Week 7 Endnote

Lecture

In today's lecture we learnt how, why and when to use End Note. It stores and remembers information so you don’t have to retype a reference once it has been entered. The program allows you to choose your own reference format; the format that was relevant for me was APA 5th, which automatically presented the reference list in alphabetical order.

Tutorial


To use End Note you need it to be easily accessible. The program is available at ECU for free and you can download form the ECU library site.Once End Note is opened you choose the type of reference you want it to do i.e. book, journal, article etc. Once that is selected a page will appear with a section for each bit of information needed to successfully reference a text. Once all the required information is entered to view it in a sentence you just close it and highlight it. It will then appear across the bottom of the page, automatically in the correct format for ECU. To add the reference to a Word document copy the sentence and then paste it into the document.
In this weeks tutorial we had a number of references, we had to work out what type they were, and then enter them using an endnote. An example of how it turned out is located below.

The second task was to open the Cite while writing Endnote exercises. The aim was where ever there was red italic writing, read the writing then follow the instruction it was asking of you. You had to use Endnote to fill in these blanks with the references you found in the previous exercise. Here is the screen capture of my word document Cite.

The five different type of electronic format and reference are

1. Website:Technical specifications (iPhone). [n.d.] Retrieved November, 2007, from Apple: http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
   
2. Periodical:VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.
   
3. Computer Software:Computer literacy for nurses [Computer software]. (1985). Edwardsville, Kansas: Medi-sim.
   
4. Email:Office of Research and Development. (1995). ARC large grant guidelines. Email December 2, 1995, from mailto:t.lampard@cowan.edu.au/Get%20ARCLG95
   
5. eBook:Wilkinson, R., & Marmot, M. (Eds.). (2003). Social determinants of health: The solid facts (2nd ed.). Retrieved December 2, 2007, from http://www.euro.who.int/document/e81384.pdf

Reading 1 summary

In this weeks readings we had to read up on the guide to EndNote software (ECU's guide). It gives us a bit of background on what EndNote actualy is and then goes on from there into detail about the many functions. it helped me figure out how to do my workshop succesfuly.

Reading 2 summary

The second reading consists of additional reading on EndNote. Within this it contains frequently asked questions, issues, extra downloads, guides and tips. I find that this sort of thing can be very useful as you should know as much as you can of a software so as to use it to achieve great benefits.

Week 6 Evaluation & Authentication

Lecture

This week lecture is about evaluation and authentication. The slides just briefly explain how to find quality information on the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web IQ has two context and they are open protocols and open architecture. Open protocols is convenient for exchanging information and anyone with the access to a computer can create a web content. But open architecture has no enforceable quality control and the dynamic/fluid content structure causes error. The IQ has no control of who publishes on the World Wide Web why they publish it and what is published. There are five ways of evaluating the internet these are accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage.

Tutorial

For this week tutorial we had to view the following two WebPages.
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html
http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm.

We were asked to compare the differences between the two websites and to briefly describe the criteria’s in the website which is accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage.

When investigating a website you should consider the following six suggestions.
1. Authority - Make sure you are in the right place. You need to know who the author is and check for their educational background if it’s available.

2. Accuracy - Make sure that the website information is reliable and the documents are factual.

3. Objectivity - You need to recognize purpose of the site, what are their intentions? What are they trying to accomplish?

4. Currency - You must make sure if the site is updated daily, monthly and yearly. Not all WebPages are updated regularly, so it’s best to check when it is last updated.

5. Coverage - Check if the site is designed for educational or entertainment purpose. Check if the site provides you information based on your topic.

6. Value – you should check if the web information is supportive. Check for grammar and spelling errors.

The two websites are very similar I didn’t notice the difference between the two. They both offer information and guides to a successful research.
However this site http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm gives detail on the domain type and the meaning.
Domain Type .com............ ...a commercial business, organization, or company
.edu ...............an educational institution
.int................an international organization
.gov ...............a nonmilitary government entity
.mil............. ..a military organization
.net...............other organizations: nonprofit, nonacademic
.uk, .au, .us etc...... Country codes denoting servers found in other countries.

We were then asked to evaluate the two websites using the steps we have written above. The website that I choose evaluate is the American Cultural History: 1960 -1969. This website is basically about some of the events that occurred in America during 1960-1969 and the way it changed the way we live today. It has information on Important Historic and Cultural Events such as 1961 - Peace Corps created by Pres. Kennedy, 1963 - Martin Luther King and his I have a dream speech, 1963 - Pres. John F. Kennedy and his assassination in Dallas, Texas and much more. This website looks accurate to me and it is well written. It was last updated in December 2006 by Susan Goodwin. It has author’s details and contact number so it’s trustworthy.

The second website that i evaluate was The Psychedelic'60s.
This site was madeby the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia". From reading through some of the links from the home page I think most of the infomation on this page maynot be all completely factual and probably not a very good source of infomation but i also don't believe that all the infomation on the site is unture. I think that this site was put together by students and is mainly made up of stories and interviews from people who lived in that generation.

Week Five Using Search Engines

Lecture


This week in lecture, we had to answer five questions. The questions were related to the use of search engines. Search engine is a web based program designed to search information for you. The problem is that most of the times it misuse the page scoring/ranking system. The most popular search engines are Google, yahoo and ninemsn.
Of the 9.4 billon searches performed:
– Google 57%
– Yahoo 23.7%
– Microsoft 10.3%
– Ask 4.7%
– Time Warner including AOL 4.5%.
Google is used the most which is not that surprising to me because Google is the search engine I use majority of the time when I’m doing research.



Tutorial
In tutorial we had to go on this website http://www.monash.com/spidap.html and list four strategies that will help us to structure a good search.
1. One of the tips I got is that it’s best to visit Web directory if I were to be interested in general information. But if I’m after specific information a web search engine would be a better choice.
2. Try to use a lot of unique words and phrase searching.
3. Focus on your field search by subject.
4. Use multiple step approach – can be several clicks to an answer

Afterwards I was required to visit www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/historytrivia/ and answer the History trivia online quiz.

I had no clue on some of the question they asked so I used the search engines to find out the answers. I used the technique that I developed in question one to get the necessary information for the answer.
Todays task has given me a knowledge on how to search for information on the net. When i start doing my degree hopefully next semester I will search for information on the net with ease.

Reading1 Robert Harris Web Search Strategies

The first reading for this week explains a few problems that accurse on the internet and the information that exists on it and it also talks about libraries. The bad thing about the internet is that many people make up websites and puts incorrect information on it. I don’t really know why they do that but they do. With library its deferent no one has access to put wrong information in and it’s organized. They have deferent sections for fictions and nonfictions so you can search for information easier and quicker and get the correct information.
Reading 1 also suggests that it’s better to know one search engine well rather then searching for information all over the net.

Reading 2 The History of the Internet: (Chap 4 - Search Engines)

Reading two briefly explains the WAIS which stands for Wide Area Information Server and that WAIS is linked up to 600 databases around the world which is incredible. Also reading two informs the reader that the first search engine was made for finding and retrieving computer files and it just cover the history of the net.

week Four Using the WWW

Lecture

Today in lecture we looked at internet vs web plus historical perspective of the web.
The difference between the two is that on the net you find computers and the connections are cables between the computers. Internet was first to arrive and it was back in 1965 and in those days they used dial up telephone line.
Then years later the web arrived. On the web you get information and the connections are hypertext links. It was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 reason for this is to make sharing information easier.

We then looked at web protocol, browsers and the World Wide Web.
The web is information in stored on to the computers around the world so it can be accessed throughout the universe.
The followings are the World Wide Web Protocols
TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
It is used to communicate between each other.
HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol
This is the visible part of the Internet.
DNS – Domain Name System
This is a source of the www.
URL – Uniform/Universal Resource Locator

The Web Browsers is a program that allows users to access and look at the pages of the World-wide Web.


Tutorial

The first task is to visit these three website.www.martinlutherking.org
www.haggishunt.scotsman.com www.molossia.org.
We suppose to do this exercise with a partner with a partner but since we didn’t have class we had to do it alone.
The four clues that are noticeable are currency, objective, accuracy and authority


Then afterwards before visiting the website we are asked to write down in our learning log what we expect to find based on the URL. What I expect from the site is to see a picture of MLK, and his famous speech such as “I Have a Dream” and also a brief history of him.

After visiting the website I was shocked by some of the things they said about him. For example they said that the day before his death he hired prostitute and beat them to death. By reading that comment I realized that this webpage is fake because I have a general knowledge of him and also this page does not have author, publisher or the date of first published.