Week 3

Today, 14/3/08 was our third lecture and tutorial for UPC0004, Accessing Knowledge. The lecture was all about online databases. The definition of an online database is- an organised collection of information (data), characterised by the use of data fields, that provide procedural methods for retrieving information. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using online databases, for example a major advantage is that people are able to access them twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. A disadvantage is that some of the online databases are subscription only. Something that I found interesting was that ITunes is classified as an online data base!

In the tutorial we found out how to actually access a database. First we went on the ECU home page, then to the library link, then to the journal articles (databases) link. It was easier than I thought it would be. I found one of my journal articles in the tutorial, for UPC0002, which took a little while to find but at least I got it done.There is a sample screen dump of a meta quest search below. Also in the tutorial we updated our blogger accounts. We did two readings in the tutorial "Finding What You want on the web" and "Bare Bones Lesson 7: Basic Search Tips". The first article, Finding What You Want on web, was about a man who's new years resolution was to break his addiction of using Google. He instead has chosen to use Yahoo!, HotBot, Kartoo, Fazzle and Vivisimo. The second article I found particularly helpful and interesting as it had tips that can maximise the return of hits on search engines.