Information Literacy

Definition

The ability to find, evaluate, organize, use, and communicate information in all its various formats, most notably in situations requiring decision making, problem solving, or the acquisition of knowledge.

Why information Literacy

• Information overload
• Academic skill
• During Study
  • develops critical thinking
  • improves academic writing
• After Study
  • Part of the research cycle
  • Stay up to date in your discipline.
  • Application of research.

An Information Literate Person

• Recognises an information need.
• Addresses the information need.
• Retrevies the information.
• Evaluates information critically.
• Adapts information.
• Organises information.
• Communicates information.

Peer Review

1. Scientists study something.
2. Scientists write about their results.
3. Journal editor receves an article and sends it out for peer review.
4. Peer reviewers read the article and provide feedback to the editor.
5. Editor may send reviewer comments to the scientists who may revise and resubmit the article or it may be rejected.
6. If an article meets editorial and peer standards it is published in a journal.

The Role of Scientific Literature

• Claiming (intellectual or commercial) ownership.

Requirements of Scientific Information

• Original
• New knowledge or data.
• Peer reviewed.
• Justifiable, reference to sources.
• Subtle of objective language.
• Systematic structure.
• Description methods.
• Replicable, verifiable.

Research Cycle

1. Theory / Observation
2. Hypothesis
3. Experimental Step
4. Testing
5. Evaluation

Define Your Information Source

• Your Purpose:
  • Orientation
  • in-depth search
• Topic
  • Research question
• Level
  • Scientific
  • professional
  • news
• Type
  • data
  • news
  • books
  • research article
  • laws
  • company info
  • government info

There are different databases for each type of data.

Searching for scientific information.

Known Item Search

purpose: find the full-text of a publication

methods:

• copy paste title into google scholar.
• copy the digital object identifier and put it in the following link format https://doi.org/[DOI]. example of a DOI: 10.1109/5.771073.

Following A Thread:

• Finding articles with a lineage relation.
  • backward via references.
  • forward via citations.
• Finding Similar articles
  • Corresponding references
  • Corresponding authors
  • Corresponding keywords

Systematic Search

why do a systematic search:

• to get better results.
• to find out what is already known.
• to clarify a research question.
• to get to know a field.
• to interpret new results in the given prior research.

Steps:

1. Find the problem.
2. Find criteria.
3. Choose databases.
4. Choose search terms.
5. Choose search techniques.
6. Search.
7. Evaluate.
8. Document.

Example:

Problem statement Nanotechnology approaches for the diagnosis of HIV.

Key words:

• Nanotechnology
• HIV
• diagnosis

1. Perform search with keywords.
2. Add synonyms to search query.

Operators for search:

in parenthesis the actual operators for google.

• Set operators:
  • $\cup ,\cap ,\mathrm{\neg }$ (&, |, -)
  • search terms can be grouped with ().
• Proximity operators:
  • wildcard *
  • two terms with X words of each other AROUND(X)

CRAAP Test:

• Currency: How actual is this information?
• Relevancy: How relevant is this source?
• Authority: Who wrote it ?
• Accuracy: How valid is this info?
• Purpose: With what purpose was this info shared?

Document your search

• Looking back: how can you improve your search
• Any notable patters.
  • journals
  • authors.
• Any valuable keywords found?

Log your progress and process

Date	Database	Search query	#hits	Findings

When to stop searching

• depends on your goal.
• balance between two measures.
  1. precision: % of papers that are relevant.
  2. recall: inclusion of key papers in result.

Citing and Referencing

Plagiarism

Taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own.

Why citing ?

• to show awareness of areas in subject.
• support points and choices.
• verifiability.
• give others recognition.

Citing can be done in any part of a scientific paper.

Formatting

• Citations in the text:

... as shown by John Doe[1]

• Quote:

"As result privacy could benefit from a review
on context-aware infrastructures in general,
and highly mobile end users infrastructures specifically." (p. 145, [2])

• Paraphrasing

Reference Lists

• Include all references used in the text.
• Include each reference once.
• Consistent format.

Styles of Citing

• Author, year ex: [John Doe, 1945]
• Numbered ex: [1] footer: 1 John Doe, 1945

Reference Formats:

Type	Format
Journal Article	[Author Name]["Title of Paper"][(Abbrev) Title of Periodical][vol. #][no. #], [pp.],[(date) M., yyyy][DOI]
Conference Paper	[Author Name]["Title of Paper"] in [(Abbrev) Name of Conference]., [City of Conference]., [(Abbrev / if available) State], [Country], [(date) yyyy], [pp.]
Reference to Report	[Author Name]["Title of Report"][(Abbrev) Name of Co].,[City of Co].,[(Abbrev) State], [Country], [Rep.][(date) M., yyyy]
Reference to Book	[Author Name]["Title of Book"][eddition][Publisher City][(Abbrev)Publisher Country], [(date) yyyy]
Reference to website	[Author Name]["Title of Website"][Company].[City][State], [Country].[Link], [Accessed on (date): mm, d, yyyy]