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SURVIVAL KIT - METHODS

INFORMATION LITERACY

 

     Copyright licenses and credits

 


DEFINING THE OBJECT OF INFORMATION QUERIES

 

SEARCH STRATEGIES

 

EVALUATING INFORMATION SOURCES

 

PLAGIARISM, CITATION AND REFERENCING

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

 

BIBLIOMETRICS

 

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

 

 

 

DEFINING THE OBJECT OF INFORMATION QUERIES

 

Structure your research

 

 

You need information on a specific subject (WHAT are you searching for?)

 

Step 1: Define the topic of your research

Step 2: Find terms and background information in dictionaries or encyclopedias and establish synonyms and hierarchical relations among terms

Step 3: Use catalogues to find book and non-book materials

Step 4: Use digital databases for journal articles

Step 5: Use additional online resources (repositories, digital databases, etc.) to find primary sources and images

Step 6: Evaluate what your results

Step 7: Cite your sources using a standard format

 

 


 

 

You need information on a specific subject

 

WHAT are you searching for? – subject headings and keywords

 

WHERE are you going to look for it? – resources

 

HOW are you going to do it? – research skills

 

 


 

 

DEFINE THE TOPIC OF YOUR RESEARCH (WHAT are you searching?)

 

 

a) Establish your keywords (words, terms or phrases used to describe the main topic)

 

b) Find background information and establish synonyms and hierarchical relationships (broader terms, narrower terms, related terms)

 

c) Brainstorm for concepts and terms and create a concept map

* Concept map is a visual representation of information where several concepts are linked to a main central concept and then connections and cross-links are established between the different concepts in order to discover new relationships between the different areas in your map and this will help you specify the theme of your research

 

d) Build your search expression using the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT

 

 

 

RESOURCES (WHERE are you going to look for it?)

 

 

For print materials (books, journal titles, journal articles published separately, dissertations & academic materials) USE library catalogues

 

For non-book materials (CD-ROMs, videos, posters, films, DVDs, audio cassettes, e-books) USE library catalogues

 

For online materials USE :

 

 

 

 

SEARCH STRATEGIES (HOW are you going to do it?)

 

 

SUBJECT HEADINGS vs. KEYWORDS

 

 

SUBJECT HEADINGS – terms selected or created by a librarian who needs to read through the document (analysis + synthesis) and decide to which subject areas is that document important

 

 

 

KEYWORDS - the machine recognizes the image of the words as images and no subject analysis is involved

 

 

 

LIBRARY CATALOGUES vs. DIGITAL DATABASES

 

In a traditional library catalogue (OPAC)

 

In a digital database

 

Types of search for both:

 

 

Types of information

 

 

 

Bottomline…

 

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

 

 

 

 

SEARCH STRATEGIES

 

Online materials

 

Open Access vs. Subscriptions

 

EBSCO Discovery Service - discovery service transversal to all 9 NOVA Organic Units.

RUN - NOVA’s institutional repository.

RCAAP - Portuguese Academic Repository at national level.

B-on - a Portuguese academic open access portal for retrieving scientific information accessing simultaneously different research tools.

 

ebsco
run
rcaap
b-on

 

 

Subscriptions

 

Libraries pay an annual fee in order to provide free content to their users.

 

jstor
ieee
zbmath
acspubs

 

 

 

Open Access databases

 


rcaap
RCAAP (Repositories of the various Portuguese universities) https://www.rcaap.pt/

open doar
OpenDOAR (The Directory of Open Access Repositories) https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/opendoar/

doaj
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) https://doaj.org/

doab
Doab (Directory of Open Access Books) https://www.doabooks.org/en/doab

pubmed
PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

scielo
Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online) https://scielo.org/en/

plos
PLoS (Public Library of Science) https://plos.org/

benthamopen
BenthamOpen https://benthamopen.com/

 

 

 

EVALUATING INFORMATION SOURCES

 

 

Evaluating information sources requires critical thinking, identifying the type of information you are looking for, and understanding + and – of various types of sources.

 

critical thinking

 

The nature of your topic may determine which format is best for you. A combination is the best way to find information.

 

information format

 

 

Criteria for evaluating information sources

 

Although we can say that every “traditional” resource has been evaluated in one way or another, we must always apply classical and generic criteria for the evaluation of information sources.

 

You should apply evaluation criteria to any information you find on the Internet.

 

YOU NEED TO CITE INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNET AS YOU WOULD CITE ANY OTHER INFORMATION.

book_magnifying

 

 

 

Problems in applying “classical” quality evaluation criteria to web information sources

 

 

CURRENCY – the timeliness of information.

 

The date is not always included. When it is, it can mean different things:

 

 

RELEVANCE – the importance of the information for your needs

 

Relevance considers the importance of the information for your research needs. A relevant information source answers your research question. To determine relevance, the purpose and bias must be understood. In fact, all aspects of evaluation must be taken into consideration to determine relevance.

 

 

AUTHORITY – the author of the information.

 

The authority is often shared and difficult to determine; when is it indicated there are no elements about what qualifications the author owns.

 

 

ACCURACY – the reliability, truthfulness & correctness of the content.

 

 Information is shared without being checked and verified in other sources.

 

 

PURPOSE – the reason the information exists.

 

The purpose of the source and its targeted audience is difficult to determine because of poor structure, information overflow, too many links, etc. It is not clear if the source is published, sponsored or endorsed by a special interest group or not. There is no clear indication of the authors’ perspective on the issue presented.

 

 

BOTTOMLINE

 

Not all information is useful, accurate, up-to-date, unbiased and appropriate for your research.

 

Using an index or database to find information gives us reassurance that it was produced by a professional or scholarly organization that selects them on the basis of their quality.

 

When we are using the World Wide Web, none of this applies.

 

 

THOSE FILTERS ARE OUR RESPONSIBILITY.

www

 

 

 

PLAGIARISM, CITATION AND REFERENCING

 

 

Strategies to avoid plagiarism

 

 

 

What is plagiarism?

 

 

If we do not cite sources, we are committing plagiarism and infringing copyright that includes:

 

Fom more information, please check the Code of Authors' Rights / Copyright and related rights available at your country.

 

Within the right to publish, the author may use a creative commons license to make his work available on the internet.

 

For more information about creative commons licences, please visit https://creativecommons.org/ or go to the section on creative commons in this Survival Kit.

 

 

Different forms of plagiarism

 

 

Source: https://whittier.libguides.com/c.php?g=346305&p=2334848

 

Different forms of plagiarism

 

 

When/what do we need to quote?

 

 

Source: Harris, Robert A. The Plagiarism Handbook: Strategies for Preventing, Detecting, and Dealing with Plagiarism. Los Angeles: Pyrczak Publishing, 2001

 

citations

 

 

 

Anti-plagiarism software

 

 

For more information please visit https://services.anu.edu.au/information-technology/software-systems/turnitin/turnitin-frequently-asked-questions-faqs-for-0#_01.

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

 

 

What are Bibliographic Management Software and what they do

 

They are software programs that allow you to collect, store, organize and manage documents of different types.

 

These software allow you to import bibliographic metadata - as well as PDF files when available - from databases, library catalogs and other online platforms, as well as PDFs previously stored on your computer.

 

They are like small, fully searchable databases.

 

Among other features, these tools allow you to insert and manage citations and bibliographic references directly in word processors.

 

They are compatible and it is possible to import/export reference files in BibTex, RIS and other formats, between software.

 

There are several bibliographic management software, many of which are available for free.

 

 

 

How to choose a Bibliographic Management Software

 

Generally speaking they all perform the same functions.

 

 

Amongst the software available for free, we highlight Mendeley, Zotero, JabRef (mostly used by those who write in LaTex), Papers for those who use Macintosh computers and EndNote (online), a Clarivate Analytics/Web of Science product, free for the community of higher education in Portugal.

 

 

endnote
Zotero
jabref
papers
Mendeley

 

 

 

BIBLIOMETRICS

 

 

Bibliometrics should answer the following questions:

 

 

 

Where can I find the answers to these questions?

 

Bibliographic databases that are used by University Rankings or by the Organization the researcher works at such as Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) or Scopus (Elsevier).

 

 

Why should you know the main bibliometric indicators?

 

In your best interest you should be prepared to understand what you are asked in grant proposal forms but also to understand the importance of these numbers in budget cuts.

 

In social sciences this might not be as important at the individual level but as member of a university all areas are considered.

 

Quantitative indicators are used for:

 

 

Be aware of the limitations of quantitative assessment and use them in your advantage.

 

 

How to increase your visibility as a researcher?

 

 

 

 

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

 

 

Publishing in a journal

 

Evolution of Academia

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pedromics/

 

 

 

 

Open Access to publications

 

 

For further information, please visit:

https://www.fct.pt/documentos/PoliticaAcessoAberto_Publicacoes.pdf

https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/hi/oa-pilot/h2020-infograph-oa-sci-publ_en.pdf

 

 

How to publish Gold Open Access

 

  • Use white lists of OA journals such as the Directory of Open Access Journals
  • OA journals may not charge (diamond journals) or have lower APCs
  • Hybrid journals’ APCs are higher than full-OA journals (and most funders will not reimburse them)
  • Beware of predatory journals
  • Use Think.Check.Submit to verify if the publisher is trustworthy
  • Check journal self-archiving policy on the publisher’s website
predatory journals

Illustration by David Parkins

 

 

Open Access to Research Data

 

If you benefit from public financing (including scholarships) or the EC (among other funders), you need to publish your research data

  • In a certified repository
  • Data underlying publications and other data
  • As open as possible, as closed as necessary: exceptions to data sharing need justification
  • Also, actively manage your research data
  • Data should be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable)
  • Use Persistent Identifyers (PIDs)
  • Associate licenses: CC-0 to metadata and CC-BY to data
  • Data management plan mandatory
  • Compliance will be monitored
solution

 

For further information, please visit https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/agr-contr/general-mga_horizon-euratom_en.pdf

 

 

Reforms of the research assessment system

 

The incorrect use of bibliometric indicators for the assessment of individuals led to a movement requesting the reform of the research assessment system.

 

DORA San Francisco Declaration (2012) "Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions".

 

Leiden manifesto for research metrics (2015)

 

Evaluation of research careers fully acknowledging open science practices (2017)

 

Towards a reform of the research assessment system (2021)

 

 


 

 

The Leiden Manifesto for Research
video