Most important lesson learnt in UIR journey
The most important lesson I have learnt in my UIR journey is the characteristics of the various search facility available. After doing the assignment, I get to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of each search facility.
Before taking UIR, the search facility I always use to do my research will be Google. After learning more about the different search facilities, I realized that different search facility should be used when doing different type of research. If the research topic is unfamiliar to me, I should use Subject Directory to do the research. Search engine and Meta Search engine should be used for familiar topics.
Practical 8
For this week’s practical, we are supposed to cite the resources we have used using the APA citation style and compile them into bibliography. I realized that doing a bibliography is not easy as there is a format for it. Using the format given in lecture slides, I did the citation for my resources. I think that giving credit to the websites we have taken the information from is an important thing. I am glad that UIR teaches me the proper way of citing websites as it can be used for other subjects as well.
Practical 7
This week’s practical involved Wiki. I am supposed to post the research I have done for my assignment topic. I feel that Wiki has allowed me to have a better understanding about the topic I am doing as different members may have found different information.
Besides that, I can also view the topics that are done by other groups. As we are not doing the same topic, Wiki provides me with a chance to get to read information about other topics which are also very interesting. I believed that Wiki has helped me gain more knowledge about the different topics.
Also, we can edit the information we have put on Wiki with the edit feature. This allows us to add on to the existing information when we have found more related information. On the whole, this a good learning experience.
Practical 6b
For this week’s practical, I am supposed to post a new discussion or reply to a topic in a forum. I have some difficulty in doing that as some forums require log-ins. I signed up for the forum but it did not send the confirmation email to me. Finally, I posted in a forum which does not require the verification of email.
This week is also e-learning week. I have to post my answer to the question in OLE. The question made me thought about how internet has helped me in my academic life. I realized that with Internet, researching for information required for projects has becoming easier and more efficient. Internet provides me with a wide range of information which is useful in doing my projects. I need not have to browse through a large number of books to get the same amount of information.
Besides signing up a forum and posting answers in OLE, I also have to evaluate the other resource I have found in the last practical based on the criteria given. After evaluating, I realized that this resource is not as updated as compared to the resource I found last week. I am glad that the criterion, currency is used to evaluate resources as it helps me to judge if the information is up-to-date.
I believed that the criteria used in the evaluation of resources will come in useful in future. It will help me in finding information on reliable websites.
Practical 6a
This practical requires me to search for 2 resources related to the topic I am doing, discuss the developments in AIDS research. The keywords I used are developments, AIDS research.
After finding the 2 resources, I am supposed to evaluate it using the template given. The evaluation is based on criteria such as purpose, coverage, authority, accuracy, currency, accessibility, presentation and arrangement and usability.
I feel that evaluating resources based on these criteria helps me to judge if the information provided by resource is updated and also if the information provided requires payment or is free. I also feel that these 2 criteria are the most important as information about sciences should be updated frequently. Also, if the information requires payment, it should be of higher quality as compared to those provided free.
Practical 4 and 5
This practical requires me to compare the different types of search facilities such as search engine, Meta search engine and subject directory.
Search engine: Google
The strength of Google is that relevant results are shown on the first pages of the results page. The weakness is that it produces a large number of results. The number of results shown is the most among the three search facilities.
Meta search engine: MetaCrawler
The strength of MetaCrawler is that it searches all the search engines to produce the results and the number of results is not very large. The weakness is that not all the relevant results are shown on the first page.
Subject directory: Yahoo! Directory
The strength of Yahoo! Directory is that the information is grouped into categories for easy searching. The weakness is that the results produced are generic links to websites. Users have to go to these websites and find the information themselves.
Before this practical, I only know the existence of search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. This practical helps me to be more familiarize with the different types of search facilities available. After comparing the different types of search facilities, I still believed that Google is the best although the number of results produced is very large. I prefer Google is mainly due to the user-friendly interface and the large number of relevant results produced.
Practical 3
This practical requires me to group the resources I have found according to their purposes such as information, advocacy, business/marketing, news, personal and entertainment.
I think that grouping the resources according to their purposes is very useful as it allows me to know how reliable the information is. If the resource falls under advocacy, personal and entertainment, the information provided may not be very accurate it does not contain any facts unlike information and news. Information provides facts while the purpose of news is to provide information about the latest happenings around the world to update the public with the most current events.
Besides learning more about the purpose of resources, I also learn how to create site feeds to other blogs by following the templates given in the practical. I feel that site feeds are very useful as the entries are placed according to the date posted. The most recent entry will be placed at the top of the page. With site feeds, users need not have to go to the blog and search for the most recent entries themselves.
