RSS Feed for the unit Finding information in business and management

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

This unit will help you to identify and use information in business and management, whether for your work, study or personal purposes. Experiment with some of the key resources in this subject area, and learn about the skills which will enable you to plan searches for information, so you can find what you are looking for more easily. Discover the meaning of information quality, and learn how to evaluate the information you come across. You will also be introduced to the many different ways of organising your own information, and learn how to reference it properly in your work. Finally, discover how to keep up to date with the latest developments in your area of interest by using tools such as RSS and mailing lists.

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Learning outcomes

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

By the end of this guide you should be able to:

conduct your own searches efficiently and effectively
find references to material in bibliographic databases
make efficient use of full text electronic journals services
critically evaluate information from a variety of sources
understand the importance of organising your own information
identify some of the systems available
describe how to use bookmarks/favorites for web resources
understand how and why to cite references in your work
produce a bibliography
identify and use different tools and techniques to keep yourself up to date.

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1.1 Assessing your current level of knowledge

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

If you explore all the resources and activities in this unit, you might need to allow between two and nine hours to complete it.

Before you read this guide, why not use the self-assessment questions on the following screens to rate your current level of knowledge?

Print or save these questions and for each question, mark the most appropriate number on the scale. When you have finished, you can review your answers. A score of three of less might indicate a gap in your knowledge or understanding, and you may want to pay particular attention to these areas when you work through the guide.

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1.2 Key resources

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

When you need to find information in business and management, how confident are you that you know the best places to search (e.g. search engines, subject gateways, online databases etc.) to find the information you need?

5 – Very confident
4 – Confident
3 – Fairly confident
2 – Not very confident
1 – Not confident at all

How familiar are you with journal articles as a source of information?

5 – Very familiar
4 – Familiar
3 – Fairly familiar
2 – Not very familiar
1 – Not familiar at all

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1.3 Searching for information on business and management

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

How well does the following statement match what you do when you begin a new search for information?

Before I begin a new search for information (maybe for an assignment, or to help you choose your next holiday destination), I spend some time thinking about what I already know, what the gaps in my knowledge are, and the best types of information to meet my needs.

5 – This is an excellent match; this is exactly what I do
4 – This is a good match; I usually do this
3 – This is a reasonable match; I do this to some extent
2 – This is a poor match; I don’t really do this
1 – This does not match; I don’t do this at all

How well does the following statement match what you do when you are thinking of keywords or search words to use to search for information?

When thinking of search words, I break down my topic into broad areas and then identify the most appropriate search words. I also consider any synonyms or alternative subject words that might have been used to describe my topic.

5 – This is an excellent match; this is exactly what I do
4 – This is a good match; I usually do this
3 – This is a reasonable match; I do this to some extent
2 – This is a poor match; I don’t really do this
1 – This does not match; I don’t do this at all

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1.4 Evaluating information

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

How well does the following statement describe your approach to evaluating the information that you use?

When I come across a new piece of information (e.g. a website, newspaper article) I consider the quality of the information, and based on that I decide whether or not to use it.

5 – This is an excellent match; this is exactly what I do
4 – This is a good match; I usually do this
3 – This is a reasonable match; I do this to some extent
2 – This is a poor match; I don’t really do this
1 – This does not match; I don’t do this at all

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1.5 Organising information

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

How confident are you that you know when it is appropriate to cite references (refer to the work of other people) in your written work?

5 – Very confident
4 – Confident
3 – Fairly confident
2 – Not very confident
1 – Not confident at all

How confident do you feel about producing bibliographies (lists of references) in an appropriate format to accompany your written work?

5 – Very confident
4 – Confident
3 – Fairly confident
2 – Not very confident
1 – Not confident at all

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1.6 Keeping up-to-date

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

How familiar are you with the following different ways of keeping up to date with information; alerts, mailing lists, newsgroups, blogs, RSS, professional bodies and societies?

5 – Very familiar
4 – Familiar
3 – Fairly familiar
2 – Not very familiar
1 – Not familiar at all

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2.1 Planning your search

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Your approach to searching will depend to a great extent on what kind of person you are. In an ideal world, when searching for information for a specific purpose, we would all find what exactly we were looking for at the first attempt, especially if we are in a hurry. However, it’s always a good idea to have some kind of plan when you are searching for information, if only to help you plan your time and make sure you find the information you need. If I was starting to search for material on how to reduce the impact of my life on the environment, I would form a rough plan. I propose the following plan as one I could use, and as a plan for you to use.

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2.1.1 Choosing keywords

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Keywords are significant words which define the subject you are looking for. The importance of keywords is illustrated by the fact that there is a whole industry around providing advice to companies on how to select keywords for their websites that are likely to make it to the top of results lists generated by search engines. We often choose keywords as part of an iterative process; usually if we don't hit on the right search terms straight off, most of us tweak them as we go along based on the results we get.

However, if you are looking for specific information it is sometimes better to take a systematic approach to choosing your keywords. Follow my example below.

Ask yourself, what do I need to know? – I need to know about techniques to improve staff retention
Break the topic down into its broad areas or concepts. You will usually find that your question breaks down into a couple of ideas or concepts. Improving staff retention – techniques
Think of some alternative words for the words you have chosen - for instance, 'young people' and 'adolescents' mean roughly the same thing. So that you don't miss anything, remember:
- Plurals – child, children
- Abbreviations – UK, United Kingdom
- Variations in spelling – colour, color, specialised, specialized
- Variations in terminology used in different cultures and countries – for instance, 'children with emotional and behavioural problems' (UK) are referred to as 'maladjusted children' in the US.
This will help to ensure that you find things that an author might have referred to using different terms. It is important to think of synonyms or alternative subject words when you are planning a search because including synonyms will ensure that you don't miss relevant material. But don't worry if you can't always find any sensible substitutes for the words you have chosen – there might not be any. In this example, I might use:
- measures
- strategies
- as well as techniques. I might use 'increasing' as well as 'improving'.
Write out your query in full – I need to know about measures or strategies or techniques and improving or increasing staff retention.

By using this approach, I have created a search statement that I can use to search any resource, whether it’s a search engine, a database or an electronic journal.

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2.2 Basic principles

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Whatever resource you choose to use to find information on the internet, many of the same principles apply. Each source that you use will probably look quite different from the one you tried before, but you'll notice that there are always features that are similar – a box to type your search terms in, for instance, or a clickable help button. Different resources refer to the same functions using different terminology, but the principles behind them are exactly the same. The trick is to check the clues given on the screen or in the 'help' of the individual database you are using.

Print this page out using your browser's print function and use the checklist of common features at the bottom of this page to explore:

A search engine such as Google – particularly the advanced search features
A book catalogue, such as WorldCat
A database, such as the 1901 census
A site providing access to electronic journals, such as The Directory of Open Access Journals

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2.2.1 Checklist of common features

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Is there any online help?
Can I do a simple search?
Can I look at the information in both short and detailed form?
Can I choose where in the record I want my search terms to be found?
Can I search for phrases?
Can I combine search terms?
Can I use truncation?
Can I use wildcards?
Can I do an advanced search?
Can I get a list of what I've found?

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3.1 Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

You can find a lot of information about the business and management on the internet.

To find this information you might choose to use:

search engines and subject gateways
books and electronic books
databases
journals
encyclopedias
news sources
internet resources.

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3.2 Search engines and subject gateways

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Although both search engines and subject gateways will help you find the resources that you need, the types of information that you find will differ.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! search the internet for keywords or phrases, and then show you the results. These results are not mediated by the search engines, and therefore you need to use your own judgement on the reliability of the results. You may, for example, find websites written by experts, alongside websites written by someone with little knowledge of the subject.

You may wish to try using some search engines such as:

for the subject you are interested in.

You can also find more scholarly information through the search engine Google Scholar

Google Scholar searches peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organisations. However, as not everything listed on Google Scholar is freely available, you may find that you cannot access certain resources.

Subject gateways (also called Directories), in contrast to search engines, provide links to more academic, reliable information. They usually provide a brief description of the resource as well as a link directly to it. Directories and gateways can be browsed and usually searched too. Most directories and gateways are maintained manually with strictly imposed quality criteria, so the resources directories and gateways return will generally be of a consistent quality. As a result of the limited coverage, you may get a smaller number of results or 'hits' returned from a directory or gateway.

Subject gateways you may wish to try include:

BUBL	Contains selected information resources covering all subject areas. Search by keyword or browse by subject.
Biz/ ed	Supported by both education and industry, Biz/ed is a gateway to quality-assessed business and economics information on the internet. It provides company facts for a limited number of companies; economics, business and finance data sets for the UK and overseas; a regularly updated internet catalogue that is a searchable; and a browsable internet resources database. The Biz/ed site is easy to navigate, and downloads quickly.
Business information on the internet	Sites grouped under various headings, including Company Financials & Annual Reports, Company & Telephone Directories, Trade and Service Directories, Government & Politics, Statistics, Market Research and Country Specific Information.
globalEDGE	GlobalEDGE is maintained by Michigan State University and provides a searchable index of international business resources. It includes a unique collection of links to international business simulation websites.

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3.3 Books and electronic books

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Books are a good source of information. The publishing process (where a book is checked by an editor before publishing, and often reviewed by another author) means that books are reliable sources of information, although they may need to be evaluated for bias.

To find out about other books available in your subject area, you can search library catalogues and/or online bookshops.

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3.4 Databases

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

At a basic level, a database is a collection of information which can be searched. It is a way of storing, indexing, organising and retrieving information. You may have created one yourself to keep track of your references – or your friends' names and addresses. They are useful for finding articles on a topic, and can be used to search for many different types of information.

You may find some of the following databases useful for your topic. They contain different types of information, but are all searchable.

ROUTES	ROUTES is a database providing access to selected quality-assessed freely available Internet resources, selected by course teams and the Open University Library's Learning and Teaching Librarians.
FreeEDGAR	Free, unlimited access to the statutory SEC filings of US listed companies back to 1994. Particularly useful for annual reports (referred to as 10Ks), quarterly results (10Qs) or listing documents (PROSP). Includes glossary of filing types. A very rich mine of company information.

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3.5 Journals

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Journals and articles written by academics or experts are an excellent source of information. Journals are usually published monthly or quarterly, and contain a selection of articles providing details of recent research. Often they will also contain reviews of relevant books. They are usually published more quickly than books, and so are often more up to date.

To access content of journals, most publishers require a subscription. There are, however, some journals which you can freely access in full text via the internet without paying a subscription fee.

Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ provides free access to selected scholarly journals. It can be browsed by title or subject, as well as searched for keywords.

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3.6 Encyclopedias

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Encyclopedias can be useful reference texts to use to start your research. There are some available online, such as:

Wikipedia

A freely available collaborative encyclopedia.

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3.7 News sources

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Many news sources are now available online. Searching an online version of a newspaper is easier, quicker and more effective than searching through printed indexes, microfilm or actual newspapers.

Abyz News Links	A portal to online news sources from around the world, providing up-to-date information on all countries as well as background information for each country. Abyz News Links claims to provide 16,000 links to newspapers and other news sources worldwide.
NewsDirectory.com	These contain links to UK and foreign print media websites.

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3.8 Internet resources

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

There are many websites where you will find useful information for business and management. With all information on the internet you need to make a judgement on the reliability of the information.

Interactive Investor International	A good market data site, offering a mixture of real-time, delayed and historical data categorised into various sections, e.g. bonds, investment trusts, new issues and ISAs. Personal portfolios can be created once you have registered to use the site.
London Stock Exchange	Contains data on all companies listed and those about to list (new issues). You can find out which companies are listed in a particular sector. The Statistics section contains monthly Factsheets for the Primary, Secondary and AIM markets, summarizing new and further issues, capital raised by sector, issue prices and so forth.
Euroland	Offers free real-time quotes to registered users for companies listed in 9 European stock exchanges. Both sites let you plot share price charts.
BigCharts.com	Historical share price information. This contains 10 year high/low and closing price data for UK stocks. Data from 16 other exchanges is also available. BigCharts also offers dynamic charting and alerting facilities.
Market Research on the Web

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3.9 Choosing the right tool for the job

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Before searching it is always a good idea to check what the source you have chosen covers to make sure it will unearth information that matches your search need (you will notice that all the resources we’ve covered in this guide have short descriptions to enable you to decide which to use). Some of the decision makers, depending on the context of your search might be:

Does it have full text?
Does it cover the right subject?
Does it match the type of information I need, e.g. news, figures, facts, opinion, research, etc?
Does it match the right format of information I need, e.g. books, journal articles, theses, images, etc?
Does it contain peer reviewed information?

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4.1 PROMPT

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

There is so much information available on the internet on every topic imaginable. But how do you know if it is any good? And if you find a lot more information than you really need, how do you decide what to keep and who to discard?

In this section we are going to introduce a simple checklist to help you to judge the quality of the information you find. Before we do this, spend a few minutes thinking about what is meant by information quality.

Activity 1

Imagine you are trying to find out about a current story in the news. Have a look at this website – http://news.bbc.co.uk/

We would recommend this to you as a ‘quality’ source of information. If you agree with us, jot down as many words as you can think of to describe what is good about the website. For example, you might think it is clearly presented.

What did you come up with?

Answer

We thought it was:

Clearly presented
Up to date
Relevant to our purpose
Authoritative (clear who is responsible for it)
Gives a balanced view
Based on good evidence

We think there are six distinct aspects of information quality. These are:

Presentation
Relevance
Objectivity
Method
Provenance
Timeliness

Or, for short, P R O M P T.

Let us look at the six aspects, one by one.

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4.2 P is for Presentation

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

By presentation, we mean, the way in which the information is communicated. You might want to ask yourself:

Is the language clear and easy to understand?
Is the information clearly laid out so that it is easy to read?
Are the fonts large enough and clear?
Are the colours effective? (e.g. white or yellow on black can be difficult to read)
If there are graphics or photos, do they help the information to be communicated?
If there is audio or video, is it clear?
What about the use of animation? Is it helpful or distracting?

Activity

Have a look at this website and explore it. What do you think of it? Can you suggest some problems with the presentation?

http://www.ushida-findlay.com/main.html

Answer

You may have agreed with our concerns below. We thought there were problems with

layout and navigation
choice of font
choice of pictures and design
choice of print size
lack of structure
language

Presentation is particularly important on the Web because we all spend so much time reading online. Poor presentation can have a negative effect on our physical and mental well-being. One of the acknowledged experts on the ‘usability’ of websites is Jakob Nielsen. If you would like to hear him talking about usability on the Web you could listen to this podcast interview or have a look at his website.

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4.3 R is for Relevance

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Relevance is an important factor to consider when you are evaluating information. It isn’t so much a property of the information itself but of the relationship it has with your question or your ‘information need’. For example, if you are writing an essay about the portrayal of jealousy in the nineteenth century European novel a book or website about Shakespeare’s Othello would not be relevant. So there are a number of ways in which a piece of information may not be relevant to your query:

geographical (It may relate to countries or areas which you are not interested in.)
level (It may be too detailed/specialised or too general/simple for the level at which you are working.)
emphasis (It may not contain the kind of information you are seeking – this is often a question of emphasis, which may not be identifiable from a title, summary or abstract.)

Activity 3

You are helping your 6-year-old child with some homework on dinosaurs. Together you do an internet search and you find these:

Which do you think is most likely to be relevant and why?

Answer

We think that the LearnEnglish Kids or BBC Science and Nature: Prehistoric Life sites are probably the most relevant for our purposes. They are clearly presented and at about the right level, in tone and detail, for our 6-year-old. We might reject the Natural History Museum and Wikipedia sites on the grounds of level, because they may be too detailed and aimed at older children.

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4.4 O is for Objectivity

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

One of the characteristics of ‘good’ information is that it should be balanced and present both sides of an argument or issue. This way the reader is left to weigh up the evidence and make a decision. In reality, we recognise that no information is truly objective.

This means that the onus is on you, the reader, to develop a critical awareness of the positions represented in what you read, and to take account of this when you interpret the information. In some cases, authors may be explicitly expressing a particular viewpoint – this is perfectly valid as long as they are explicit about the perspective they represent. Hidden bias, whether or not it is deliberate, can be misleading. This could be particularly important in a subject area where there is controversy.

Activity

Can you think of any issues or topics where information may be biased in some ways?

Answer

We thought of a few:

Vegetarianism
Testing drugs on animals
Human cloning
Capital punishment
Energy saving
Smoking

Let us take an example – look at each of these websites and consider whether you think they are likely to give objective information about the use of animals for testing new drugs.

StopAnimalTests.com

BBC Science and Nature – Animal Experiments

RDS online

Home Office – Animal Testing

With a controversial topic such as this, it is not too difficult to identify the viewpoints represented and therefore be aware of potential bias. In other cases it may be less obvious.

It is important to remember to look out for vested interests. A website about headaches which is sponsored by a drug company is unlikely to be objective. Here the vested interest is financial. It is worth remembering that there are different types of vested interest:

financial vested interests (protecting or selling a product or service);
media manipulation (a 'good story' to sell papers or push up ratings);
political propaganda (influencing public opinion);
government propaganda (influencing public behaviour).

We do of course need to be conscious that our own judgement can be influenced by our beliefs.

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4.5 M is for Method

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Method is about the way in which a piece of information is produced. This is quite a complex area as different types of information are produced in different ways. These are a few suggestions to look out for:

Opinions – A lot of information is based on the opinion of individuals. They may or not be experts in their field (see P for Provenance) but the key message is to be clear that it is just an opinion and must be valued as such.

Research – You don’t have to be an expert on research methods to ask some basic questions about research information. You need to develop a critical approach to reports of research, particularly when these are summarised in the popular media.

Activity

For example, here is a news story:

A study by researchers at an American University reveals that 8 out of 10 people dislike music being played while they are shopping.

What questions might you want to ask about the methods used to carry out this research?

Answer

We thought we would want to know:

How many people did they ask?
Did they ask both men and women and, if so, in what proportion?
What ages were the people they asked?
How did they ask people? (Did they stop them in the street? Was it a postal questionnaire?)

All these questions (and more) are important because they could affect how much you are likely to trust the results. For example, a group of 20 year old women are likely to give a very different response from a group of middle aged men.

Reviews of Research – Many articles and books contain reviews of research. We use reviews as a shortcut to looking for all the primary research ourselves. But reviews vary. Some merely bring together the reviewer's selection of research on a topic, others, sometimes called 'systematic reviews' or 'overviews', try to collect and review all the research on the topic in question. It may be important to your work to ascertain which kind of review you are looking at.

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4.6 P is for Provenance

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

The provenance of a piece of information (i.e. who produced it? where did it come from?) may provide another useful clue to its reliability. It represents the 'credentials' of a piece of information that support its status and perceived value. It is therefore very important to be able to identify the author, sponsoring body or source of your information.

Why is this important?

Activity

Can you think of any reasons why you would want to know who produced a particular website?

Answer

We thought of a number of reasons why we would want to know the authors or the organisation responsible:

Authors – If you know who the author is you can:

find out whether they are an acknowledged expert in the subject area;
find out what other papers or books they have published;
perhaps trace unpublished material like their PhD thesis;
find out if they are known to have a particular perspective on the topic and whether their views are controversial;
perhaps contact them in person.

Organisations – knowing about the sponsoring organisation can tell you a great deal. We have already looked at 'vested interests' and it is important to be able to identify and take account of these. Here are some of the questions you might wish to ask:

What is the 'business' of the organisation?

is it a commercial company?
a voluntary organisation?
a statutory body?
a research organisation?

How well established is it?

does it have a 'history'?
is it ephemeral/short-lived?

Can you identify the people involved in the organisation?

could you contact them if you wanted to verify the information or find out more?
do the people have 'other interests' or links which might have a bearing on the way you regard the information?

Activity

As an example, can you tell who is responsible for this site?

http://www.d-b.net/dti/

Answer

You will probably have deduced that this site is a spoof. Others may not be as easy to identify.

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4.7 T is for Timeliness

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

The date when information was produced or published can be an important aspect of quality. This is not quite as simple as saying that 'good' information has to be up to date.

Activity

Here is an example of a news item from an online news source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3491927.stm

Would you say that the information above is out of date?

Answer

Well, it is and it isn’t. In other words, one person’s out of date cutting is someone else’s historical document. Some documents (the Domesday Book for example) are indeed timeless in that they will always be regarded as relevant. In other cases, it will be very important indeed for information to be up to date.

Activity

It is, of course, more important for some kind of information to be up to date than others. Have a look at the list of types of information below and think about which need to be up to date:

A road map
A painting
A news item
A press release
A review of research
A book of poetry
A government circular
A scientific research article
A patent
Population statistics
A technical manual
A news website

Answer

We thought these needed to be up to date:

A road map
A news item
A press release
A review of research
A government circular
A scientific research article
Population statistics
A news website

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4.8 Summary

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

In this section we have introduced you to the PROMPT checklist as a useful tool for assessing the quality of any piece of information. If you use it regularly you will find that you develop the ability to scan information quickly and identify strengths and weaknesses.

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5.1 Why is it important to be organised?

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

87% of items that are filed into a filing cabinet are never looked at again. STANFORD UNIVERSITY
TIn 2010, the world’s digital information output was estimated to pass 1.2 zettabytes. A zettabyte is a new term which equals a thousand billion gigabytes. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA (BERKELEY)
A new blog is created every second. TECHNORATI
10% of salary costs are wasted as employees search for information to complete tasks. COMPUTERWORLD

The world today bombards you with facts. There is such a wealth of information coming at you from a variety of sources that to be able to work effectively you need to have some system for organising it all. Think of a typical day – how much time do you waste looking for a piece of information you need?

Activity

Jo, a student, has identified some sources to write an assignment on GM foods. Have a look at the three images below and see if you can spot what problems might occur if Jo wants to use these.

Answer

This is what we thought:

Image 1: We think that these must be some notes that Jo has made about one of the sources s/he's looked at – there's even a good quote, flagged up as important – but there's no indication of the title of the book or journal article in which s/he found it.

Image 2: We think this looks like a photocopy of a journal article, but it isn't a very good one because the photocopier has cut the name of the journal and the article title off the top.

Image 3: We think this is part of a reference – it could be a reference to a book or a journal article, there isn't really any clue, and it could be the title of a chapter or journal article, or a quote. Jo can't remember why it was so important.

To use these items in an assignment, Jo would need the full reference which s/he hasn’t got. Jo would need to spend more time trying to track these sources down again if s/he wanted to use them. By taking a bit more time to be organised at the start, you can actually save yourself time later on.

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5.2 Ways of organising yourself

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

How do you organise yourself?

Activity

Make a note of how you organise your:

emails
internet bookmarks or favorites
computer files
your household paperwork, for example bills, insurance documents, guarantees, receipts
book, CD, record, video or DVD collection

Compare your notes with the 3 people below:

Person 1 – “I tend to be organised because I have my books grouped by author, and if they’re in a series then the series has to be in order. My CDs are alphabetised by surname, or name of band, with compilations alphabetically by title at the end of the sequence. I also have a filing cabinet for all household paperwork, with individual files for gas, electricity, car, and so on. Yes I’m a born librarian.”

Person 2 – “I don't really organise my emails, I read then delete unless its a receipt then i'll print it off and put it in a safe place! (Never to be seen again). I do add my favorite webpages to my toolbar, but this is more down to laziness rather than organisation. All my household bills are shoved in a box which i tidy out once every six months. My books are on a bookcase in no particular order as are my DVDs and CDs.

Yes, i really am this disorganised but somehow it hasn't had a negative effect on me so far!!!!!!!!”

Person 3 – “I tend to be quite ruthless with filing – a hatred of clutter helps.

Emails: only open 3-4 times per day, when read either: a) delete; b) action if short, c) keep to action later that day or next. I have a fairly simple filing system but tend not to save on the basis that someone will have a copy. I have an automatic ‘rule’ set to delete emails more than 6 months old. I’ve never missed any deleted ones.

PC filing: no more than ten folders on broad topics and no more than 4-5 subfolders in each. I find it easier to file and retrieve using broad topics. I try to keep the contents down to a single screenful. Older files are ruthlessly purged. Favourite websites – no more than a dozen which I use regularly – others are easily found anyway.

Paper filing at home: a (deliberately) small filing cabinet sectioned into utilities; insurance; car; job; credit cards; etc. I only keep one years worth of bills etc. and try to throw out the oldest when a new one arrives but that doesn’t always work out. So between Xmas and New year I go through and shred anything older than the year just finishing.

My New Year purge also applies to books (if I haven’t opened it for 2-3 years I’m probably not going to), CDs/DVDs (1-2 year rule) and clothes (1-year rule). Local charity shops do well. This policy has the double benefit of keeping collections to a reasonable size and making me think: do I really need to buy/keep/store it if I’m going to throw it out in a couple of years? But I guess minimalism is not to everyone’s taste!

My motto: if in doubt throw it out.”

Answer

Whilst each of these people have different ways of organising information one thing becomes clear: find a system that works for you and use it. How complex or simple your system is will depend on the type of information you deal with, and how you are going to use it, as these two audio clips show:

Click below to listen to the first audio clip.

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.

View document

Transcript

Click below to listen to the second audio clip.

Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.

View document

Transcript

The silver surfers are using the internet for leisure purposes, and so they don’t really need to keep track of things, because they are sites they regularly use or can search for again.

The researchers have to keep a research log, and will eventually be writing a dissertation that will reference all the sources they use. So the researchers are more organised and are careful about storing their information.

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5.3 Desktop search tools

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Finding your paperwork or electronic files can be a problem. You may find that even if you do have some sort of filing system, your structure soon gets quite large with files in multiple locations, which can be hard to navigate. You may find yourself making arbitrary decisions about which folder to place a document in. It may make sense now but in the future, when you look where you think it should be, it’s not there.

At times like this you may resort to the search command from the Windows Start menu. If, like me, you have a PC with hundreds of thousands of files, you may find that search can take quite a while. This is because, unlike search engines, the basic search tool on Windows PCs does have to search through every file when a search is made.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a search engine for your desktop? Well, the good news is that there are several available, some of which are free for personal use. The majority of the free desktop search tools are provided by the big search engines – in the hope that by providing a complete search experience you will use them for all your search needs.

For an overview of desktop search tools read the following article by Pandia

Activity

Download one of the following desktop search tools. You need to check your PC specifications first to make sure that you can run it on your machine.

When you have installed a tool do a search on your PC using the tool. Now do the same search using the Windows search command from the Start menu. Did you get the same results?

The first time you use a desktop search tool, it will need to build an index of the contents of your hard drive. This can take several hours, so you will have to be patient. Once the tool has built an index, any new documents you put on your computer will tend to be archived as they arrive, so the index will keep itself up to date without you noticing.

So why, you may ask, do I need to bother with organising my files when I can search for them? Using tools such as these means that you may not need to be quite so organised about how you organise your information. However, when you perform a search, there is an assumption that the term you are searching for appears in the document somewhere. But there may be occasions when you can’t decide what term to search for, or you may not know if it is in the document if you haven’t actually read the item. Additionally each search you perform does take some time, and you may have limited time available, so it makes sense to have some system of organising your files to complement such desktop search tools to maximise your chance of finding the information you need.

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5.4 The 5 Ds

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

If you don’t use a system at all, then you could suffer from the effects of information overload:

losing important information
wasting time on trying to find things
ending up with piles of physical and virtual stuff everywhere

One technique you might like to apply to your files (be they paper or electronic) is the 5Ds. Try applying these and see if you can reduce your information overload.

The 5 Ds – Adapted from John Caunt (1999) 30 minutes to manage information overload, London: Kogan Page

Discard
Deal with it (Make a DIN! – Do It Now!)
Determine future action (SIFT it – Schedule It now For Tomorrow)
Direct/distribute it (a. why are you directing it? / b. What do you expect recipient to do with it?)
Deposit it (file it)

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5.5 Social bookmarks

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

If you find you have a long unmanageable list of favourites/bookmarks you might like to try social bookmarks as an alternative.

Activity – what you need to know about social bookmarks

Read 7 things you should know about social bookmarking by Educause (2005 May). Available from Educause Learning Initiative.

Answer the following questions:

What are the differences between social bookmarks and ordinary browser bookmarks (favorites)?
What are the benefits of using social bookmarks?
Are there any drawbacks of using social bookmarks?
How is tagging different from formal metadata?

Answer

This is what we thought:

Social bookmarks are stored publicly on a website, whereas bookmarks are stored on your PC. Social bookmarks have tags, that help you identify what the site is about, whereas favorites just have a title and are stored in a folder structure. Social bookmarks are shared whereas favorites tend to be personal.
You can access your social bookmarks from anywhere. You can see other people's social bookmarks on the same topic, so you might find new information or see things you hadn’t thought about before. You can find people who are interested in the same things as you.
There may be some dodgy tagging, so people don’t use the tags in the same way as you, or may use the tag in a derogatory manner. You may find you get items that bear no resemblance to what you’re looking for because of the different way people use tags.
Tagging is done by amateurs, there is no formally controlled vocabulary or taxonomy, and it can be of poor quality. Tags change to reflect current trends. The formal metadata done by professionals has a structure and vocabulary that doesn’t always reflect terminology you would use.

To explore social bookmarks for yourself, try one of the tools listed here:

Delicious
Spurl
Feed me links
Hyperlinkomatic
Simpy
Frassle
Blinklist

Social bookmarking tools are good for:

exploring current trends and technologies
small, close-knit communities with agreed tagging conventions
helping to remember terms that are meaningful to you
access from anywhere – unlike favorites which are PC-specific
preserving a snapshot of a site – for example Furl can keep a record for you so if the site should change or be removed you can still see a copy of the original.

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5.6 Copyright – what you need to know

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

An original piece of work, whether it is text, music, pictures, sound recordings, web pages, etc., is protected by copyright law and may often have an accompanying symbol (©) and/or legal statement. In the UK it is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which regulates this.

In most circumstances, works protected by copyright can be used in whole or in part only with the permission of the owner. In some cases this permission results in a fee.

However, the UK legislation includes a number of exceptions known as ‘fair dealing’. Fair dealing allows the free use of part of a published work for non-commercial research or private study, for criticism or review purposes, or for reporting current events. The source must always be quoted, so make sure you get all the details when you take a photocopy, or print from a web page so you can acknowledge where you got it from.

If you would like to read a bit more about Copyright and what is permitted, have a look at the Copyright site on the Information Skills for Researchers page

To find out about copyright in other countries you might like to check out the International Federation of Reproductive Rights Organizations website. This is an international membership organisation, and if you follow the link to their membership page then you will see a list of international copyright organisations.

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5.7 Referencing

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

We mentioned above that we need to reference sources to ensure we abide by copyright legislation. But there is another reason we need to give accurate references to items we use – so we can share it.

Consider this scenario. A friend says they’ve just read an interesting article where Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us has spoken about why it isn’t a faceted search system, and you should read it. How would you go about finding it? Would you start looking in a news database, a search engine or a journals database? When I tried this by putting Joshua Schachter’s name into various search tools, using 'delicious' as a search term, and 'faceted' as a term I found I got lots of articles, but I didn’t know whether any of them was the right one, as none of them seemed quite right. So what is the minimum level of information needed to find the right article?

Activity – what information is needed to find the correct source?

For the following types of resource, identify necessary and sufficient information to be able to discover an item with a degree of certainty that it is the correct one.

Using a separate piece of paper, or your Learning Journal, complete the table by choosing from the list below to identify what you feel is the minimum level of information for each type of resource. E.g. for Book you might feel that ISBN and author is sufficient so your first row would be:

Book (paper)

ISBN, Author

Director, author, title, article title, broadcaster, type of podcast, ISBN, publisher, pages, date, volume, title of video, where it was published, author/organisation, date you visited the site, issue number, URL

Resource	Identifying information
Book (paper)
Book (electronic)
Journal article (paper)
Journal article (electronic)
Website
Video
Podcast

Answer

This is what we thought:

Resource	Identifying information
Book (paper)	author, title, date, publisher, where it was published, ISBN
Book (electronic)	author, title, date, publisher, URL, ISBN
Journal article (paper)	author, article title, journal title, date, volume, issue number, pages
Journal article (electronic)	author, article title, journal title, date, volume, issue number, pages, URL
Website	author or organisation, title, URL, date you visited the site
Video	director, title of video, date
Podcast	title, date, broadcaster, URL, type of podcast

You also need accurate information to be able to find resources you have used in the past. Sometimes an ISBN number or URL just isn’t enough. What happens if the book goes out of print, or the web page is withdrawn or someone gives an incorrect reference? By giving more information, you increase the chance of being able to locate the item again.

You may also find that the level of detail you need to give varies according to the purpose. For example if you want to buy a book from Amazon, usually an author and/or title is sufficient. For a reading list, you would usually include the year too, as often academic text books have different editions, so the year is important to make sure you’ve got the right version.

To help people to share this information, reference styles have been developed. These are standards that specify what information is required to produce a reference, and how it should be laid out in a consistent manner. If you read an academic article or book, you will often find a list of references at the end. Depending on what courses you study, you may have to write an essay, in which case you will be expected to acknowledge the sources used in a bibliography or reference list.

You will see reference styles also called citation styles. For this unit, consider 'reference' to mean the same thing as 'citation'.

The minimum elements for all references are:

author or equivalent
title
date
publisher
place – either physical location or URL

The thing that changes from style to style is how they look when you write the reference for your bibliography, and how you present them in the text.

Activity – exploring reference styles

Try the citation builder at Calvin. Type in the following reference into the citation builder using 'Electronic' under 'Source type' and 'Journal' under 'Resource'.

Sarah B Kimmel and Mary Nell McNeese (2006 May) 'Barriers to Business Education: Motivating Adult Learners', Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 7 (3) pp.292–202 [online]. Available from http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol7/no3/JBAM_7_3_4_Barriers_to_Business_Education.pdf (last accessed 20 November 2006)

Have a look at the reference in each of the different styles (MLA, APA, MHRA) and see if you can spot the differences.

Answer

Here are the three references produced by this tool.

MLA: Kimmel, Sarah B., and Mary N. McNeese. "Barriers to Business Education: Motivating Adult Learners." Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management 7.3 (2006): 292–303. 20 Nov. 2006 http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol7/no3/JBAM_7_3_4_Barriers_to_Business_Education.pdf.

APA: Kimmel, S. B., & McNeese, M. N. (2006). Barriers to Business Education: Motivating Adult Learners. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 7(3), 292–303. Retrieved November 20, 2006, from http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol7/no3/JBAM_7_3_4_Barriers_to_Business_Education.pdf

As you can see, the differences tend to be in how each reference is formatted. In MLA and Chicago styles the author names are given in full, whereas APA has used initials for first names. MLA underlines the journal title, but the other two styles italicise it. They each format the volume and issue number differently. There are other differences that make each style unique, but the core information remains the same. Leeds University Library provides a list of useful citation and referencing links where you can see examples of a range of different styles.

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5.8 Bibliographic software

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

If you are considering taking your studies further you might like to consider using bibliographic software. Bibliographic software can be used to sort references, annotate them, manage quotations or create reading lists.

There are several software packages on the market. Some are listed below.

BibTex
EndNote
Procite
Reference Manager
RefWorks

If you are not sure whether to invest in one of these packages, you might like to try out Zotero, a free web-based tool that allows you to manage your references from within your web browser. Zotero is only available for users of the Mozilla Firefox browser.

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5.9 Plagiarism

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Referencing is not only useful as a way of sharing information, but also as a means of ensuring that due credit is given to other people’s work. In the electronic information age, it is easy to copy and paste from journal articles and web pages into your own work. But if you do use someone else’s work, you should acknowledge the source by giving a correct reference.

Taking someone's work and not indicating where you took it from is termed plagiarism and is regarded as an infringement of copyright. To attempt to pass off such work as your own is cheating.

Activity – how does it feel to be plagiarised?

Read the following article – Bloomfield, S. and Gumbel, A. (2006) ‘The teenage plagiarist’, Independent, 7 May, p. 24. Available from: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20060507/ai_n16353946

The article is about a recent plagiarism case, which illustrates the consequences of being caught plagiarising. While you’re reading, think about the following questions and make a note of your answer.

How does it feel to be a victim of plagiarism?
Why is it important to be aware of, and avoid, plagiarism in your work?

Answer

This is what we thought:

If you had worked really hard on something, wouldn’t you feel angry if someone else stole your work. Wouldn’t you want everyone to know that was your work, not theirs, and they should be punished for the crime.

If you plagiarise, you are also limiting the development of your own learning. You’re not giving yourself chance to think and develop, because you’re just copying someone else’s thoughts.

There can also be legal repercussions. Ms Viswanathan's plagiarism has resulted in public humiliation, and the loss of her literary career. Who is going to want to publish her now after she’s been caught plagiarising?

As a student, submitting a plagiarised essay may not result in the loss of money, but it could result in you failing your course or being downgraded. By ensuring that you manage your information, and keep accurate records of sources you use, you can ensure that you are not guilty of plagiarism.

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6.1 Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

The process of keeping up-to-date in your chosen subject area is useful for your studies and afterwards, for your own personal satisfaction, or perhaps in your career as part of your continuing professional development.

There are a great many tools available that make it quite easy to keep yourself up to date. You can set them up so that the information comes to you, rather than you having to go out on the web looking for it. Over the next few pages, you will be experimenting with some of the available tools.

Keep a note of any tools you use and how they work, so that if you find out later they are not as useful as you had hoped, it will be easy for you to unsubscribe, and avoid being overwhelmed with information you perhaps weren’t expecting.

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6.2 Alerts

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Online bookshops and some of the major search engines offer ‘Alerts’ services. These work by allowing you to set up a profile once you have registered on their site, and when there are items meeting your criteria you receive an email. The good thing about alerts is that you don’t have to do anything once you have set up your profile. The downside, particularly with alerts services from the search engines, is that given the extent to which internet traffic is on the increase whether new web pages or new blog postings, you may end up with rather a lot of information to deal with.

Google and Yahoo! offer alerting services for new web-based content e.g. blog postings, news.

For more academic information, MyIntute is a personalisation service from the Intute gateway. Gateways like Intute index quality controlled internet resources. By registering you will receive email alerts for new items matching your criteria when they are added to the Intute gateway. This also applies to any searches that you save.

Keep up to date with new books in your subject area by registering with an online bookshop, such as Blackwells

Activity – setting up alerts

Choose one of the alerting services outlined above and set up an alert. You may have to register for an account first, if you haven’t already got one.

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6.3 Mailing lists and newsgroups

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Mailing or discussion lists are email-based discussion groups. When you send an email to a mailing list address, it is sent automatically to all the other members of the list.

The majority of academic-related mailing lists in the UK are maintained by Jiscmail. You will find details of joining these mailing lists on the Jiscmail website. Mailing lists are useful for getting in touch with like-minded colleagues. They are also handy for keeping up to date with current thinking and research. A common problem with mailing lists is the sheer volume of material available You may feel pressured to read every single contribution. You can 'manage' this information by choosing carefully which to join. Most Jiscmail mailing lists feature an archive, so you can check the quality of the discussion and the number of messages before you decide to join. Some mailing lists also offer a 'digest' function, whereby you will receive a single message containing all the day's messages to the list, rather than all of the messages individually.

Mailing lists are not just about keeping up to date academically, of course. Google maintains a listing of ‘newsgroups’ at http://groups.google.com/ where you can find discussions about every topic under the sun. Groups are created around a topic, profession or common interest, and can be very useful as a source of information, and to bring like-minded people together. Newsgroups are similar to discussion lists in that you can send and receive messages, but instead of them arriving in your email box, you can access the newsgroup's files to read the postings – it is rather like looking at a notice board.

Activity

Spend a few minutes browsing through either the Jiscmail or Google listings to see if there are any email lists or newsgroups that you might like to join.

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6.4 Blogs

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

The founder of Technorati claims that the number of blogs doubles every five months and that the creation rate is approaching two per second. One estimate I read in July 2010 put the number at 400 million blogs. Because these online diaries offer instant publishing opportunities, you potentially have access to a wealth of knowledge from commentators and experts (if they blog) in a wide range of fields. Most internet searches will turn up results from blogs, but there are some blog-specific search engines such as: Blogdigger and Google’s blog search.

Some blogs also offer RSS feeds, so you can add them to your feedreader to keep up to date with what your favourite ‘bloggers’ are writing.

One thing to bear in mind is that the content of blogs is likely to be as diverse and varied as the people who are writing it. It’s therefore practical to apply some evaluation skills if you intend to rely on the information you find on blogs in any way – in particular look for timeliness (how often is the blog updated?); provenance and objectivity (what is the blog for? who put it there and why?)

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6.5 RSS

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’ or ‘Rich Site Summary’) newsfeeds supply headlines, links, and article summaries from various websites. By using RSS ‘feedreader’ software you can gather together a range of feeds and read them in one place: they come to you, rather than you having to go out and look for breaking news. The range of RSS feeds on offer is growing daily. There is probably a feed to cover all aspects of your life where you might need the latest information, and you may find that most of the websites you visit already offer RSS – look for the orange button!

To set up RSS feeds, firstly you need to choose what sort of feedreader to use. There are online feedreaders, which you can access from any computer, anywhere, or desktop feedreaders, which are pieces of software which you can download and use on your own computer. Bloglines is a popular online feed reader, whilst Awasu is a desktop feedreader.

There are a number of ways of getting feeds into your feedreader, depending on which one you use. Right-clicking on the orange button might give you the option to add the link directly to your feedreader, or there may be commands built in to your feedreader to enable you to add it.

If you click on the orange icon on the BBC website, for example, you get instructions as to how to add the feed to your feedreader. You will also find that your feedreader will enable you to easily add feeds from their pre-selected content. For example, in Bloglines, once you have logged in, selecting Directory will give you a list of popular content. Choosing ‘subscribe’ will add them to the ‘My Feeds’ list.

Activity

Try this for yourself:

Choose a feedreader
Add some of their pre-selected content
Set up a feed to, for example, the BBC or your daily newspaper. Depending on the feedreader you have chosen, you may have to check exactly how it works to get the feeds in.

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6.6 Professional bodies and societies

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Consider joining a learned society or professional organisation. They can be very useful for conference bulletins as well as in-house publications, often included in the subscription. Don't forget to ask about student rates. Try looking for the websites of learned societies associated with your subject area (e.g. The Royal Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). You may have to pay a subscription or be a member of the society to access all of the information on the web but they are very good places to find out about conferences or talks and current research findings in your subject area.

You might find it worth taking out a personal subscription to useful journals or newsletters in your subject area. These could be professional, academic or trade-related. Look at journals circulated at work, or available in a workplace library or information unit. Alternatively, use a local library to scan current copies of journals, particularly useful if you do not want to take out your own subscriptions.

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Next steps

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:

If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area:

Business and Management

Or find out about studying and developing your skills with The Open University:

Or you might like to:

Post a message to the unit forum, to share your thoughts about the unit or talk to other OpenLearners
Review or add to your Learning Journal
Rate this unit

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Acknowledgements

The Open University — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:43:42 GMT

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:

Unit Image

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