Research Methods and Internet Basics

• Scholarly and Academic Information Online, by Dr. A. Ateka

Learning Objectives

• Explain what constitutes scholarly and academic information
• Identify and locate scholarly sources online
• Acquire basic criteria for evaluating information sources

Important Questions

• What is the Internet?
• How is it different from the WWW?
• What percentage of the Internet is visible and indexed by search engines?
• What is a search engine?
• What are scholarly and academic information sources?
• How do they differ from popular sources?

The Internet

• Defined in 1960 as a global network of interconnected computers and other devices.
• The internet allows communication using standardized protocols (TCP/IP) and is the infrastructure that allows various types of digital communication to occur.
• Hardware components include computers, servers, routers, cables, and satellites.
• Protocols are standardized rules that devices use to communicate, most important ones are TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol).
• Services and applications include email, file transfer (FTP), online gaming, streaming, and the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web (WWW)

• Defined in 1989 as a service operating over the Internet
• Provides access to a vast array of interlinked documents and multimedia resources.
• These resources are accessed using web browsers and identified through URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).
• Web Pages are documents formatted in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that contain text, images, videos.
• Web Browsers: Software applications like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari that retrieve, interpret, and display web pages.
• Web Servers: Computers that store and serve web pages to users over the Internet.
• HTTP/HTTPS: Protocols are used for transferring web pages
• HTTP is Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• HTTPS is its secure version, using SSL/TLS encryption.

Key Differences Between the Internet and the WWW

• Internet encompasses the entire global network of interconnected devices and all services operating over this network.
• WWW is a specific service that operates on the Internet, enabling access to interlinked web pages and multimedia content.
• The internet facilitates various forms of digital communication, including email, file transfer, and remote access, in addition to the web.
• WWW is specifically focused on accessing and sharing web pages and multimedia content via web browsers.
• Internet Uses a variety of protocols, including TCP/IP, SMTP (for email), FTP (for file transfers)
• WWW primarily uses HTTP/HTTPS for transferring web pages and web-related content.
• Internet provides the backbone for a wide range of online activities and services.
• WWW is used for browsing and accessing information and resources through web pages.

Search Engines

• These are powerful tools that help users find information on the Internet.
• They index web pages and returning relevant results based on user queries

How Search Engines Work

• Crawling occurs when search engines uses automated programs called crawlers or spiders to browse the web and discover new or updated web pages.
• These crawlers follow links from one page to another, collecting data about the content of each page.
• Indexing occurs when data gathered by crawlers is stored in a massive database known as an index.
• The index contains a copy of each web page's content, metadata, and other relevant information that helps determine the page's relevance to different search queries.
• During Ranking, the search engine uses complex algorithms to rank the indexed pages based on their relevance to the query a user submits.
• Factors influencing ranking include keyword usage, page quality, relevance,user engagement, and backlinks.
• Results Display: the search engine presents the user with a list of ranked results, typically on a search engine results page (SERP).
• Results often include snippets, titles, URLs, and sometimes additional information like images, videos, or rich snippets.

Types of Search Engines:

• General search engines include Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
• Academic search engines include Google Scholar and Pubmed
• Specialized search engines include Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and Archive.org
• Metasearch Engines include Dogpile, Excite, Search.com and Webcrawler

Scholarly Information

• A scholarly information source is a resource that has been written and reviewed by experts in a particular field of study.
• These are characterized by rigor regarding their levels of accuracy, reliability and objectivity.
• Non-scholarly sources are not necessarily authored by experts.
• Often non-scholarly sources have no peer review and may lack objectivity, evidence of research and also lack references/citations.
• Examples are newspapers, magazines, and blogs.

Characteristics of Scholarly Information:

• Authorship involves experts, credentials and affiliations are provided.
• Peer review involves other experts review to ensure quality and validity
• Citations and references are provided for verification
• Publishers are Academic institutions, professional organizations, and reputable academic publishers
• The language and structure is appropriate for the field
• The target Audience is researchers, scholars, and students in the field of study

Types of Scholarly and Academic Sources:

• Academic journals
• Books and monographs
• Theses and dissertations
• Conference papers
• Research reports – in-depth and often funded by governments
• Research data and data sets

Where to find Scholarly Information Online:

• University repositories for theses and other scholarly works
• Open Access Resources like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); DOAB; CORE
• University Libraries – USIU- Africa Library
• Data repositories like Dryad, Zenodo, and Figshare
• Conference websites – ACM, IEEE,
• Educational videos and lectures like Moocs such as Khan Academy, Cousera, and YouTube
• Theses and Dissertation databases like Proquest and Ethos
• Government and Institutional Repositories – NIH, European Union
• Academic Networks and Social Media – LinkedIn, ResearchGate, and Academia.edu
• Specialized academic search engines such as Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and BASE.

Evaluating Online Sources:

• Authority – determining who is the author
• Accuracy – determine if the information supported by evidence
• Objectivity – Is the information presented without bias?
• Currency - is it up-to-date?
• Coverage - does it cover the topic comprehensively?

Scholarly sources rely on citations and references for verification. Evaluating sources involves checks for bias, particularly in online content. Peer-reviewed journals and in-depth government reports are excellent resources. The Internet uses standardized protocols, and the web relies on web pages formatted in HTML.