Web & Databases Dania Bilal IS 530 Fall 2006
The Web Heterogeneous Dynamic Instant gratification Exploration & discovery Convenient & challenging Hypertext & hypermedia cognitive overload Disorientation
The Web Full-text documents can be downloaded at no cost Scholarly and non-scholarly information Hard to find information can be found Not all information is found on the Web Virtual reference sources Virtual reference assistance
The Web Authority of information Information literacy Inappropriate materials Evaluation of information is a must Information literacy Distinguishing among engines/directories Searching vs. browsing Evaluating, synthesizing, and using information effectively and efficiently
The Web Plagiarism Relevance judgment Social and other issues User-based System-based Social and other issues
The Web Mental maturity Reading vs. skimming texts Youth have high confidence in finding information on the Web Reading vs. skimming texts
Web Databases Lacks structure (no thesauri, controlled vocabulary, etc.) Lacks authority Sponsored sites Well-structured (thesauri, controlled vocabulary, metadata standards, etc.) Authoritative No sponsored sites
Web Databases Information overload Engines more general in nature Cognitive overload Gratification Engines more general in nature Item availability is questionable (dead links, error codes) Information overload Cognitive overload varies Gratification Many specialized databases Item availability depends on link resolver, policy?
Engines & Directories Crawler-based search engines Human-based web directories Hybrid search engines Mixed results from crawler- and human-based
How Search Engines Work? Crawler or spider Visits a Web page Reads a Web page Follows link on a Web page Spider returns to site on a regular basis for changes
How Search Engines Work? Gathered information goes to the database Information is indexed Matching algorithm Matches a user query to information in database
Blogs & Wikis Blog Wiki Go to Google and look up define:blog Go to Google and look up define:wiki
Search Engine Resources http://searchenginewatch.com/ http://searchengineshowdown.com Search features Search engine news Statistics Reviews of search engines Search strategies
Research Read this article http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3598011 Reports on search behavior of Web users