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Using the Web for Research

posted ‎‎Jul 1, 2009 7:52 AM‎‎ by Diego Maranan   [ updated ‎‎Jul 20, 2009 9:41 AM‎‎ ]

Contents

  1. 1 Why use the Web?
  2. 2 Key sources of information
    1. 2.1 Online News Sources
    2. 2.2 Mailing List and Newsgroups
    3. 2.3 Electronic journals and reports by major international, government, and professional organizations
      1. 2.3.1 Reports
      2. 2.3.2 Statistics
      3. 2.3.3 Databases
      4. 2.3.4 Journals
    4. 2.4 Commercial search engines
  3. 3 A note on Wikipedia
  4. 4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare

Why use the Web?

In their book, Computer-Mediated Communication, Crispin Thurlow et al. devote a chapter on using the Web for research.The authors point out the different ways that information taken from the internet can support intellectual inquiry and discourse: >

Different Information for Different Purposes
from Thurlow et al (2004)

Among other things, people seek information online to:
  • get an overview of a subject they know nothing about (e.g. mapping of the human genome)
  • find factual information (e.g. statistics about the latest internet demographics)
  • keep up to the minute (e.g. following an ongoing political crisis)
  • balance different points of view from different sources (e.g. following the same political crisis by visiting news sites around the world)
  • test a hypothesis or theory (e.g., are women paid less than men in some jobs in another country)

Key sources of information

Then they propose the following sources of information as starting points for internet-based research:

Key sources of information
adapted from Thurlow et al (2004)
  • Mailing lists
  • Newsgroups
  • Electronic journals
  • Online news sources
  • Reports by major international, government, and professional organizations
  • Commercial internet research resources
The following are examples of each of these key sources of information:

Online News Sources

Mailing List and Newsgroups

  • The Philippine ICT Research Network has a Yahoo! group where messages sent since May 2005 are archived. Consider signing up for this group in order to gain access to this message archive.
  • The Asian Media and Contemporary Cultures group on Facebook.com is a recently-formed group group. It's worth checking out.
  • The Philippine ICT Research Network is "composed of people interested in doing research on how new information and communications technologies (i.e. cellphone, computers, SMS, the internet) is changing how Filipinos live, work and play." They have a Yahoo! Group.
  • The CULTSTUD-L and the New Media Caucus mailing lists keep you up to-do-date on what scholars around the world working in the fields of media, art+technology, culture, and society are thinking and writing about. You can subscribe to these lists to receive email updates.
  • The ACM (Association of Computing Machinery),"the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession". The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the "leading professional association for the advancement of technology". Both have many special interest groups (such as SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interfaces) that meet regularly and publish journals and proceedings of their conferences.
  • The maillists suggested on Cornell University Library's Digital Imaging Tutorial webpage

Electronic journals and reports by major international, government, and professional organizations

Reports

Statistics

Databases

A research database indexes quality publications, which means that you can search through these publications. Sometimes you can only get the summary ("abstract") of an article; other times, you can download the entire article ("fulltext"). Normally, you have to pay a fee for fulltext access, but, fortunately, you have several options:
  • As a UPOU student, you have free access to the complete academic research package provided by a group called EBSCO, which gives you fulltext access to thousands of scholarly publications. You should contact the UPOU library to find out how to access EBSCO.
  • LISTA is a free database provided by EBSCO. There's a few useful resources there; you can view the complete list of resources that LISTA indexes.
  • Philippines Journals OnLine (PhilJOL) is "a service to provide access to Philippine published research, and increase worldwide knowledge of indigenous scholarship." PhilJol indexes a growing list of journals.
  • The Directory of Open Access Journals provides "free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals". Some of the journals I listed above are indexed by that database.
  • The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies keeps a list of weblinks (including those to well-known and respected journals) that might be useful for your work.

Journals

You might find the following journals useful for the BAMS program. All of these have free fulltext access.

Commercial search engines

  • You can try using Google Scholar to look for scholarly articles and Google Books for published books, although you may not always have fulltext access.
  • Finally, there's always Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, YouTube, etc. But before you use Wikipedia, read the next section.

A note on Wikipedia

In this course, specific revisions of Wikipedia articles will be suggested to you as supplementary material to give you a very rough overview of certain subjects. You will not be tested on any material taken from a Wikipedia article. In addition, you should be very careful about using Wikipedia for research.

You should never cite Wikipedia as a source in graded class work.

On the other hand, Wikipedia can be very useful. Carefully read Wikipedia's own warnings (and suggestions) on using Wikipedia for research: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia&oldid=290206745. You should also see Kevin Lim's clearly-presented slideshow on How to Use Wikipedia for Academia.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare

And last (but certainly not least!) is MIT's OpenCourseWare program. As of this writing, the contents of 1800 courses (including lecture notes, sample exams, student work, videos, reading lists, and more) have been made available to the public through it. You should check out the reading list they have for their 2005 Introduction to Media Studies course.

About MIT OCW
from the MIT OCW site

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

What is MIT OpenCourseWare?
MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

  • OCW is not an MIT education.
  • OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.
  • OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.
  • Materials may not reflect entire content of the course.

How do I register to use MIT OpenCourseWare?
There is no registration or enrollment process because OCW is not a credit-bearing or degree-granting initiative.

Can I get a certificate?

No. MIT OpenCourseWare is a publication of the course materials that support the dynamic interactions of an MIT education; it is not a degree-granting or credit-bearing initiative. However, you should work through the materials at your own pace, and in whatever manner you desire.