What can you do with the Internet?

Compiled by Western Institute of TAFE Libraries

About the Internet

The Internet is made up of millions of computers from around the world that are connected together.

There isn’t anyone who controls what goes on the internet so be careful that what you find is written by someone who knows the subject.

There are many different ways you can use the internet.

  • You can send electronic mail.
  • You can transfer files.
  • You can find information.
  • You can become a member of a group of people who are interested in the same things you are.
  • You can look at pictures and videos, play music
  • You can see things as they happen with real time broadcasting, breaking news.
  • You can go shopping and much more.

1. Parts of the Internet

1.1 World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (called the Web or WWW) is made up of a lot of computers connected together and that share a language called hypertext.  Hypertext connects words on one page to other pages so that all we have to do is click on the “link”.

1.2 Email

Electronic mail, or e-mail, lets people write to each other like paper mail but it is sent and received in just a few minutes.  Each person who uses Email has their own mail box to send letters from or get letters sent to.  Other letters or forms can be “attached” or sent with the letter so they don’t have to be rewritten.

A useful part of e-mail is the option to send electronic files to a person's e-mail address.

1.3 FTP

File Transfer Protocol or FTP is a way of sending documents between computers.

FTP sites contain books, articles, software, games, images, sounds, multimedia, course work, data sets, and more.  When you open something from a website say a game you are using FTP.

1.4 Email Discussion Groups

Email discussion groups are great as you can “talk” to people with the same interests as you from all around the world. When you join a group, messages from other people are sent to your computer mailbox. You join by sending an e-mail message to the address of the group. You must have an e-mail account to join

1.5 Usenet News Groups

A Usenet News Group is a place where people can share information on a large number of subjects.  It is different to Email Discussion Groups as you have to connect to the other computer to read or write messages to the other people.

There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups on many different subjects. 

1.6 Chat and Instant Messaging

Chat programs and Instant Messaging allow you to type on the internet at the same time as the person at the other end, so when you type something they will be able to see it and answer you straight away. They are sometimes included as a feature of a Web site,

1.7 Blogs

Blogs are a less formal way of sharing information. A Blog is like a diary in that it has regular entries and while the entries are ordered as they are done the last entry is at the top.  A Blog is often about a specific topic and is made up of text, images and links.

1.8 Conducting Research on the Internet

The Internet has a huge amount of information from all over the world.  This information is not usually organised like a Library.  Much of the information is written by people who do not really know about the subject they are writing about.  So you need to be very careful when you do find information that it has been written by someone who is an expert in the topic. Read further to find out how.

Also Internet site addresses change often, or can disappear.

How to search the Internet

1.  Have a clear idea of what you are looking for.

2. Identify important words (keywords) in the question.

When conducting any search, you need to break down your question into ideas. For example, if you want to find information on How Australia is governed.  Your ideas are Australia, Government.

3.  List all the terms associated with your topic.

Once you have decided on your ideas, you need to list important or keywords which describe each idea. Some ideas may have only one keyword, while others may have many.

For example:
  • Australia
  • Government
  • Local Government
  • Shires
  • State Government
  • Federal Government
  • Politics
  • Political System
  • Parliament
  • Levels of government
4.  Decide how much information is required.  If it is a major written assignment you need to find a lot of information about the government.

5.  Check your keywords in a:

  • subject dictionary or encyclopaedia
  • the index of your text book
  • your class notes.
Add any other words that go with your topic

6.  Work out the Connection you need for your keywords

 

Once you know the keywords you want to search, you need to work out the connections between them. The formal name for this is Boolean logic. Boolean logic allows you to tell the computer how you want the keywords to be connected in the search.  The connection words are AND, OR, NOT. 

Boolean Logic:

Operator

Process

Result

OR

Requires either or both terms to be present in the document, eg river OR creek

Increases the number of documents (hits)

AND

Requires both terms to be present, for example river AND creek

Reduces the number of documents.

NOT

Requires the term to be absent, eg river NOT creek

Reduces the number of documents, but runs the risk of eliminating a relevant document

7.  Use TAFEcat to find books, magazines and videos.
http://tafecat.tafensw.edu.au/tafecat.html

Don’t forget to look at the CALL NUMBER to pinpoint where it is on the shelf.  The STATUS will tell you if it is in the library or not. Refer to TAFEcat directions for how to search it.

8.  Go to the Help of the Search Engine or Subject Directory you are using to see the preferred method of searching. Eg Google looks for words in the page so it is best to type words as they would be in a sentence; or you may need to use Boolean Logic Operands such as AND, OR or NOT  (Refer above).

9.  Be aware that the internet has not been edited and therefore the information may not be accurate. A good approach when searching the internet is to:

  • Use the TAFE studylinks page which is organised in subject areas.
  • http://www.tafensw.edu.au/library/studylinks/
  • Use a URL address if you have one
  • Make sure the site is authoritative such as an education (edu), government (gov) site or by an expert in the field.
10.  Use a Subject Directory

Universities, libraries, companies, organizations, and even volunteers have made subject directories to catalogue portions of the Internet. These directories are organized by subject.

When should I use a subject directory?

  • When you have a broad topic or idea to research
  • When you want to see a list of sites on your topic that are recommended experts
  • When you want to look at information that is organised
  • When you want to avoid finding sites that have little information.

There are two basic types of directories:

  • academic and professional directories made by subject experts to help researchers, INFOMINE, from the University of California, is a good example of an academic subject directory
  • Directories featured on commercial portals that cater to the general public and are competing for traffic. Be sure you use the directory that appropriately meets your needs. Yahoo is a famous example of a commercial portal

Yahoo directory is not a reliable place to do research for an assignment as it does not carefully evaluate content received before it adds it to its database.

Academic directories contain carefully chosen and annotated lists of quality Internet sites.

Recommended starting points:

  • Librarians Internet Index. New sites are added all the time, they are carefully selected, objective and have useful annotations.
  • INFOMINE is a large directory of Web sites of scholarly interest compiled by the University of California. It can be browsed or searched by subject, keyword, or title. Each site listed is accompanied by a description

11. Conduct a search using a Search Engine

Search Engines

Definition: A search engine is a searchable database of Internet files collected by a computer program.  Indexing is created from the collected files, e.g., title, full text, size, URL, etc. There is no selection criteria for the collection of files, though evaluation can be applied to the ranking of results.

When should I use a search engine?

  • When you have a narrow or unusual topic or idea to research
  • When you are looking for a specific site
  • When you want to search for particular types of documents, file types, source locations, languages, date last modified, etc.

A Web search engine service consists of three components:

Spider: Program that traverses the Web from link to link, identifying and reading pages

Index: Database containing a copy of each Web page gathered by the spider

Search engine mechanism: Software that enables users to query the index and that usually returns results in term relevancy ranked order 

Be aware that some of the resources spiders collect may be out of date, not correct, or not complete. Be sure to evaluate all your search results carefully.

With most search engines, you fill out a form with your search terms and press Search. The search engine searches its index and generates a page with links to any page which mentions some or all of your terms. These pages are usually ranked. 

In the past search engines ranked by the term.  The more times your terms were in the page the higher it was to the top of the list.

Now search results are sorted by ideas, keyword, site, links or how popular they are. 

 Most search engines search using Boolean Logic without you asking them to. Some search engines let you use a proximity operator which means the search engine uses AND logic to find the words that are near each other.

Most Web search engines cannot handle a single search statement that includes all the terms listed. You may need to repeat your search a few times using terms in different combinations until you get results that are satisfactory. Take a look at your results. If you are not finding what you want, repeat the search with alternative keywords for the budget concept. Your initial results may give you ideas about which new terms to try.

Boolean Logic is used to search when there is more than one concept to be searched.

Recommended starting points for Search Engines:

  • Start with Google. This is a very popular search engine.  It’s ranking is organised by the Google organisation who rank some pages and then any page that links frequently to them is also ranked. It is called PageRank.

12. Explore the Invisible Web

The "invisible" Web is the content that is stored in databases, that can be found on the web but is not found by a search engines spiders.  You need to search the databases yourself.  Information like news, job listings, airline flights are often on a database in the invisible web.

When should I use the Invisible Web?

  • When you want content that changes often such as the latest news, job postings, available airline flights, etc.
  • When you want to find information that is normally stored in a database, such as a phone book listing, listings of lawyers, Resource Discovery Network is searchable interface to major meta-sites in academic disciplines.

13. Make sure you tick off the terms as you use them otherwise you may get lost.

14. Add any relevant sites to Favourites.

15. Try a different search engine if you don’t find anything relevant.

16. Do not copy directly from a source, as this is plagiarism and is  against the law.  Paraphrase what you read.

17.All resources must be acknowledged in a bibliography at the end of your assignment. 

Weigh up the information You have found on the INTERNET

1. Purpose

Think about who the page is written for.  Is this what you are looking for?

Think about where the information is coming from.  Much of the information you find will not be useful for you.

  • Make sure the information is from a reliable person/place.
  • Check if the person who wrote it is someone you can identify.
  • Check if the person or organisation who wrote it is an expert on the subject by looking at the credentials page. You may need to trace back through the URL (Internet address) to view a page with background information.
  • Check the URL shows the following
    Examples:
    • .edu for educational or research material
    • .gov for government resources
    • .com for commercial products or commercially-sponsored sites
    Edu and gov have reliable information.
  • ~NAME in a URL may mean a personal home page with no official sanction
  • Mail-to link is offered for submission of questions or comments

2. Content

  • You need to make sure information that you get off the internet is correct.
  • Check to see if Web sites are reviewed.
  • Scholarly journals and books are reviewed regularly
  • Make sure the person writing the page hasn’t just got one point of view.
  • Make sure the person writing a page isn’t biased.
  • You need to make sure that you have written down where you have got your information from.

3. Comprehensiveness

  • Check if the page you are looking at covers a most of a topic or just a particular part of the topic.
  • Use extra books and internet sites that go with the information you already have.

4. Currency

Look to see if

  • The date on the Site shows it has been updated recently.
  • Information on the page is current.

5. Links

  • Look to make sure Links are what you need.
  • Make sure you investigate other sites on the topic

Style and functionality

  • It is easier for you to use a site that is set out logically and has well organised sections
  • Use sites that have a clear writing style which suites who the site is written for.
  • Site is easy to move around in (navigate), with
    • Easy to find Back, Home, Go To Top icons/links
    • links to move around long pages
  • Links to other sites all work
  • Search capability is offered if the site is extensive

Security

Always be aware that people who are experts in using the Internet may be able to get your information from your computer if you don’t use products such as:

  • Anti virus programs
  • Adaware detector programs
  • Spyware detector programs

These need to be used often so they can detect any threats to your computer and information.