IENG 423 Design of Decision Support Systems Internet as a Decision Support Tool 6/8/ Internet as a Decision Support Tool

Planning your searches Plan your searches Be specific and use multiple keywords If you are searching for German shepherds in West Virginia, you will get better results using the terms German shepherd and West Virginia than if you just searched using the term dogs. Try searching for different terms and synonyms. If car doesn’t work, try searching for automobile. 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Fine-tuning your terms Use phrases and quotation marks “Springfield, Illinois” will return pages that reference only Springfield, Illinois with the words in that specific order. Negative terms Virus –computer will find pages that mention the word virus but not the word computer. AND and OR queries Most search engines automatically insert the word AND between phrases (which is why quotation marks are useful) so there is no need to type it in the search engine. OR is useful for searching for more than one term, such as West Virginia University OR WVU. 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Keeping your search useful Google ignores common terms such as where and how, as well as single digits and letters. It is not case sensitive. Typing aNoThEr pHrAse will return the same results as another phrase. To search for Roman numerals or a common word, either use quotations or the + sign. “Star Wars I” and Star Wars +I will return about the same results. Use the site command football site:wvu.edu will return pages that reference football, but only on WVU servers. 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Using Google Groups What is a Google Group? A user-owned group, which allows you to manage and archive your mailing list, communicate and collaborate with other people in the group Located at with links and instructions to create your own group (or join an existing one) Some useful ways to use Google Groups are:  Organizing meetings, conferences, or social events  Collaborate on projects or pages using customizable wiki pages and file storage sections  Stay in touch with multiple people at once 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Getting smart with Google Scholar Where do I find Google Scholar? What sources is it looking at? Includes peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and other scholarly literature from academic publishers and professional societies, and also from scholarly articles available on the internet 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

More on Google Scholar What do I use it for? Good for finding papers, abstracts, and citations A great way to search for diverse sources from one place Provides full-text sources on the web, as well as locates the complete paper in your library What advantages does it offer? For each piece that it locates, Google scholar shows the title, other papers that have cited the article, related articles,and library links for electronic and physical papers Allows you to search by title, author, and category, as well as within specific publications 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Google News News from around the world Targeted to your country Quick samples from many news sources Can follow links for more information News from different countries

Google Products Shopping for something? Products gives you a lot of way to shop around before buying

Google Patents Allows you to search patent databases Valuable for exploring an idea for a product

Google’s Language Tools Translate text from foreign language sources Translate webpages To/From many languages So, lets try something from Google News

For more information… Try using Google’s help features. The search engine’s help page can be found at and from there, more advanced search tips are available. 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Alternate databases Visit the WVU Libraries website at Retrieve peer-reviewed articles in full text Use the information you find here to look for other sources and articles Use the full-text databases, such as NexisLexis These are good for contemporary, straight-forward information Other databases are available at 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Databases There are hundreds, thousands of databases on the Internet The Internet Movie DataBase Search for movies by  Title  Cast/Director/Characters  Plot  Quote Search TV shows, computer games

Databases National Data Buoy Center Downloadable data from coastal buoys Fuel Economy Data for Vehicles Gasoline and Diesel Fuel prices Download weekly gasoline prices w.htm w.htm Electricity Rates

Databases Federal Reserve data hoose.aspx?rel=G.19 hoose.aspx?rel=G.19 Stock quotes Directly into MS Excel  amilyID=485FCCD B939- 3BF0A740A9B1&displaylang=en#QuickInfoContainer amilyID=485FCCD B939- 3BF0A740A9B1&displaylang=en#QuickInfoContainer 0&e=23&f=2008&g=d&s=f 0&e=23&f=2008&g=d&s=f

Databases Nutrition data Find nutritional information about food Try it out… Vehicle Crash Test Data Check out your car or a friends car Car recalls

Web Services A number of organizations offer data through web services Web service is a remote application (offered by some other organization) … You can write webpage applications that will contact, request and obtain services (usually data) from the remote service What does this mean for you?

Web Services Amazon Google / / Ebay NOAA – National Weather Service Try it

Some things to think about When researching topics on the web, some things to consider are: Not all information is good information Who is the page’s author? Is the source credible? Sites like will have more accurate information than sites like How current is the information? Sites that have not been updated since 1998 are less likely to have accurate information. Search engines are unfiltered and thus return all results that may not include results that are objective or even accurate. Think about the possible biases that could be portrayed and whether the information and data is authentic. You can double-check your information against multiple sources if you are unsure of their authenticity or accuracy. 6/8/ Day 2: Tips on Search Wisely

Have a nice day! That’s all I have to say about that