E-resources 2

Free resources

Free e-resources

Are in something of a mess, to be quite blunt! But they are out there. This session should give you some idea of where to look, and what to do with information when you find it!

The web.

•Often, our first stop. •In many respects the biggest mess of all!• Unlikely to offer much scholarly information • Be aware of the “Dark Web”

Directory of Open Access Journals

• Free in the sense of “free beer” (No charges, registration or password required)• AND free in the sense of “free speech”. (Journals must exercise peer review or at least editorial board control to get listed)• Covers all scientific and scholarly subjects. OAJ has 538 education journals• Subject index• Browse by title facility

Repositories

• Databases of institutional research (mostly)• Usually open to Google Search (but not always)• Contain a mix of record types (full text,

multimedia, bibliographic) (usually)

The Lincoln Repository

http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk Contains pre-prints, conference papers, doctoral theses, and some learning materials. Not every document is available full text (but there is usually a link for you to request a copy.)

Courseware

• More learning material than research data• Some good stuff on research methods if you use

the search engine.

Copyright

• Academic publishing is at bottom a protection racket.

• Your copyright is yours to do as you please with.

• You can license people to use your work.

Readers and Really Simple Syndication

• Remembering all these sites (and having to search them) is a pain!

• RSS is a wonderful technology that saves you the trouble.

• Readers and RSS

Managing it all (not just the free stuff)

• Information is a mess! Choice of three free(ish) tools to manage references!

(Free to UL students)

Charges as database gets larger

Completely free

Actually there are more (e.g. Endnote) – but these three are free (to you)

Why citation managers?

• Keep all your records in one place

• Accessible from anywhere.

• Can link to (and sometimes store) electronic copies of texts

• Can output properly formatted reference lists right into your assignments.

• We strongly recommend Refworks for our own students.

ComparisonsUsed more in the humanities. Can store documents. Allows full text searching of documents stored in it.

Tends to be used by scientists. Can store documents. Allows full text searching of documents stored in it.Social network and groups feature

Can link to documents.User definable fieldsEasy search of and import from external databasesConfigured to output Lincoln approved bibliographic style

Screenshot (Zotero)

Screenshot (Mendeley)

Screenshot (Refworks)

Summary

You get from here

To there

by searching, sifting, judging, recording and selecting information

This takes practice.