Internet Studies

Task: A search for the words Advanced Internet Users:

Google: 99,200,000 hits
Copernic: 46 hits
Meta-Crawler: 62 hits with all search engines and moderate search selected
Alltheweb: 52,400,000 hits

There is a huge difference in number of hits. Which one is the most promising? I don’t know yet. I will need to check the search results to decide.

I also did a test search on Google Books (1287 hits), Clusty (Top 223 results from 20,910,000 pages) and Google Scholar (215,000 hits).

I had a look at the results and wasn’t impressed with many of them. They were not what I was looking for and most results were the same on all the search engines (minor variations). I was looking for resources. So I will try to add that word to my search or adjust my search query (next section).

The First 5 Hits of Searches

Google:

• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE
• Advanced User’s Internet Training Resources
• Advanced Internet Users, School of Continuing Education
• News @ Cisco: China Supports Advanced Applications for Internet
• StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

Copernic:

• Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium..[Gigablast, Ask.com]
• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE [Ask.com]
• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE - Saving Web Pages [Ask.com]
• Finding People on the Internet? [About.com]
• Msen Advanced Internet Users Links Page [Ask.com]

Boolean Search

Task: Taking the same key words of your last search, , think about how you would best search for the following:

The biggest number of hits: Advanced OR Internet OR Users

Sources relating to skills-based information: +”Advanced Internet Users” +skills
This search gave 7 hits on Copernic, 71 hits on Metacrawler, 139 on Clusty and 11,600 on Google (with Dewa’s log as first result)

Information coming only from university sources: +”Advanced Internet Users” +.edu
This search gave me all the courses each univeristy offers for Advnaced Internet Studies.

I also had a surprise to find Dewa’s progress log for NET11 from January 2007 as my third search result on Metacrawler when I searched for sources relating to skilled-based information. Also, Wendy’s blog came up on Clusty as second result.

Let’s try Advanced Internet Users +Online Resources: Couldn’t find anything that grabbed my attention as a resource that I would like to use. I think the problem is that I am not sure what I am looking for any more. I’ll go back and check the assignment.

Well, I had a fresh look at the assignment and I think (hope) I’m back on track.

A funny thing happened, I clicked on a link on Google and wasn’t too impressed with what came up, so I returned to the search results page and clicked on similar pages and better results came up. The first result was Internet Tutorials by Laura Cohen. (Sounds familiar?) I then clicked on the second result and it took me to Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial by Berkeley Library. I Think I will use that as a resource for module 4 in the assignment project.

Organising Information

Task: Choose the best three sources found in the previous task and record the following information about those sites:

URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/
Author: Various
Institution: The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Summary (taken from Site): The Berkman Center is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. We represent a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace.
Screen Shot:

URL: http://eserver.org/courses/w01/tc510/orange/designing1.htm
Article: Designing for Advanced Users
Author: Andrew Hinkelman
Institution: Orange - an online journal of technical communication and information design
Summary (taken from site): The qualities that once distinguished advanced computer users from less knowledgeable users are becoming more commonplace and may in the future be regarded as standard. Computer users in general are becoming more comfortable and experienced with computer technologies, and often utilize the Internet for intellectual pursuits like information gathering or learning new skills. Furthermore, access to higher bandwidth Internet connections continues to increase. This article discusses these qualities in reference to an advanced or experienced user.
Screenshot:

URL: Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
Author: Joe Barker
Institution: UC Berkeley Library
Summary (taken from Site): This tutorial presents the substance of the Internet Workshops (current schedule) offered year-round by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. The content on this site has been updated to reflect the latest trends in search engines, directories, and evaluating web pages. The title reflects our belief that there is a lot of great material on the Web - primary sources, specialized directories and databases, statistical information, educational sites on many levels, policy, opinion of all kinds, and so much more - and we have better tools for finding this great stuff.
Screen Shot:

Evaluating the Web

Task: Choose your best ’source’ or site from the three you used in the last task, then evaluate it.

Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial

Audience: Univeristy Students
Source: Credible
Content:

• An intorudction to the web
• Intorduction to Online Search
• Search Types and Tools
• Evaluating Web Pages - Why and How
• Style Sheets to Citing Internet Electronic Reources
• Glossary of Internet Terms

Style: Site laid out clearly, logically and well organised. Even covers the subject of evaluating web pages-why and how.

My annotation:

Which one was better?