About this assignment:
During this phase, we didn’t really do any science experiments but instead concentrated on producing lab reports. Instead, we conducted an experiment and studied the findings. We were able to refine our search techniques through this approach, especially while navigating lab reports. Through searches on Google, Google Scholar, and a predetermined database, the main goal was to obtain and analyze material. Based on a set of predetermined standards, including relevance, authority, currency, expectancy, and accessibility, we rated each search engine. We then contrasted the search engines. In addition, we followed the format expected for engineering lab reports, emphasizing the significance of each area.
Exploring Information Literacy Through 3 Different Search Tools
by Samuel Ortiz
City College of New York City
Keywords: Information literacy
Abstract
Students all around the world have been in the situation of having to find verifiable and reputable information for a lab report. Information literacy is the ability to find, use and verify any piece of information you come across. In this experiment, I will be using 3 different search tools: Google, Google Scholar, and The ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) database, and observing 10 different sources I get from each search tool. I will be using Google to apply scores to each of the sources using the following 5 categories: authority, relevance, currency, accessibility, and expectancy. After performing this experiment, I found that Google was the worst site for finding reputable information relevant to my search phrase, “Lab Report Wind Turbines”. Google Scholar and the ASCE database would be preferable when finding sources. In the future, it would be preferable if I had used a more specific search phrase to narrow down the sources I got from searching.
Introduction
Academic research success depends on the researcher’s capacity to access, evaluate, and synthesize correct and relevant data. Many databases and search engines have been developed recently to meet the specialized requirements of researchers. In this lab report, we assess the efficacy of three widely used academic databases: Google, Google Scholar, and the database of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Google is the most commonly used search engine worldwide and offers access to a vast amount of data. Finding particular and pertinent information can be difficult, though, due to the size of the search results. The concentration of Google Scholar, on the other hand, is on peer-reviewed publications, theses, and dissertations. Google Scholar is a specialized search engine created specifically for academic research. With Google Scholar’s sophisticated search tools, scholars can focus their searches on particular fields, authors, and dates.
Another specialized database with a civil engineering concentration is the ASCE database. For researchers in civil engineering, it is a vital source because it is filled with a plethora of technical articles, journals, and conference proceedings. Users can narrow their searches using the database’s advanced search options to certain fields like author, title, and publisher.
In this lab report, we’ll look at which database is the most useful for locating precise and pertinent information for academic study. Using the same search term across all three databases, we will run a search on a particular subject in the area of civil engineering. The outcomes will then be examined, and we’ll assess how well each database met our needs for precise and pertinent information. By doing this, we intend to help researchers select the optimal platform for their particular study needs by offering insightful information on the benefits and drawbacks of these databases. Students and researchers in the field of civil engineering and other disciplines that depend on scholarly research will find the study’s findings to be helpful. We hope to help researchers select the best suitable platform to conduct their research by comparing the efficacy of these databases. Also, this study will advance knowledge of the function of databases and search engines in academic research as well as how they affect the reliability and validity of the data gathered.
Ultimately, the goal of this lab report is to determine which database is the most effective for academic research among Google, Google Scholar, and the ASCE database. We will conduct a search within the field of civil engineering on a specific topic and compare the results from each database. The study’s goal is to provide valuable insights into the databases’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as to assist researchers in selecting the best platform for their research.
Setting
In this lab, the students of Johnathan McVey’s Writing For Engineering 21007 section p[21293], will be using the Google search engine, google scholar, and their choice of database provided by the City College of New York. The students will be performing the lab on the 1st floor of the library at The City College Library in the north academic center room 301Y. The class consists of 28 students testing to see the difference in sources given to them using their respective search phrases. They will go home and come the next day in class with their search phrase and 10 different sources from each engine and 10 from their chosen database. This will in turn increase the students’ information literacy and allow them to gain a better understanding of which search engines/databases are best when searching for specific information on a given topic of research.
Methods And Materials
Students all around the academic world have a certain level of information literacy. This lab report was an experiment to see how well specific information-searching tools were best suited to finding information using the search phrase “Lab Report Wind Turbines”. To get the results we typed out the search phrase into the different information-searching tools and recorded the first 10 results that appeared from the top.
In this experiment, the materials used are as follows: a Macbook (which had access to the internet), The search engine Google, the Google search, Database (ASCE: American Society of Civil Engineers), and a Google form to sort the sources found from the 3 separate searches.
First, I decided on my search phrase and I typed it into Google as my first engine. Following that, I created a Google doc with a 2×3 table inserted into the doc to start copying down my links. I copied and pasted the first 10 links that appeared into the Google doc, labeled them 1-10, and labeled the first cell as Google. Next, I followed the same procedure twice, but instead of using Google as the search engine, I used google scholar and the ASCE database.
After recording my results from the search engines, I used this Google form created by my professor and I ranked each source in 5 different categories using numbers 0-5 in increments of 0.25, (0,0.25, 0.50, 0.75…). Category 1 is relevance, how relevant the source was to the topic I was searching for, and how accurate were the results? The 2nd category is Authority, how credible were the sources, and what were the titles of the publishers of the source? The 3rd category is Currency, when was the paper published? The 4th category is accessibility, how easily could I access the source once I immediately clicked on the link? Finally, the 5th category is expectancy, did I get the results that I was expecting to receive (opinionated)?
Results
The search phrase “lab report wind turbine”. When analyzing the data I found that about half of the results were pretty relevant to my search phrase but the other half were not. The first 3 sources I found were Ads. which I believed were important to add. The ads bring up the fact that Google might not be the best when it comes to trying to find information efficiently. Accessibility was not an issue when it came to these Google sources, allowing me to access all of the sources I opened immediately. The Currency was moderate, seeing that the majority of the scores were around the range of 2.00-4.00. The authority of each source was a bit hard to rank. There were a few sources that I found that were lab reports but it was not specified in what year and how much experience the students that were doing the reports had. I expected my results to be as I found them mostly because Google is not a horrible engine for searching for information if you know how to verify what you are looking for.
The google scholar results were more uniform and followed the same pattern which was an expected outcome. The relevance of all the sources was pretty relevant to my surprise with an average score of 4.875. Each source had a fairly credible source either from a scholar with a Ph.D. or someone who has worked in a certain field involving wind turbines. The currency of each source was, on average, lower than the results from Google. Going from an average score of 1 to an average score of 2.125. The accessibility of each source was different for each. Some sources had to be downloaded and some had to be found by clicking a few things on the pages. Overall the expectancy was pretty high. But I expected it to be higher because google scholar had a wider range of sources to pick from than the ASCE database did so to my surprise I found more sources I did not expect to find. I expected to find more lab reports on experiments concerning wind turbines but I found information concerning reports on wind turbines and the structural integrity of wind turbines.
The ASCE database surprised me when it came to the results I got from this experiment. The Authority of each source was superior to google scholar and Google. The sources being from an association of civil engineers and the majority of each of the publishers of the sources having PhDs or being part of the association indicates that the majority if not all of the sources should be very credible. The relevance on the other hand was just not there for me. But generally, the majority of the sources were relevant to wind turbines. The currency of each source was around the same as it was for google scholar. But the ASCE database is where I found the oldest information. The accessibility of these sources was the lowest out of the other 2 information tools.
My search prompt could have been more specific in what I wanted to look up. I had originally searched for wind energy but I switched to wind turbines. This worked out in the end because when I had originally looked up wind energy I was hoping for lab reports on wind turbines, not the wind energy itself. One error I made throughout this experiment was switching my criteria for each category. I was more specific about what made something more accessible than others when giving the ranks for google scholar and the database. Another error I made was I did not go on an incognito window on my laptop to find my sources. This would stop any previous search history on my computer from affecting the search results. I believe that if I decided to filter out all the sources that were not written by people with PhDs or people working on a file concerning wind turbines the majority of the Google responses would not have even been recorded as results.
After taking a closer look at each of the search tools and their results I concluded that accessibility is usually not that big of an issue when it comes to these search tools. Generally speaking depending on what information you are looking for it is accessible. As long as one uses a specific search phrase for what they are looking for, most likely information on that topic will turn up. Google is not the best choice when it comes to finding specific information. Google comes with the prioritization of having information but also ad revenue, making it harder to find good verifiable information. Google Scholar was pretty good for finding what I was looking for. The sources were semi-recent but very relevant to the topic of lab reports on wind turbines. The ACES database was the best for all categories except accessibility. You would have to pay to access some of the sources or download the hundreds of pages available.
References
Avdic, A., & Eklund, A. (2010). (rep.). Searching reference databases: What students experience and what teachers believe that students experience (pp. 1–12). Örebro: Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
Chatgpt
Appendix
Search Phrase: Lab Report Wind Turbines
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