1 AuthorAID Workshop on Research Writing Ethiopia November 2011

2 Effective Use of Electronic Information Resources Accessible to Ethiopian Scientists Teklemichael Wordofa Addis Ababa University Libraries, Ethiopia 2

3 What are E-resources? An electronic resource (e-resource) is an electronic information resource (bibliographic or full-text) that you can access through the Internet. It includes electronic journals, databases and electronic books, websites, subject gateways, etc.

4 Advantages of E-resources Currency and timeliness of the information Ability to do full text searching across a huge number of resources in one go Provision of time-saving features Ability to download, print, or send the desired document instantly Convenience of accessing articles any time from your computer Ability to link directly to additional information

5 Arrangement and Licensing INASP and the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERII) - Supports research sector capacity building by strengthening the production, access and dissemination of information and knowledge Country coordinators, research community and INASP identify resource requirements INASP negotiates access to resources Cost of resources is related to the GDP of the country (98% discounts!)

6 Access Model The resources are available on a country-wide licence basis for: – Academic & Research Institutions – Other non-profit Organizations Institution within the country needs to register itself – CC assist the process

7 Major Resources List - 1 African Journals OnLine (AJOL) : TOCs, abstracts & fulltext from over 400 African journals African Journals OnLine (AJOL) American Chemical Society(ACS) : provides over 35 high quality, high impact journals in the chemical and related sciences. American Chemical Society(ACS) American Institute of Physics (AIP) : AIP publishes over 15 journals, magazines and conference proceedings series. American Institute of Physics (AIP) American Physical Society (APS) : provide access to the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA) and journals produced by APS. American Physical Society (APS American Society of Civil Engineers : ASCE Journals Online provides unprecedented access to 32 journals. American Society of Civil Engineers British Library Document Supply Centre : Online document delivery from over 20,000 journals and other documents British Library Document Supply Centre Cambridge University Press : provides over 230 leading titles in Linguistics, Politics, Medicine, Science, Technology, Social Science and Humanities. Cambridge University Press

8 Major Resources List - 2 EBSCO Host Research Databases : Over 11,000 full text, peer- reviewed journals and over 15,000 abstracted and indexed titles.EBSCO Host Research Databases Emerald Group Publishing Ltd : Emerald features over 150 Business a, Management Engineering journals. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd IOP Publishing : IOPscience provides over 60 of the world's most prestigious journals in physics and related sciences. IOP Publishing JSTOR : is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the scholarly community discover, use, and build upon a wide range of intellectual content in a trusted digital archive. JSTOR Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. : Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. delivers electronic access to peer-reviewed journals in areas of biotechnology, biomedical research/life sciences, clinical medicine and surgery, and law. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishing Group (NPG) : publishes journals and online databases across the life, physical and applied sciences and, most recently, clinical medicine Publishing Group (NPG)

9 Major Resources List - 3 OECD : is the world's largest think-tank, renowned for its authoritative, internationally comparable statistics, analysis, and outlooks in Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences and Environmental issues. OECD Oxford Journals (OUP) : Oxford Journals provides over 200 journals from science, technical, professional, medical, humanities, arts and social science disciplines. Oxford Journals (OUP) Project MUSE : Project MUSE provides online access to almost 500 full-text journals from 140 non-profit publishers in the humanities and social sciences. Project MUSE Taylor & Francis Online Journals : More than 1,300 titles in humanities, social sciences and applied sciences. Taylor & Francis Online Journals University of Chicago Press : UCP provides access to nearly 50 scholarly journals in the fields of social sciences, humanities, education, and biological and physical sciences. University of Chicago Press

10 Major Resources List - 4 Wiley Online Library : Wiley, a leading international resource for scientific, technical, medical and scholarly content providing access to over 1000 leading journals. Wiley Online Library World Bank E-Library - provides access to the following databases: World Bank E-Library – World Development Indicators (WDI) Online Database World Development Indicators (WDI) Online Database – World Bank – Global Economic Monitor World Bank – Global Economic Monitor – World Bank Global Development Finance (GDF) Database World Bank Global Development Finance (GDF) Database – World Bank: Africa Development Indicators World Bank: Africa Development Indicators AAU ETD : AAU ETDhttp://etd.aau.edu.et/Dspace Full List of the resources is available at:

11 Characteristics of the E- Resources Posses basic common functionality – Searchable, browseable – Simple/Advanced search features – Provision of information updates: Alerts (TOC, Keyword) by Personal work spaces

12 Characteristics (continued) Different user interfaces – worth spending some time with system familiarisation prior to information seeking Requires Effective Search Strategy and Technique as Key to effective Use of the Resources

13 Effective Search Strategy Planning Define your information need Decide which sources to use Find out how they function Run your search Review and refine your search

14 Define Your Information Need What sort of information are you looking for? – Specific information, e.g. a fact or date Reference source, e.g. data book, encyclopaedia, dictionary, the Web or even a textbook are usually best. – General information, e.g. research areas May require more thought, including how much information is needed and at what depth

15 Define Your Information Need (continued) Careful choice of search term(s) is vital What key words do you think will appear on the site/article you want? What key concepts is it a part of or related to? Are there any synonyms for these keywords or concepts? Are there any alternative spellings for your keywords/concepts Are plurals or capitalisation involved?

16 Define Your Information Need cont… Example: I want to find information about the health implications of water pollution Keywords–’water’ ‘pollution’ ‘health’ Concepts–‘environmental degradation’ or ‘agricultural management’ or ‘health’ Synonyms rivers, lakes, sea, coastal, ‘domestic water’, etc ‘oil spills’, chemical, biological, etc Alternative spellings: none Plurals: river(s), lake(s), disease(s) Capitals: maybe the name of a specific lake, disease, region

17 Decide Which Sources to Use What sources are appropriate for your information need? Individuals’ and organisations’ home pages Newspapers and magazines Subject gateways, databases, catalogues Journals— abstracts or full text Reference resources, e.g., encyclopaedias, dictionaries Books Grey literature, e.g. government publications Print or electronic

18 Search Functions Electronic search tools may interpret your search terms using Boolean operators Phrase and proximity searching Truncation or wildcard functions Case sensitivity Fields Stop words Relevance sorting

19 Boolean Searching Uses commands (operators) such as: AND, OR, NOT Different search tools may use different symbols AND + NOT – Different search tools may use OR or AND as a default setting

20 Nuclear Radiation Query: I would like information on Nuclear or Radiation

21 Nuclear Radiation Query: I'm interested in the relationship between Nuclear and Radiation

22 RadiationNuclear Query: I want information on Radiation, but I want to avoid seeing anything on Radiation caused due to Nuclear substances

23 Phrase and Proximity Searching Using quotation marks allows you to search for an exact phrase, e.g. “Nuclear Medicine” Using NEAR allows you to specify how close to each other the terms you are searching for should be

24 Truncation or Wildcard Searches Truncation: place a symbol at the end of the word so you search for variant endings of that word – E.g. Pollut$ would look for Pollutant, Pollution, Polluting Wildcards: place a symbol within a word to find variations on it – E.g. analy*e would find analyse or analyze Different symbols— including $ * # ! : —are used by different search tools

25 Other variations in search tools Case sensitivity: use of upper or lower case in search terms Fields: searches in fields such as the title, URL or links Stop words: searches may ignore common words such as ‘and’, ‘if’, ‘an’, ‘the’ Relevance sorting: relevance is measured in different ways in different search tools Brackets may be used to order the search, e.g. (Nuclear AND Application) NOT (Energy OR Power)

26 Run the search Take the terms/keywords you have decided on Find the sources you are going to search Read the ‘Help’ page to find out how that particular source uses Boolean commands, wildcards, etc Run the search

27 Review and Revise Your Search Review and revise your search scope and strategy in light of the results obtained – Too many results – Too few results – Too basic/Advanced – Not in a language you understand Try new sources of information Evaluate the information to ensure it is relevant, accurate, of high enough quality, etc Ensure you keep a complete record of the source of the information for citing later

Thank you