- Pages that require you to login. Many websites demand login despite having free contents.
- Hidden pages. By simple html-code you can reject the indexing of the search engines.
- Dynamic web sites. Information that exists in databases and is published as an answer to a search query. E.g.:
Reference databases
Fact search tools
Timetables
Weather forecasts
Library catalogues (exception: Yahoo has indexed Open WorldCat, ca. 2 milj. titles)
The invisible web also consists of pages which are not indexed for economical reasons. Search engines index at different depths, sometimes maybe only one or two catalogues. Then the other files are left out. File formats which can be difficult to read, e.g. Flash or sound- and film files without relevant text markup can also be said to be part of the invisible web.
As the Internet develops and we get new services and file formats the capacity of the search engines also increases or new ones are created. There are already search tools which search for and in blogs, RSS-feeds and Podcasts.
Eva Norling
2005-06-22
Internet directories
One attempt to structure the web is being done in the Internet directories where you get lists of selected links sorted by subject. In some subject portals they also examine the quality of the links – use them firstly.
An Internet directory sorts web sites after what subject they treat. Searching among a limited selection of especially good resources in an Internet directory often pays off well.
RASK
Is an Internet directory with quality checked links for web sites and web documents in the humanities, social science, law and gender science. The purpose of the portal is to make firstly Swedish and Nordic, but also to some extent foreign Internet resources more accessible. Mainly free Internet resources are registered. The main target group for RASK is students and other people working in research and higher education at Swedish universities and colleges.
Intute
The Intute (UK) is a selection of quality assessed Internet resources suitable for higher education. You can either go directly to your subject field or search among the descriptions for a particular resource. YOu can browse this subjects in Intute:
- * Agriculture, food, and forestry
* Architecture and planning
* Biological sciences
* Business and management studies
* Communication and media studies
* Creative and performing arts * Education and research methods
* Engineering
* Geography and environment
* Humanities
* Law
* Mathematics and computer science
* Medicine including dentistry
* Modern languages and area studies
* Nursing, midwifery and allied health
* Physical sciences
* Psychology
* Social sciences
* Veterinary medicine
INFOMINE
Infomine (US) is a collection of selected Internet resources for academic uses. Web sites, databases, e-journals, bulletin boards, listservs, articles and other types of information are listed.
Search among the resources in different subject areas. Infomine searches in the description of the resource and the first pages of the full text. If the resource is connected to a cost this is marked with a dollar sign $.
- You find a search form in an Internet directory. Where/what are you searching with that form? Is it the resource or the description of it?
Search engines
You can not find everything on the Internet by using search engines and you might ask if that is even desirable. The search engines of the future might rather help us make a good selection than to retrieve as much as possible. There is also an important problem to consider here – who decides what the search engines should find??
Search engines consist of three parts:
- Spider
- Index
- Search interface
The spider seeks out and collects web pages. The spider also checks if the page has been visited before and if the content is updated (sometimes also how often the page is updated – the more updates, the more spider visits). The spider also makes queue lists of the links it encounters. Those pages are sought out and collected later.
The search engines’ spider programs have certain limits to their collecting. Sometimes pages that are too deep down in the file structure are left and sometimes the spider’s collecting is limited when pages are too big (file size).
You can report a new web site to the search engines for collecting if you do not want to wait for the spider to come. And, if for some reason you do not want to be seen in the search engine you can specify this in a text file (robots.txt) on the web site.
In the indexing process the web pages are analyzed in order to see what information from the page should be indexed in the database. It can for example be words and phrases, metadata, file format, file size, date for collection, and language. Information about on what web sites the words occur must also be indexed, and for advanced search also where on the page the words are placed, e.g. title, body matter, Internet address or link text.
The problem with information seeking on the Internet is that the information is not structured. If people had indexed descriptions of the web pages in a more structured way from the start by using meta data, it would have facilitated information seeking on the Internet considerably. The title of the web site, author, date, subject words, description, file format and language are some examples of meta data that would have made searches much easier and effective.
The search interface is what most often comes to mind when you speak of search engines. This is where you pose your question by entering a number of words in a search form. The question is sent to the search engine’s index of all the web pages the spider has collected for the enormous database of the search engine. (Google has an index of more that 8 billion web pages)
The advanced search function offers a form that can simplify more complex searches. Take a closer look at that page, because it will reveal the possibilities of the search engine. Pay attention to what is hidden behind tabs, pull down menus or links. It can often be special search functions such as picture search, groups, categories, news etc.
The result list
The result of your search query is shown in a list of results where, among other things, you can see how many results you got, the title of the web page, and an excerpt from the page where you can see your search terms in their context. The presentation of the search result is important. If you get thousands of answers for your search query, in what order should the results be sorted? Should they be sorted alphabetically or by date or are there other ways? Sorting the results in some sort of ranking is easier said than done, because what factors should be weighed in and how important should they be considered? The occurrence and placement of the search terms and how many other (highly ranked) web sites link to the page are vital factors for the ranking algorithm. Many search tools try to find other ways to present the result list. Nowadays you can get the search result visualized or clustered, and at the same time get tips on how to improve your searches.
Secret algorithms
The algorithm that decides how the search engines rank the web pages in the result list is a well kept trade secret. To get a high (the highest) ranking in the result list is important because it is known that many searchers choose one of the links at the top of the list. Unfortunately the ranking war does not lead to better descriptions for the web pages and thereby making them more easily searchable, but rather the contrary. Misuse and sabotage increase the difficulty of finding the right information.
Criticism increases for search engines and their position of power. Who controls the information and how it should be searched/found/displayed? Should the algorithm be secret? Can you buy a better placement in the result list by advertising? Should there be censor for certain search terms? Are the “global search engines” really global? Can a search engine give penalty for certain pages? Should governments be allowed to decide what words their citizens can use for search terms?
– Discuss the search engines and the secret algorithm; who makes the decisions?
Tips and tricks
A list of different types of search engines is available on the library web site.
- Learn one search engine really well.
- Use and analyze the advanced search form and investigate what special facilities are hidden behind flaps and links.
- Choose a number of other search engines with good special functions which you can use for a comparison of the results. There is a surprisingly small overlap between the different search tools’ coverage.
- Keep up-to-date by reading a news service on Internet search tools regularly.
Test this yourself by using the same search terms in the search engines below and compare the search results:
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About Googles searchengine Googlebot
Eva Norling
2006-06-21
