A QUICK GUIDE TO:

• EFFECTIVE WEB SEARCHING.

• SUCCESSFUL SITE EVALUATION.

EFFECTIVE WEB STRATEGIES: KEY WORDS.

• WWW.

• WEB BROWSER.

• SEARCH ENGINE.

• SUBJECT DIRECTORY.

• URL.

• BOOLEAN OPERATORS.

WHAT IS THE WWW?

• Millions of pages of information.

• Includes text, graphics, photographs, sound and video.

• Hypertexts: texts with links to pages at other sites elsewhere on the Web.

• Web browsers give access to it.

WHAT IS A WEB BROWSER?

• A Web browser is a computer program that allows you to view pages on the World Wide Web.

The two most common browsers are:

• Netscape.

• Internet Explorer

NETSCAPE

INTERNET EXPLORER

HOW DO YOU GET ACCESS TO WEB PAGES?

SERVER MACHINERUNNING A WEB

SERVER

YOUR MACHINE RUNNING A WEB BROWSER

THE SERVER SENDS BACK THE REQUESTED

PAGE

YOUR BROWSER CONNECTS TO

THE SERVER AND REQUESTS A PAGE

SPECIAL WEB

PAGES THAT

HELP YOU FIND

MATERIAL .

HOW?

Just type a search

word or phrase into the

search box and the

search engine will:• Search its own

database.• Return results

presented in order of relevance

WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES?

HOW DOES A SEARCH ENGINE WORK?

• It uses robots or “spiders” to search the web and build its database.

• The database consists of indexed documents.

• Your query is checked against the search engine keyword index.

• The best matches are displayed on screen as hits.

Search engine’s database

index

Spider or Robot

Every word on the page

or some words on the

page

Finds new pages or changed

information on a page

Internet

Search Engine’s Server

LAUNCHES

VISITS

CRAWLS

LOCATES

RETURNS

PRODUCES

SEARCHES

RECEIVES

How does a search engine work?

User(Page created by Kathleen Schrock)

SEARCH ENGINES: YAHOOSEARCH ENGINES: YAHOO

Try it out at: Http://www.yahoo.com

WHAT ARE SUBJECT DIRECTORIES?

• SPECIAL WEB PAGES WHERE INFORMATION IS CATEGORIZED BY SUBJECT.

HOW?

• Each main topic has a list of subtopics.

• Humans, not robots, are responsible for cataloguing directories material.

• Best used when searching for broad topics .

Main topic

Subtopics

Directory’s searchable

index

Internet

Directory’s Server

VISITS

PRODUCES

SEARCHES

RECEIVES

Directory Employee

EVALUATES

ADDS and “CATALOGS”

Directory’s browsable categories

BROWSES

How does a directory

work?

User(Page created by Kathleen Schrock)

WHAT IS A URL?

URL: Uniform Resource Locator:

• The address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the WWW.

Ex 1: http://www.itisvinci.com

Ex 2: http://www.itisvinci.com/~calancaEx 3: http://www.itisvinci.com/users/ calanca/ public_html

HOW TO INTERPRET A URL

http://www.itisvinci.com/~calanca

Hyper TextTransfer Protocol(A WWW page)

Server name(the name of the machine,

where the information is located)

Top level Domain.It specifies what type

of site it is.The site has a directory

called Calanca.

The tilde sign (~) indicates personal directories of individuals

WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF A URL ENDS IN THE

FOLLOWING?• .com• .net• .mil• .gov• .edu• .ac• .org• .it .uk .us .ca

• company• network• military• government• educational• academic• non-profit organization• country codes

http://www.itisvinci.com/users/calanca/ public_html

DirectoriesHome page

Search engine results often take you deep withinweb sites. Do you want to know where you are?

DELETE DIRECTORY NAMES AND PRESS THE RETURN KEY.

WHAT ARE BOOLEAN OPERATORS?

Special logical tools that allow you to:

• Broaden your search.

• Narrow your search.

The most commonly used are:

AND, OR ,NOT

Not all search engine allow their

use to refine your search.

DO YOU WANT TO NARROW YOUR SEARCH?

Boolean AND

Education AND Policy

You want both terms to appear in the documents.This way you exclude irrelevant hits.

DO YOU WANT TO BROADEN YOUR SEARCH?

Boolean OR

OREducation Policy, GB UK

You want at least one of the terms to appear in the documents.

DO YOU WANT TO EXCLUDE A TERM?

Boolean NOT

Nirvana AND Buddhism NOT Cobain

This way you can exclude irrelevant hits.

Good queries = good results

Poor queries = poor results

Allow yourself enough time to formulate your query.The more precise your query, the fewer

documents to review.

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR QUERY?

• Use nouns as keywords.

• Don’t include articles, pronouns conjunctions or prepositions.

• Use enough keywords (up to 7 or 8 of them)

• Make a list of synonyms.

• Use wildcards *.

• Be aware of capitalization.

• Use phrases within quotes.

• Be aware of spaces within words.

• Use nouns as keywords, avoid modifiers (adj., adv. etc..)

• Don’t include articles, pronouns conjunctions or prepositions.

• Use enough keywords (up to 7 or 8 of them).

• Make a list of synonyms.

Nouns are precise terms that correspond to concrete objects,

while modifiers can easily be substituted in descriptions.

They are NOT considered by search engines.

Key in enough words to describe exactly what you’re

searching.

Use synonyms to refine your search.

• Use wildcards *.

• If you want to broaden your search, then use wildcards.

The asterisk * allows you to search for several words with the same root at a time. EX:

ASSISTANT

ASSIST* ASSISTANTS

ASSISTANCE

• Be aware of capitalization.

Use lower cases, unless you

are searching for proper names. Ex:

If you search for the word

you’ll find documents containing : heart, Heart, HEART.

BUTIf you search for

you’ll only come out with documents

containing the word “Heart” in capital

letter.

heart search

Heart search

• Use phrases within quotes.

Write phrases within quotes every time

you search for documents containing

all the words in your query in the exact

order you wrote them.

Ex:

you’ll find documents containing the

words you typed into your search box.

“Successful Web Search Strategies” search

• Be aware of spaces within words.

Watch out for spaces between

words.

In the case of:

the use of additional spaces between

words would cause the search for the

right document to fail.

“Successful Web Search Strategies” search

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?

TRY OUT FOLLOWING LINKS:

http://completeplanet.com/Tutorials/Search/index.asphttp://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/ppoint.htm

END OF PART 1

PART TWO

SUCCESSFUL SITE EVALUATION

SUCCESSFUL SITE EVALUATION

SUCCESSFUL WEB SITE EVALUATION

Have you ever considered that:

• Not all of the information on the World Wide Web is accurate

• Not all websites are good.

HOW CAN WE FIND GOODWEBSITES?

• WHO is the author? (is he an expert, can we recognize him/her as such?)

• HOW is the information given? (objective, biased, fact or opinion?)

• WHERE does the site information come from? (primary or secondary info?)

• WHEN was the site created? Is it updated?

• WHY was it created? Is the aim clear?

THE FIVE DEAR OLD QUESTIONS

LIST OF QUALITY CRITERIA FOR WEB INFORMATION

• AIM

• ACCURACY

• AUTHORITY

• CURRENCY

• DEPTH

• DESIGN

• REGULARITUY OF UPDATE

AIM

• Are the aims of the site/page clearly stated?

• Does the site/page achieve its aims?

• Are there any hidden aims (product promotion, indoctrination)?

ACCURACY

LANGUAGE ACCURACY

• Are there any spelling mistakes?

• Are there any grammar mistakes?

CONTENT ACCURACY

• Has the content been reviewed by a third party?

• Are there any references and bibliographies?

• Check the URLDoes the URL contain the following?

.edu

.org.ac

.gov

The information is more likely to be correct.

• Can you contact the author?Is there an e-mail address/

contact address/phone number?

If you have any doubts

contact him.

AUTHORITY

• Who is the author?

• Is he/she an expert?

• What institution has published the material on the Web?

• Check the URL domain

http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ltdi/ltdi-pub.htm#VCStudies

Imagine you used a search engine to find information about “videoconferencing”.

You decide to try out this address.

University

(Where?)In the United Kingdom

(What Institution?)Heriot-Watt University

Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative

(A Project by Heriot-WattUniversity)

CURRENCY

• When was the page/site created?

• Is this stated or not?

• Is the material regularly updated?

• Are there any dead links on the page/site?

Beware of outdated material!!

DEPTH

• Does the site provide exhaustive coverage of the topic you searched for?

• Does it claim to be comprehensive and turns out to be very poor, instead?

DESIGN part 1

• The speed of download

• The ease of navigation

• Does the page/site download quite fast?

• Are there too many images/frames that cause download to be too slow?

• Is the resource organized in order to be browsed easily?

• Are there buttons helping navigation? (i.e. back, forward, home).

• Is there a site map?

REGULARITY OF UPDATE

• Is the site updated at regular intervals?

• Can you see that it is?

• Are the links regularly updated?

• How many dead links are on the page/site?

• The colour scheme

• Compatibility

DESIGN part 2

• Have colours been well used?

• Is the page /site easy to read?

(yellow characters on a red background are probably better to be avoided)

• Does the page/site require specific software to be accessed?

• Is the resource material recognized by all browsers?

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Try out this address:http://www.sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html

An interesting, interactive tutorial to become

an Internet Detective

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1

• Web Searching

• Tutorial: Guide to Effective Searching of the Internet: http://completeplanet.com/Tutorials/Search/index.asp

• ICT4LT Module 1.5 Introduction to the Internet: http://www.ICT4LT.org

• "Successful Web Searching Strategies”:

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/ppoint.html

• "A helpful Guide to Web Search Engines”: http://www.monash.com/spidap4.html

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2

• "Search Engine Math”:

http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/math.html

• "Exploiting Internet resources Off-Line" (Graham Davies):

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GrahamDavies1/

gdghent.htm

• "Web Skills for Language Learning" (Charlie Mansfield & Tom McNeill):

http://www.well.ac.uk/wellproj/wellbook.htm

Bibliography 3

Web Sites Evaluation

• "Evaluating Websites”

http://servercc.oakton.edu/~wittman/find/eval.htm

• "The ABCs of Web Site Evaluation” http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/ppoint.html

• "Where are the good Web Pages?" (David Eastment) http://www.eastment.com/eval.html

• "ICT4LT Project:Evaluation Form"

http://www.ICT4LT.org

• How to search the web:" Internet Detective"

http://www.sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html

THE END