Lluís Codina (UPF) MUCS Dept. Of Communication Online Searching: role and characteristics of Academic Databases

Academic Databases - I Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS Content specializations  Humanities and Social Sciences  Science and technology  Multidisciplinary Context  At the heart of the cyclical process of academic research and publishing Document typology. References or full text of:  Journal articles of peer review journals  Reports, books, patents and theses, etc. Users:  Researchers (Universities) and engineers and developers (Corporations)  University students and professors  In general: authors of academic journal articles, reports or books Access:  Not free. In fact they are extremely expensive  Access only by subscription or by pay per view (pay per document)  Only subscribed to by universities or corporations (not by private persons ) 2

Academic Databases - II Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS Main protagonists:  Scientific publishers of journals or books:  Elsevier  Springer …  Independent producers:  Universities  Private companies …  Distributors of tens or hundreds of different databases:  Ebsco  Dialog …  Authors:  Researchers and developers  University students and professors  Authors of journal articles or books  So… authors are both users and contributors 3

The Process of knowledge production Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 4

The Peer Review Journals Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS The most respected kind of scientific journals and the typical content of the academic databases Process:  Author submits their papers to a peer review journal.  The journal asks the opinion of at least,two experts in the field.  If approved, and only if approved, by the experts, the article will be published, probably with corrections and additions suggested by the experts.  The whole process is anonymous: the author is unaware of the identity of the referees (evaluators) and vice versa. 5

The Search Process Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 1. Identification of the information need of the user and the keywords that express the main concepts of the information need. 2. Occasionally, identification of the proper names (persons, corporations, countries, etc.). 3. Identification and selection of the most suitable database. 4. Selection and execution of the query (basic or advanced search). 5. Review of the references in the database results page. 6. Occasionally, refinement of the query and obtaining new keywords to repeat the process. 6

Main interdisciplinary international databases Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS Web of Science (ISI Web of Knowledge): the most influential database in the world. Provides access to tens of thousands of the most important international journals (Thomson). Scopus: the database of the most important scientific publisher of the world. Access to one thousand two hundred journals (Elsevier). 7

International databases by specialization Computers, related with Art, Society and Humanities  ACM Humanities  Arts and Humanities Citation Index Social Sciences  JSTOR Communication  Sage  Taylor and Francis Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 8

And in Spain… Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS Multidisciplinary:  CSIC: The most influential in Spain and one of the most important in Spanish speaking countries. Provides access to all peer review Spanish journals. 9

To access databases in UPF Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS To access academic databases via UPF:  > Library > Databases > Alphabetic list: Example:  > Library > Databases > Alphabetic list > A > ACM Digital Library 10

Off Campus Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 11

Off Campus (II) Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 12

Database List Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 13

ACM Digital Library Last update: October 2014 L. Codina. UPF MUCS 14