1. Internet Searching and Evaluating Websites (Basic Course: Module 2)
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2. Table of Contents Gateways, Search Engines, Databases
Google vs. (Google) Scholar vs. PubMed
Boolean searching
Advanced searching
Evaluating Web Sites
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3. Gateway – subject specific
Library gateways are collections of databases and informational sites, arranged by subject, that have been assembled, reviewed and recommended by specialists
Gateway collections support research and reference needs by identifying and pointing to recommended, academically-oriented pages on the Web. Examples:
WHO A-Z health topics list
Yale University – Forestry and Environmental Studies Alumni Research Guide
University of South Carolina, Beuford Library, 15 June
Generally, a gateway is a webpage designed to attract visitors and search engines to a particular website on a specific topic(s). Often used interchangeably with the term gateway, a web portal is mega website or service providing search engines, , chat rooms, forums, etc as it attempts to provide multiple functions via a single web page or site.
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4. Web Search Engine
A software system that is designed to search for information on the WWW. Results are presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs).
Information may be a mix of web pages images, and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases.
Also maintain real-time information by running an algorithm on a web crawler. Examples:
Google
Google Scholar (more academic)
Yahoo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine 15 June 2015
Search engines are useful tools although, at times, they may lead to erroneous citations – depending on the software.
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5. This is how Google presents the results of your HINARI search
This is how Google presents the results of your HINARI search. The most relevant cite is organized into sections.
This is how Google presents the results of your search – based on a complicated relevance formula. If you are looking for general information on a specific topic, you can use Google as it will have links to information on the topic from the WHO or (U.S.) Centers for Disease Control websites or other reputable health related sources.
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6. Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. You can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research. From this search engine, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. This search tool aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most ‘relevant’ results will always appear on the first page.
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7. In Google Scholar, the HINARI results are either an article about the program or one with HINARI being the author’s name.
Note the different nature of the types of material displayed by this search – Scholar focuses on research (academic) material. Often Scholar has a pdf link listed in the right column. If you click on the link and it is from an open access journal, you will get the full-text article. If it is from a commercial publisher, you will be asked to login (HINARI username and password does not work) or pay for access to the article’s file. At this point, go into the HINARI Content page and look up the journal from the Journal collection A-Z list or Publishers list. There is a good chance that you will get access to the article via HINARI.
If you login to Scholar from HINARI’s Search inside HINARI full-text through database and article searching list and the publisher has granted access to the journal at your institution, you can open the full text article. This is a function of the Summon Search tool and is available once a country has been ‘configured’ for Summon. See the next slide. (Note: In May 2015, this worked in Firefox but not Chrome.)
Note that, in the right column, there are full-text access links to the articles. If an Open Access journal (nih or plos), the link will work. For the commercial publishers, you must use the HINARI link to Scholar or the Hinari Journals collection A-Z list. or you will be asked to login or pay for the article.
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8. After accessing Scholar from HINARI’s Search inside HINARI full-text through database and article searching list, we have clicked on My Library. Now you can open the full text article by clicking on Article or Journal or going to HINARI Journal Search or Summon.
Note: For any of these links to work correctly, the publishers needs to have granted access to your institution. Otherwise, the publisher will ask for a personal login or payment. Accessing material via the HINARI Portal is discussed in the next module.
The Scholar links are a function of the Summon Search Tool. Each country must be ‘configured’ and this is an ongoing process begun in 2015.
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9. We have displayed the Advanced Scholar Search option of Google Scholar
We have displayed the Advanced Scholar Search option of Google Scholar. Note the various options for refining a search and also that you can change the number of results per page.
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10. Databases – subject specific
Devoted to a single subject; created by researchers, experts, governmental agencies and other subject specialists who have professional knowledge of a particular field and have accumulated information and data about it.
University of South Carolina, Beuford Library, 15 June
A collection of information organized in such a way that a computer can quickly select desired pieces of data/an electronic filing system with search tools
Organized by fields, records and files
Examples:
PubMed - a free search tool to over 24 million citations
SCOPUS – Elsevier’s abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature
In the case of PubMed, National Library of Medicine indexers assign the specific MeSH terms to each journal.
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11. 16 June 2017

12. Google (search engine)
Disadvantages
Advantages
Searches articles, books and webpages
Has advanced search options
Can limit search by dates, document types, language, domain and more
No indexing terms
Huge retrieval of almost any topic
No ability to select citations for downloading or printing
Built in relevancy ranking based on times cited
Cannot limit to journal articles
In this and the following slides, you can compare the scope, format and searching options of Google, Scholar and PubMed.
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13. Google Scholar (search engine)
Disadvantages
Advantages
Searches journals, books and more academic sources
Can download individual citations into bibliographic managers
Contains citing information with links to sources citing a specific term
No indexing terms
Huge retrieval of almost any topic
No ability to select citations for downloading or printing
Built in relevancy ranking based on times cited that…
May result in bias toward older literature
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14. PubMed (database) Disadvantages Advantages
Well indexed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Can 'explode' terms
Contains 5,609 current journals in health sciences
Includes citations of e- journals prior to publication
Can download info to bibliographic managers
Can select citations to download or print
Access limited almost exclusively to basic and health sciences journals that are indexed in the database
Does not search full-text of articles
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15. Search: hospital infections developing countries (performed 20 October 2016)
Google: 2,390,000 citations; first citation – July 2011; World Health Organization
in 1st 50 articles, no 2016 citations listed
Google Scholar: 1,110,000 citations; first citation – March 2005; The Lancet
# in 1st 50 articles, no 2016 citations listed
PubMed: 5426; first citation – October 2016; American Journal of Infection control
articles ‘sorted by recently added’ date (not ‘sorted by relevance’ although this is an option)
Note that Google and Scholar use the relevance option – to organize the listing of articles. This is not always relevant in health sciences. PubMed’s initial display format is via ‘recently added’ although it has a ‘relevance’ option.
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16. Why Search Strategy is Important?
Health care includes the provision of information to consumers or professionals (reliable, accurate, up-to- date)
Information explosion- billions of documents in the WWW; hard to find the ‘needle in the hay stack’ and know which source is best for a specific situation;
Evidence-Based Medicine - clinicians are not using enough evidence in practice
Systematic search strategy should be adopted when dealing with clinical questions to avoid ‘information malpractice’
Health professionals are under continuous pressure to work with information, to make use of it themselves in the clinical setting and for their own professional development. Evidence is accumulating faster then ever and staying current is essential.
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17. This slide summarizes the steps for effective searching
This slide summarizes the steps for effective searching. Please read each box carefully as this outline is invaluable for effective searching. The initial steps can be completed prior to accessing the Internet and a specific database or resource. This is advisable when there is low-bandwidth and high-cost for Internet access.
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18. Example (Steps 1-4)
Ask: What health problems are associated with water pollution?
Need: scholarly primary research
Main Concepts: health, water, pollution
Select terms:
Broader terms: ‘health’, environmental degradation’, ‘agricultural management’,
Synonyms: health, illness, disease, etc.
water, rivers, lakes, sea, domestic water, etc.
pollution, ‘oil spills’, chemical, biological, toxicity, etc
Alternative spellings: none
Plurals: river(s), lake(s), disease(s)
Capitals: e.g. name of a specific lake, disease, region
In this example, you will see numerous options for this search. Some of these options will enable you to broaden the search while others will limit it.
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19. Types Source
View the three different types of sources. You must choose which is most applicable to your specific search and the types of information (results) you need.
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20. Select a Source (Step 5) Tertiary Sources Secondary Sources
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Easy access
Lag Time
Ease of use
Outdated
Concise
Incomplete information
Relatively inexpensive
Incorrect interpretation
Secondary Sources
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Rapid access to the primary literature
Lag time
Generally high standard journals
Command language varies
Ability to perform complex searches
Proficient search skills are needed
Routine updates on selected topics (alerts)
Can be expensive
This slide summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources. Again, the type of sources you need depends on the search and type of information (results) you want.
Primary Sources
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Original data
Large volume data
Unbiased information
Time consuming
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21. Search Construction 16 June 2017
Note how this search uses both the OR and AND Boolean operators (to be discussed in subsequent slides). First, the OR is used to expand the search. Then, the AND is used to combine terms.
10. #4 or 5
11. #6 or 7
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22. Boolean (Search) Operators
connect terms and locate records containing matching terms
inserted in a search box – AND, OR, NOT
AND, NOT operators are processed in a left- to right sequence. These are processed first before the OR operators
OR operators are also processed from left- to-right
Many search engines allow the use of full Boolean searching with logical operators– AND, OR, NOT between search terms.
Relevancy Ranking is the sorting of the results of the search so that the most relevant documents are listed first. Many search engines offer relevancy ranking in search results
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23. AND Operator (to combine two concepts and narrow a search)
the AND operator is used to combine two concepts e.g. hip AND fracture – in the shaded area; retrieves items containing all the search terms
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24. As previously noted… in Scholar there are PDF links in the right column. Some will lead to full-text articles (if open access) while others will lead to the publisher’s portal and request a fee for access. In the second case, go to the HINARI Content page and look up the specific journal and issue.
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25. The Scholar search is significantly larger than the PubMed search
The Scholar search is significantly larger than the PubMed search. Scholar searches throughout the Internet while, a PubMed search is limited to the articles in the database of 5609 journals. Scholar will include journal articles, reports and papers while PubMed is limited to the refereed and review articles from the participating publishers’ journals.
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26. AND Operator (to combine three concepts)
the AND operator is used to combine three concepts e.g. hip AND fracture AND elderly – in the shaded area.
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27. Note that the additional term decreases the number of articles although it still is a very large search.
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28. Again, the results in PubMed are significantly less than in Scholar as the first is limited to articles in 5609 journals.
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29. OR Operator (info containing one or other term; will broaden a search)
renal OR kidney – in the shaded area with the overlap in the middle having both search terms; retrieves items containing either search term or both search terms
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30. Note, even in Scholar, the huge number of citations for the kidney or renal terms although most of it is academic related.
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31. The search PubMed search for Kidney OR renal still contains over 800,00 articles.
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32. NOT Operator (in one term or the other - will narrow a search)
meningitis NOT viral
meningitis NOT viral – in the shaded area; eliminates items in 2nd term (viral) or both terms; search results will contain bacterial meningitis
Note: NOT does not work in Scholar and possible would eliminate some useful references; use judiciously
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33. 16 June 2017

34. Other search engine functions
Phrase or Proximity Searching: “…” or (…)
allows you to search for an exact phrase
“information literacy” or (malaria parasite)
Truncation: * or $
allow you to search for singular and plural spellings
child* for child OR childs OR children
parasite* for parasite OR parasites
Wildcard or Alternate Spellings: ?
can be used to substitute for characters anywhere in a word
wom?n would search for “woman” and “women”
For more detail and examples for Hinari resources, see Hinari_Basic_Course_Module_2_Internet
A search for (malaria parasites) would include both malaria AND parasites. While many search engines and databases contain these options, the exact terminology may differ [e.g. for proximity searching “…” or (…) ]. For example, in Google, the AND Boolean Operator is automatically used. A search for (malaria parasites) would include both malaria AND parasites.
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35. Africa AND (HIV OR tuberculosis)
This is an example of a more complex search – using the AND plus OR Boolean operator and the parenthesis to link two keyword terms. .
Africa AND (HIV or tuberculosis) – in the shaded area
The (OR) operator retains items in each term and the AND operator is used to combine two concepts
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36. Listed in this slide are the results of this search in PubMed – a total of 29954 articles
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37. More Search Techniques
Field Specific Searching
author, title, journal, date, url, etc.
Language Restrictions, Humans or Animals, Gender and other limits
(discussed in HINARI Basic Course – PubMed Filters)
Relevancy Ranking
a grading that gives extra weight to a document when the search terms appear in the headline or are capitalized
every found document is calculated as 100% multiply by the angle formed by weights vector for request and weights vector for document found
The Field Specific and Language Searching options will be discussed in the Module #4 (PubMed). Relevancy Ranking is the sorting of the results of the search so that the most relevant documents are listed first. With the huge numbers in the Google searches, this ranking is invaluable.
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38. Evaluating Web Information
Criteria for Evaluation
Accuracy
Authority
Currency
Coverage
Objectivity
Design/Navigation
Evaluating Web Pages resources
guides.library.cornell.edu/evaluating_Web_pages
usm.maine.edu/library/checklist-evaluating-web-resources
Since the Internet is a self-publishing medium, the information is not selected by professionals. Information retrieved from the Internet must be evaluated and analyzed for appropriateness for clinical and research purposes. Per the criteria listed in this slide, the key is to remember to use these basic evaluation tools when you view a website for the first time.
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39. Google Search: Dengue Fever
Note how the url (address) has information about the source of the material. This helps you decide if the site has accuracy, authority and currency, etc.
This is the 1st page of a Dengue Fever Google Search. Looking at the URLs, some sites are very relevant (CDC, WHO), some marginal (Wikipedia) and others not useful (Dengue Fever Music).
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40. PubMed abstract: article about limits of searching ‘symptoms’ in Google, Yahoo and Bing
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41. ‘Misled by the Web’
Use of the Internet to determine whether the medication pregnant women are taking or are about to take is safe for an unborn baby.
Study of “safe lists for medications in pregnancy” websites found 25 that contained inconsistencies and false reassurances or alarms based on “inadequate evidence.”
“Among medications approved for use in the U.S.A. from 2000 to 2010, over 79% had no published human data on which to assess teratogenic risk (potential to cause birth defects), and 98% had insufficient published data to characterize such risk.” .
These slides summarize the analysis of 25 health related sites containing information on what medications are safe for pregnant woman. It points out the discrepancies in the rankings by the websites and the potential harm for the mother and child.
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42. 25 Web sites characterized 245 medications as “safe” for use by pregnant women, which “might encourage use of medications during pregnancy even when they are not necessary.”
Online was sometimes contradictory. “Twenty- two of the products listed as safe by one or more sites were stated not to be safe by one or more of the other sites.”
Safe lists for medications in pregnancy: inadequate evidence base and inconsistent guidance from Web-based information, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 29 Jan 2013 (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue)
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43. Search Strategy material developed by: Irena Bond, Library Manager Associate Professor of Library and Learning Resources Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
This is the end of HINARI Basic Course Module 2
There is a Work Book to accompany this part of the module. The workbook will take you through a live session covering the topics included in this demonstration with working examples.
Updated
16 June 2017