Session 5: Searching for, evaluating and keeping up-to-date with information

Introduction

Welcome to Session 5. This session will help you to review, refresh and update your current digital and information literacy skills. We start by defining ‘information literacy’ (IL), consider how this has evolved as ‘digital and information literacy’ (DIL), and discuss these in the context of your postgraduate studies. We then examine some of the key IL and DIL skills that students entering postgraduate study should already have and/or be aware of.

Begin by listening to the following audio recording.

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Transcript: Recap and overview of Sessions 5 and 6

PAYAM REZAIE

Welcome to Session 5. We hope you’re enjoying the course so far. Let's briefly recap on the last two sessions, before looking forward to what lies ahead.

In Sessions 3 and 4, we looked at some underlying concepts and considered practical approaches to help you think critically and analytically. We examined why critical thinking and analysis are important for postgraduate study, introduced some fundamental principles to help you evaluate an argument, and to carry out evidence-based analysis, and offered some practical tips on being critical in your reading and writing for assignments.

In the next two sessions we’ll be looking at some essential digital and information literacy skills that you’ll require for your postgraduate studies. You may feel that you already have a good awareness of these skills from your undergraduate studies or relevant work experience. However, being aware of the need to continuously review your skills, to ascertain their relevance and effectiveness of practice, and to keep up-to-date with changes in the digital environment, also form an important part of your postgraduate skills, and are essential for continuing your professional development. If you’re already skilled in some of these areas, you may wish to concentrate on those where you feel you would benefit the most from developing further.

We start Session 5 by examining what digital and information literacy skills cover, getting you to review your current skills and level of confidence. We then guide you through the different stages of searching for, evaluating and keeping up-to-date with information, and provide you with tools and practical tips that should help you in the process. We also briefly consider some conventions for citing references, before closing this session with additional tips that will help you to reflect on, and further develop your selective and critical reading skills.

Session 6 continues with the theme of essential digital and information literacy, by focusing on issues related to academic integrity, copyright and the use of social media. We also explore ways in which group work and feedback can operate to support learning in an online asynchronous environment.

After completing Sessions 5 and 6, you should be able to identify your current strengths, have improved in some areas, be able to focus on skills that you need to develop further, and be suitably well prepared as you make the transition to postgraduate study.

Thanks for listening. You are all set to begin Session 5.

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Recap and overview of Sessions 5 and 6

By the end of this session you should be able to:

• search for information, evaluate sources and keep up-to-date with information
• cite and reference sources appropriately.

1 Digital and information literacy

Let’s begin by exploring what is meant by ‘information literacy’ and ‘digital and information literacy’ and why these are integral to your postgraduate study skills.

Fundamentally, information literacy (IL) is the ability to: recognise when information is needed; know how to locate and evaluate the appropriateness of information found; and know how to use this in an effective and responsible manner. This brief description can be encapsulated in a more formal definition of IL, widely used by information and library professionals, which states:

So how does this differ from ‘digital and information literacy’ (DIL)? The Open University Library defines DIL as follows:

You may feel that you already have a good awareness of both digital and general information literacy skills from your undergraduate studies or relevant work experience. However, being aware of the need to continuously review your academic and DIL skills to ascertain their relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of practice, and to be open to developing these further and to keep up with changes in the digital environment form an important part of your postgraduate skills and are essential for continuing your professional development.

Activity 1 introduced some important terms, and began to explore their meaning and potential relevance. The next activity will allow you to get your bearings on sources of information that you come across, and may wish to use in your studies.

2 Digital and information literacy skills framework

Based on your previous undergraduate studies, other research or work experience, you should already have attained certain DIL skills. This means that you are likely to have a working knowledge of different learning resources (e.g. management tools, databases, journals, study guides, etc.) that will complement your studies, and be able to:

• independently select the most appropriate resources for a specific task
• keep up-to-date with any changes to the resources selected for that task
• independently carry out a wide-ranging, systematic literature search (and be confident that the information found represents a thorough sample of the literature)
• filter and critically evaluate information obtained from any source (including your own and other students’ writing) to ascertain its quality and relevance to the purpose at hand (e.g. determine any bias in approach, the validity of its outcomes, etc.)
• accurately and appropriately refer to and reference the thoughts, ideas and work of others (including published authors, other students, anonymous websites, etc.) in your work, and ensure these can be differentiated from your own thoughts, ideas and conclusions.

As a postgraduate student you will be expected to have a reasonable idea of how to find, retrieve and work with different sources of information, but the key thing here is to ensure that you know how to do this as effectively as possible. The Open University’s digital and information literacy framework  can help you to recognise how your DIL skills are progressing during your studies and how these relate to your academic, personal and professional (employment) needs.

NOTE: You can download the full document if you wish to explore this more fully, but are not required to do so. Activity 3 will take you through the relevant sections of the framework that specifically relate to Master’s-level study.

The framework is based around five core skills (or ‘competencies’) that cover:

• understanding and engaging in digital practices
• finding information
• critically evaluating information, online interactions and online tools
• managing and communicating information
• collaborating and sharing digital content.

There are also five ‘levels’ of study, ranging from Access level (i.e. pre-undergraduate level skills), through the three stages of undergraduate study prior to Master’s/professional levels of competency. As an example, focusing on the core competency of ‘collaborating and sharing digital content’, an expected skill at postgraduate level (and one that you may already have developed as part of your undergraduate studies), is to ‘produce a shared digital asset or output in collaboration with others as part of an assessed activity’.

3 Assessing your current DIL skills

The digital and information literacy skills checklist will help you to gauge your current level of confidence in understanding digital practice, and finding, using and creating information.

The activity below should help you to evaluate your current knowledge and confidence in the following key areas: searching for information, and evaluating and referencing your sources.

4 Recognising different types of information

At the simplest level, sources of information can be categorised into four main groups:

• Primary literature describes mainly new or ‘original’ material (e.g. a research paper published in peer-reviewed journals, or a patent).
• Secondary literature refers to material in which information that has appeared in another form is repackaged and disseminated more widely (e.g. review articles, academic textbooks and course materials).
• Grey literature is defined as ‘articles and information published, especially on the Internet, without a commercial purpose or the mediation of a commercial publisher’ (Dictionary of Information and Library Management, 2006). These include technical reports, government documents, working group documents etc.
• Personal communication is a potential source of information, often overlooked but becoming increasingly prevalent with the rise of social networking and online feeds (e.g. information from a colleague or expert opinion; online communication in a social networking site such as Twitter or Facebook; contributions to your own or other individual researchers, or group blogs and wikis).

Let’s take a closer look at some main forms of primary and secondary literature (research papers and review articles), and explore ‘grey’ literature in a little more detail.

4.1 Primary literature

Primary literature is often written by specialists for specialists, so the authors assume that the audience has a high level of understanding of the specific terminology used in the subject area, as well as a good understanding of the subject area itself. Most primary research papers have the following sections (although not necessarily in this order): Title; Authors; Abstract; Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion; and References. The Title and Abstract sections are typically informative, interesting and to the point, encapsulating the focus of the work. The main point of the Introduction is to establish how the paper fits in with previously reported work, to summarise the main points of the study and highlight the conclusions accurately and effectively. The Methods section is where the author(s) explains what they did to generate the results reported in the rest of the paper. This section is vital because it enables you to deduce whether or not the results are valid in the context of the research question or hypothesis. The Methods section also enables other researchers to repeat the work. It is, generally speaking, the most difficult part of a paper to grasp because of the level of detail involved. In addition to describing what they did in the Methods section, the authors will state what they found in the Results section (including statistical information derived from the analysis of the ‘raw’ data they have generated), and state their interpretation of the findings in the Discussion section. They will often extrapolate and generalise in this section to illustrate the key points they wish to make. The last section before the Reference list is usually a Conclusion, in which the authors state how the results, in their view, relate to the various hypotheses that they have proposed and/or have been previously proposed by others.

4.2 Secondary literature

Secondary literature is useful in helping you to engage with a new research area. It is generally easier to read than a primary research paper, but harder to evaluate in terms of authenticity and potential bias. A review paper can be thought of as an extended critical essay. The Introduction sets out the issue and the way in which it will be tackled through the rest of the review, while the main body of the review is taken up with a lengthy analysis of various points of view. In principle, the author attempts to do one of two things:

• Show how different perspectives, theories, hypotheses or pieces of work relate to a topic.
• Defend or propose a particular theory or hypothesis as being the best among many. To do this, the author has to emphasise the differences or controversies that cannot be accommodated within current theories. This is typically done by proposing a ‘best-fit’ theory or hypothesis of some sort.

The long middle section of a review paper is usually very closely argued and may appear to a non-specialist in the subject area as being entirely reasonable. The art of the scholar or critic (namely you) is to find out what the author is saying and whether what they are saying is valid and unbiased.

Most reviews present information in an objective way, however occasionally there may be errors of omission, e.g. crucial evidence that does not fit the argument being presented is intentionally omitted, or relevant articles that resolve the controversy under discussion in a different way are omitted. There may also be errors of interpretation, where the author highlights a particular aspect of a paper which was originally either ignored or played down, or there could be logical flaws in the argument that the review author is advocating, which conflict with the arguments presented by some of the original authors. Therefore, when reading review papers, you need to be careful how you interpret and use them – it is not unexpected to discover that two different people have started off with the same database of literature and ended up with very different arguments, both of which may be perfectly valid.

Like research papers, review papers end with a Conclusion in which the main points are repeated to allow the author to justify the claim they have made in their Introduction. In essence, review articles provide other researchers in the same (and different) subject areas with a quick overview of some of the key papers, findings, arguments and conclusions that have been extracted from a range of sources. Recently published review papers can therefore offer a good introduction to primary research papers that you may want to read yourself.

4.3 Grey literature

Depending on your particular study or research requirements, in addition to using conventional academic sources of information such as peer-reviewed journals, academic books, newspaper archives and data repositories, you may need to make use of grey literature. Grey literature can be made available more quickly than commercial publications (e.g. academic journals), as it does not go through a lengthy formal or commercial publication process and avoids time-consuming peer-review and editing. As such, it can be a useful source of information on current research and policy developments, and may occasionally be the sole source of information for specific types of research questions. The most common examples of grey literature include:

• theses and dissertations
• unpublished research papers (e.g. available on institutional repositories)
• pre-prints (drafts of papers or articles which have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal)
• conference proceedings
• reports from specialist organisations
• company reports
• internal policy documents
• government reports
• committee working papers
• social media.

The quality of grey literature can vary, however. Therefore, when working with grey literature, it is important to select sources of information carefully, and to assess the quality of the material, noting in particular any potential for bias in the structure of the work completed, the way in which results are presented and the final outcomes, recommendations or conclusions listed (see Section 6).

The websites of professional organisations can provide access to discussion papers, policy reports and research papers. Standard search engines such as Google can be used to search the web for grey literature; however, a standard Google search is unlikely to find reports and documents from specialist organisations. Specialist search engines can trawl the deep web to find more specific documents (see Section 5.3).

5 Searching for information

In this section of the course, you will explore different ways to search for the information you need:

• using appropriate search engines and interrogating subject/discipline-specific databases
• selecting relevant keywords (search words)
• using bespoke library databases and search engines
• searching for information using Google Scholar.

5.1 Using appropriate search engines and interrogating subject/discipline-specific databases

The fact that a large amount of information is likely to already exist online means it can be easily searched. On the negative side, the sheer volume of information you might retrieve means it can be difficult to sort through this effectively. This is where search engines (and specialised search engines in particular) can help filter resources, when used correctly. When doing this, it is important to bear in mind that a fully comprehensive search might require the use of more than one type of search engine or database to ensure the full range of data in the deep web can be searched.

5.2 Selecting relevant keywords (search words)

The first step in carrying out an effective online search is to define what exactly you are looking for; you should do this by writing down your search question or query. Choosing the appropriate keywords is often the most difficult part of an effective search, so you need to think carefully about the words you use to make sure that your search returns the most focused set of hits.

Clearly, the type of search engine used will dictate the type of material you will discover. If you carry out a standard Google search, it will search the whole of the surface web and find all manner of articles. Using specialised search engines such as Google Scholar can help to filter your search and retrieve reliable sources from the deep web. Using more bespoke databases will help you retrieve further relevant sources from the deep web and subscription-only sites.

5.3 Using bespoke library databases and search engines

Library databases usually contain information about journal articles, books and theses, and provide a quick way to search this type of information invisible to standard search engines and located within the deep web or subscription-only repositories. Within a database, the information relating to each item (e.g. a single journal article) is called a ‘record’, with each record made up of a number of ‘fields’, containing data about any aspect of the item.

The most common fields listed in library databases are:

• Author/Artist
• Title
• Date of publication
• Summary/Description (e.g. an abstract of a journal article)
• Publisher/Source
• Key/Subject words.

When you run a search, the words you enter as search terms are compared to the words in the fields of each record.

One of the key skills to finding useful information for your studies is to be able to identify and use the right database. Some databases (e.g. Academic Search Complete) are multidisciplinary and cover several subject areas; others (e.g. PsycINFO) are more specialised and concentrate on a particular field or discipline area.

5.4 Searching for information – Google Scholar

Google Scholar can provide a useful search facility for peer-reviewed papers, theses, books and reports across all subject areas, as well as patents and legal opinions (US). However, do bear in mind that it does not cover all scholarly information. Therefore, to be sure that the information you obtain is comprehensive – you should not rely solely on this search engine (see Section 5.3). The following activity will guide you in carrying out an advanced search using Google Scholar.

6 Evaluating information

The ability to critically evaluate information is an essential skill for postgraduate study. Regardless of how much information you have found on your chosen topic, it is important to evaluate its quality and only use that which is pertinent to your research topic.

Your postgraduate study will involve investigating a wide range of primary and secondary sources of information (e.g. journal papers, academic textbooks and websites), and may also include some grey literature (e.g. governmental and NGO reports), as well as other sources of information. You may be familiar with some of these resources and trust their reliability, but what about other resources? How do you know whether the information you find is from a reputable source and can be trusted?

Articles published in reputable journals will have been peer-reviewed, i.e. experts in the field will have read the article before publication and confirmed that the contents are credible. This review process is typically anonymous, so that the authors cannot use their influence to get their papers published and the reviewers cannot preferentially recommend their colleagues’ papers for publication. During the peer-review process, the reviewers will look at the confidence of the data obtained and the suitability of the methods of analysis. They will also look at the conclusions to ensure they are valid, unambiguous and based on the results presented in the paper, and confirm that the paper represents new findings and is not a direct repeat of work that has already been published, either by the same author or by others.

Resources you obtain from academic databases (including those noted in Section 5.3) involve reputable journals, so you can generally rely on these as ‘credible’ sources of information. Academic books and review articles published by large publishing houses or professional bodies are also typically expected to be reliable. Very occasionally, published papers are subsequently shown to be of dubious quality, e.g. where data or information has been made up or the authors have unknowingly measured something completely different. Such occurrences are rare but, to an impartial reader, will be difficult to spot. This is where sites such as Retraction Watch can help clarify issues of concern.

However, you are potentially more likely to come across dubious sources of information when searching the web. Although web resources generated by universities, professional bodies, government organisations and well-known publishing houses are usually reliable, you still need to make sure that any material you use from the web is reliable. Charitable bodies and pressure groups can be reputable, but care is needed as some (especially pressure groups) may provide biased information or views. You should also watch out for any bias in reporting, and aim to seek a balanced view by considering more than one source of information and weighing up the alternatives.

6.1 Evaluating information on the internet

It is particularly important to evaluate information you find on the internet, as anyone can create a website, blog or wiki and add information that appears to be authoritative.

6.2 Evaluating information using the ‘PROMPT’ criteria

A useful way to systemically assess the credibility and potential value of any resource is to apply the PROMPT criteria. The table below outlines this structured approach. Activities 7–9 in the next section will allow you to explore three criteria (Provenance, Relevance and Objectivity) further. The presentation below offers further detailed guidance to support your evaluation. Take a look at Table 2 and view the presentation now before proceeding to complete the activities in the following section.

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Transcript: Session 5, slidecast 1: Evaluating information using the ‘PROMPT’ criteria

Hello and welcome. This slidecast will give you some useful tips on evaluating information using the ‘PROMPT’ Criteria. ‘PROMPT’ is a framework for evaluation developed by the Open University. It’s a useful way to systematically assess the credibility and potential value of any information or resource that you come across online.

The mnemonic stands for six criteria. These are: Provenance, Relevance, Objectivity, Method, Presentation and Timeliness. Let’s take a closer look at each of these criteria in turn.

The provenance of information – that is, who produced it and where it came from – may provide a useful clue to its reliability. It represents the ‘credentials’ that support its status and perceived value. It’s therefore very important to be able to identify the author, sponsoring body or source of your information. You can do this by searching online for more information. For example, you could find out where an individual works, and whether they’ve written any other material in the field. You should always treat anonymous information with caution.

Any individual can publish on the web or post to a discussion. Content therefore, has to be judged on its own merit and with reference to the author’s credentials. It’s also useful to consider the sponsoring organisation and method of publication.

You need to establish the author’s status and expertise. For example, ‘Are they acknowledged experts in the subject area?’ You could check how many papers they’ve published on the topic. Have they been frequently cited by other authors in the field? Are they respected and reliable sources? Are their views controversial?

You can ask questions about sponsoring organisations. What type of organisation is it? A commercial company, voluntary organisation, statutory body, research organisation and so on? How well established is the organisation? Does the organisation have any vested interests in the subject area?

Consider the method of publication. Is the source of information well-regarded within the academic community? Is the information peer-reviewed? What do you know of the editor and the editorial board, and how their editorial policy influences what will be published?

The provenance of a piece of information does not always offer a direct clue to its quality. There is something called the ‘stable theory’, which suggests that academic work is often valued highly just because it emanates from a prestigious group, or is published in a prestigious journal. Published information should be judged on its own merits. However, provenance offers an indirect clue to the reliability of information – a safety net that gives you the opportunity to check things out. Provenance can also affect other people’s confidence in the sources you are citing.

Relevance is an important aspect of information quality. Relevance is not a property of the information itself, but rather of its relationship to the specific need that you’ve identified in your work. A particular source may be well researched and written, but if it’s not relevant to the question you are asking or the scope of your work, it’ll be of little value.

Here are some tips for determining relevance of information. Make sure that you are clear about your requirements. Think about why you need the information. Try to avoid having to read everything in full on first pass. If you’re evaluating a large body of material, learn to skim read and scan information to get a quick indication of what it’s about. Look out for the title, headings and subheadings, abstracts or summaries, keywords or descriptors that are relevant to your topic area. Consider whether the information has the right emphasis, and is at the right level for your requirements. It might for instance be too simple for Master’s level. Consider it in the wider context. Does it provide a unique insight into an aspect of your subject? Does the work confirm or refute the findings of others? At Master’s level you’re expected to gain an in-depth knowledge of your subject area, so you should be aware of relevant opposing discourse.

In an ideal world, ‘objective’ or ‘balanced’ information would present all the evidence and all the arguments, and leave you to weigh this up and draw conclusions. In the real world however, we recognise that all information is presented from a position of interest, although this may not necessarily be intentional. Objectivity therefore, may be an unachievable ideal. This means that the onus is on you, as the reader, to develop a critical awareness of the positions represented in what you read, and to take account of this when you interpret the information. It’s also important to recognise that your own belief systems and opinions will influence your ability to be dispassionate, and to evaluate information objectively.

In some cases, authors may be expressing a particular viewpoint. This is perfectly valid as long as they are explicit about the stance they are taking. Hidden bias or errors of omission, whether deliberate or not, can be misleading. You need to identify the views, opinions and judgements being expressed in information. Here are a few tips to help you in your evaluation. Consider perspectives. Do the authors clearly state the viewpoint they are taking? Academic articles will often present unsubstantiated theories for debate. Look out for opinion presented as if it were fact. Look out also for language that is either emotionally charged or vague. Consider sponsorship and vested interests. These may be political, personal or commercial. Academic research for example may be sponsored by industry or government. This does not necessarily make the research less objective, but it may make its interpretation selective. Make sure that all potential vested interests are clearly identified, and any conflicts of interest have been declared.

When preparing for your postgraduate assignments (for example an essay or a literature review), there is a particular onus on you to recognise any selective interpretations of information. You will need to comment on any significant omission or biases that you may encounter in other people’s findings. At postgraduate level, you will also need to be reflective and aware that you may have your own bias, which filters information that you find.

Let’s briefly consider method. This is an aspect that refers to the information produced as a result of using particular methods. This criterion is particularly important when evaluating research, data, questionnaires and for historical information. In these instances, the method is also an important indicator of reliability. Don’t assume that because a research report has been accepted for publication, it is error-free.

With your knowledge of the methods used in your subject area think about whether it’s clear how the work was carried out. Were the methods appropriate? Ask basic questions about methodology (for example the size and nature of samples or participants, questionnaire design and so on). Are the results consistent with the methods stated? Are the methods suitable for your needs?

The way in which information is presented has a profound effect on the way we perceive it. There are many aspects of presentation, any of which, if badly applied, can create a barrier between the message and the audience.

Consider for example, the choice of colour, font size and type, the use of diagrams and images, logical structure, flow and layout, use of language and writing style. Be aware that poor presentation and inappropriate or confusing use of language will hinder your ability to critically evaluate the academic content. You may find it difficult to understand or to follow arguments if the information is poorly structured, has a confused layout, and is badly written with poor language use. Having noted this however, you should try not to let poor presentation stop you using what might otherwise be good quality, relevant information, if that’s the case.

Knowing when information was produced or published can be an important aspect to help you judge its value for a specific purpose, such as a particular assignment or report that you are putting together. This is not quite as simple as saying that ‘good’ information has to be up-to-date. It depends on your particular needs. If you’re looking for the latest research, information about current technology, or key policy changes, then the publication date would be considered to be very important. In some instances, the relevance of material may be more important than its age.

When evaluating timeliness you should ask whether it’s clear when the information was produced. Does the date of the information meet your specific requirements, or would it be considered ‘obsolete’? Has it been superseded?

This brings us to the end of this presentation.

Thanks for listening to this slidecast. We hope you found it useful.

End transcript: Session 5, slidecast 1: Evaluating information using the ‘PROMPT’ criteria

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Session 5, slidecast 1: Evaluating information using the ‘PROMPT’ criteria

6.2.1 Evaluating the ‘Provenance’, ‘Relevance’ and ‘Objectivity’ of information

You will now carry out three activities to evaluate the first three parts of the PROMPT criteria: provenance, relevance and objectivity.

7 Keeping up-to-date with information

Keeping up-to-date with your subject area forms an essential part of your postgraduate studies and professional development. The ability to use online tools to help you keep up-to-date should help to save you time by ensuring that new and valuable information comes to you when it becomes available, instead of you having to repeatedly search for it. Tools that you can use include subscribing to mailing lists, RSS feeds, podcasts and various forms of alerts (including citation, journal and database alerts).

7.1 Mailing lists

The National Academic Mailing List Service in the UK, known as ‘JISCMail’, is a service designed specifically for further and higher education communities. You can explore JISCMail or Google groups for a mailing list relevant to your subject area. Read through the archives online to see what has previously been discussed, and subscribe if you think it would be useful.

7.2 RSS feeds

RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds provide automatic updates containing information from websites such as news headlines, blog posts, press releases, forum posts and content updates. You can organise your RSS feeds into folders by setting up a ‘feed reader’ (such as Newz Crawler, FeedDemon or Awasu for Windows; Newsfire or MetNewsWire for Mac OS X), and easily see which feeds are showing when new content is available. Look out for the orange RSS symbols when browsing and click on them to add available feeds to your feed reader. The BBC Newsfeeds page has a useful guide to RSS feeds and feed readers which can help you get started. We examine RSS feeds in more detail in Section 7.6.

7.3 Podcasts

A podcast is a digital media file (audio recording) that can be downloaded and played on a computer or mobile device. Podcasts vary in length from several minutes to more than an hour depending on the nature of the topic and the number of participants (e.g. an event or broadcast series). Syndicate podcasts can be subscribed to and downloaded using an aggregator or feed reader in a similar way to RSS feeds. Podcasts can bring recent issues to listeners, provide information in an easily absorbed ‘bite-sized’ format, and allow people to interact with a community of experts and enthusiasts. For example, The Guardian online produces a series of podcasts across several areas (news and opinion, science and tech, culture and sport). You can search for podcasts relevant to your field using any search engine. Software such as iTunes, for example, has links to its own directory of podcasts that you can subscribe to using that software.

7.4 Alerts

Alerts are usually delivered to your email inbox automatically on a regular basis. In some cases, the service you subscribe to generates custom RSS feeds to add to your feed reader. You will have to register with the database or service to receive alerts. We will take a brief look at five of these here:

• Database search alerts. Once you have developed and run an effective search using a database, you may want to save it. Once a search history has been created, you can manually re-run a search at a later date without having to remember the search terms you used, or you can set it up so that the database re-runs your search regularly and emails you the results – this is known as a ‘search alert’. Most databases have guides which provide advice on using the different functions of the database, so try looking through these to find out whether the database you are using supports saving searches. You will usually need to register with a database in order to save your search. Recall that you set up a search alert as part of Activity 6 using Google Scholar (in STEP 3).
• Citation alerts. Citation searching is particularly useful because it mimics the way in which researchers use literature, i.e. looking at the references at the end of articles to determine others that may be relevant and useful. Citation searching is a method of searching that relies on entering specific details (e.g. name of a ‘key’ author, journal article or book). It is then possible to retrieve from the database other articles that have the original ‘key’ author, article or book cited in the bibliography. Recall that you explored the ‘cited by’ and ‘related articles’ queries as part of Activity 6, based on the article you selected (in STEP 4). Citation alerts can also be set up in some databases to let you know automatically when someone has cited an article or author you have found particularly useful. By using citation alerts you can build up a picture of important articles and authors in your field.
• Journal table of contents. To keep-up-to date with the most recently published issues of journals, you can set up ‘Table of Contents alerts’ using the British Library Zetoc or the Journal TOCs services. Alerts can be set up to be emailed to you, or be made available in the form of an RSS feed which you can add to your feed reader.
• Articles accepted for publication. It is possible to receive the details of some articles which have been accepted for publication, but have not yet been published. To do this you can use the ‘forthcoming titles’ or ‘articles in press’ tools which some journal providers offer. You will usually need to set up an RSS feed using a feed reader to receive information in this way. The key is to make a list of important and authoritative journals in your field of study, look for this functionality and set up an RSS feed if available/provided.
• Conference Alerts. Conference Alerts brings together conference organisers and academics who need to stay informed about conferences in their field. You can register for a subscriber account and a monthly email will be sent to you about conferences matching your interests.

7.5 Deciding which tool to use

Whether you are new to these tools or not, spending some time familiarising yourself with different ways to keep up-to-date may save you considerable time in the future. In deciding which tool to use, think about the answers to the following questions:

• Do I want everything coming into my mailbox?
• Where and how do I access these tools?
• What’s the best use of my time?
• Will these tools expose information sources I haven’t previously used?

The table below lists some pros and cons which may be useful for you to consider.

7.6 Keeping up-to-date using RSS feeds

RSS feeds can be set up to keep you up-to-date with the latest content from journals that you regularly check or newly published book titles, with website information for those you frequently visit, or with blog posts. Subscribing to RSS feeds allows you to receive updates directly from websites without having to visit them yourself – and also saves time by providing all the updates you want in one place. You can subscribe directly by adding RSS URLs (web addresses) into your browser or through an RSS feed reader (also known as a news reader or aggregator).

The process of setting up a news feed (RSS) is straightforward, but will depend on the browser you use. For example, Internet Explorer asks you to ‘subscribe to this feed’, and gives you the option of adding links to news feeds directly to the ‘Favourites’ bar. Mozilla Firefox asks you to ‘subscribe now’, and gives you the option of using ‘Live bookmarks’ to place a link to news feeds on the top screen as the default option.

The benefits of RSS feeds include:

• automatic updates with new information from subscribed sites
• they save time by providing your updates in one place
• you do not need to register on many different websites
• your email will not be overloaded.

But they can have drawbacks, such as:

• they can be time-consuming to set up
• you need to remember to check updates
• it is easy to get carried away and subscribe to more information than is manageable
• the page you want to keep up-to-date with may not have an RSS feed.

So while setting up RSS feeds can save you time, you will still need to remember to check your feed reader and add or delete any RSS feeds, as well as reading the relevant feeds. If an RSS feed is not available, you will need to consider a different method for keeping up-to-date (see Section 7.5).

8 Citing and referencing sources

It is a standard requirement for academic and professional practice to openly acknowledge the words, thoughts and ideas of others, and not to present them as if they were your own. You should already be familiar with some of the conventions for citing references within documents and acknowledging your sources of information (in-text citations and including a comprehensive reference list at the end of a document). By including appropriate references, you are not only acknowledging the work of others, but are demonstrating how your own thoughts and ideas have evolved and developed based on your critical synthesis of the existing literature. In-text references allow you to clearly differentiate between your own ideas, interpretations and conclusions, and those of others. By correctly referencing your work, you are enabling others to identify and retrieve the sources you have used, and thereby allowing them to verify the authenticity of your work.

From your experiences of reading different types of primary and secondary literature, you will have become aware of good academic practice when quoting and referring to the work of others. Failure to reference appropriately is considered poor academic practice, and could be further construed as an attempt to ‘deceive’ the reader regarding the originality and authenticity of your work (whether intentionally or unintended), which would be regarded as plagiarism. We will examine academic integrity and guidance on using information responsibly and developing good academic practices further in Session 6.

8.1 Referencing systems

Although styles of referencing differ, referencing systems can broadly be categorised as either ‘alphabetic’ or ‘numeric’:

• Alphabetic referencing is where the author’s surname and date of publication are listed in the in-text citation, while the final reference list is sorted alphabetically. The most commonly used example is the Harvard referencing system.
• Numeric referencing is where the sources used are allocated a number based on the order of their first occurrence in the text, with this number listed in the in-text citation, while the final reference list is ordered numerically, comprising of the author’s name, year of publication and other reference details. The most commonly used example is the Vancouver referencing system.

Different disciplines have their own specific requirements and referencing conventions. The referencing system used will often depend on the precise discipline of study and may vary depending on the preferences of the leading journals or organisations in that area (e.g. the American Psychological Association referencing system). Irrespective of which system you use, the key to good referencing is consistency in practice, ensuring in-text citations are used appropriately throughout the text, while the full reference list at the end of the document allows the reader to retrieve these sources.

The alphabetic system allows the reader to instantly note which authors are being cited and the year of publication of their work. For the numeric system, the reader will need to refer to the final reference list to see which authors are being cited, and what the year of publication is. A version of the Harvard referencing system has been adopted for use by The Open University. You can find guidance on this referencing style by following the link below.

Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)

You should ensure that you are familiar with the referencing requirements for your postgraduate course and use referencing styles specified by your institution and professional discipline area.

8.2 Working with secondary (or indirect) references

At postgraduate level you are typically expected to have read widely and consulted the primary literature. On some occasions, you may find that you want to refer to information or a direct quotation taken from a source that has been cited in an article you have read. This constitutes a secondary (or indirect) reference, in that you have not read the original piece of work, but are citing what the author of the article you have read has said about this other author’s work.

In such cases, you need to make it clear you have not consulted the secondary reference, but are citing this from the context of the primary reference you have read. For example:

‘According to Rüggeberg et al., as cited by Knudson et al. (2010), …’

or

‘As noted in Knudson et al. (2010), Rüggeberg et al. showed that…’

By using phrases such as ‘as cited by’ and ‘as noted in’, you are clearly indicating that you have not read the work by Rüggeberg et al., but are referring to the interpretation of this work by Knudson et al. As the paper by Rüggeberg et al. is a secondary reference, it should not be included in your final reference list. Your final reference list should only contain resources you have read (i.e. your primary references). Given the potential for misinterpretation and/or misrepresentation of another author’s work, you should use secondary references sparingly and avoid them if possible. If you do need to use a secondary reference, make this very clear in your text.

8.3 Digital object identifiers (DOIs)

If you look at a recently published journal article you will find a digital object identifier or ‘DOI’ reference associated with the article (often on the front page). These typically take the format ‘doi:10.1016/…’. The DOI reference system was adopted as standard across the sector in 2000, as a mechanism to index all journal publications.

You can convert the DOI reference into an active URL by listing ‘http://dx.doi.org/’ in front of the number (e.g. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/ j.sbspro.2016.07.086). This link will then take you to the original journal publication. For open access papers, you can use the direct URL/DOI at the end of the full reference if you are sure it will remain stable and accessible. If you use web links in your references, you will also need to note the date that you accessed each link, so that the reader can see when the resource was last available (in case the link is no longer active or the resource has subsequently been updated, replaced or removed).

9 Developing your selective and critical reading skills

Session 4 introduced you to a process for critically reading and selecting relevant material. We expand this here and provide you with tips that will help you to develop your skills further.

• Is it worth reading? To read an article in a critical manner takes time. You need to sift out unimportant or less relevant information first, so that you can spend most of your time concentrating on those you perceive as being really important (see Section 2 of Session 4 ‘A process for reading and selecting relevant material’). Articles generally tend to follow a particular format and style, which makes it possible to locate and evaluate certain information quickly (for example, the section headings of a paper published in an academic journal). The format and style can be exploited to make finding and assessing the material quicker as part of critical reading. Use scanning to locate particular information and skimming to pick out key words and main themes in the content. Then you can decide whether to invest further time in critically reading more of the article.
• Skim-read the article to identify the important parts that need detailed analysis. Note which sections will require brief notes and which sections can be ignored. This is always a difficult task, but you have to be ruthless. It is very easy to waste your time reading something that is interesting or easy, but is not relevant to your studies. You have to make a clear decision about what is important and what is peripheral.
• Decide which key points you want to extract from the article that are relevant to your studies. This may be key arguments or conclusions, data, tables, figures or diagrams. Write down in your own words the information you want to extract, and include brief details.
• Look out for ‘pointers’ or ‘keywords’ in the text that alert you to ask critical questions. ‘However’ may introduce an opposing view or contradictory evidence. Can you identify any author bias? ‘Although’ is a qualifying word. Is the evidence reliable? Does it really support the argument? ‘Therefore/so’ can be used to draw together the argument when making a concluding statement. Is the conclusion logical? Is the reasoning justified? ‘Probably/possibly’ may be introducing an unsubstantiated generalisation. ‘Generally/most/many/some’ and ‘may/appears/seem to’ are qualifying words which allow for exceptions to a statement. Does this weaken the argument?
• Ensure that you make a note of relevant bibliographic details (e.g. author, title, journal, volume, year, page numbers, DOI or URL etc.), and write some brief summary notes that offer a more detailed insight into the relevance and focus of each piece of information you have selected to include in your work (see Section 2 of Session 4).

10 Summary and reflection

The activity below encourages you to reflect further on the session.

Now go back to your academic and professional skills checklist from Session 1 and look at how you assessed your ability in the ‘academic and information literacy’ domains. If you think that you are now at a higher level of understanding than your initial estimate, then mark this down on the form.

Remember to review your progress at the end of each session, as you work through the course.

11 This session’s quiz

The end-of-session quiz gives you the opportunity to check your understanding and progress. It consists of three questions and will help you to prepare for the longer end-of-course badge quiz.

Session 5 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new tab or window (by holding ctrl [or cmd on a Mac] when you click the link).

12 Closing remarks

This brings Session 5 to a close.

In the next session, we focus on using information responsibly (looking at issues related to academic integrity, copyright, use of social media), and explore how collaborative group work and feedback can operate to support learning in an online asynchronous environment.

You can now go to Session 6.

Acknowledgements

This free course was written by Eric Addae-Kyeremeh and Payam Rezaie.

Some of the content in this session has been redeveloped from the following resources:

Open University Library Information Literacy Resources (Accessed 11 April 2017)

Open University course S825 Developing research skills in Science

Open University course STM895 Postgraduate research skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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References

Dictionary of Information and Library Management (2006) London, A&C Black.