In graduate classes, one of the most important tasks in the pre-writing stage of your work is to gather information on your topic. Most professors require you to include evidence of background reading and research in your projects. Indeed, you are expected to substantiate most claims you make with evidence from the published literature.
Brookens Library offers many excellent resources to help you complete the important task of locating and reading relevant scholarly works. Many of the library's resources are available online. Students who do not live close to campus can request to have certain materials delivered to their homes. If Brookens does not have the material you wish to review, they can often arrange to borrow it from another library. You'll learn more about these services in this lesson and the next.
The library provides access to dozens of databases to support UIS students in their scholarly pursuits. As you become more familiar with the databases relevant to your areas of interest, you will appreciate being able to directly access your favorite databases from the alphabetical listing.
Until you know the databases, you will probably appreciate seeing the databases grouped by subject. When you try to access one of the databases, you will be prompted to log in. Simply use the same login credentials that you use for this course.
Take a closer look at the library databases by reading an article from Brookens Library that offers advice on Choosing an Article Database. Because, education is an interdisciplinary field, you will probably need to review it as you begin to explore related fields.
Please keep notes on this exercise as you complete it. It will become part of your discussion posting this week.
Choose a search term related to the area of the REACH Model you believe you would like to research. You will be using that search term throughout this exercise.
Next, please repeat steps 2-5 using the Professional Development Collection database and again using the ERIC via EBSCOhost database.
Take a look at the statistics you collected in this exercise. What do you think those numbers mean?
For those of you who have been out of school for a while, you will be amazed at how often you are able to acquire the articles you want to read without leaving your computer. In the Database Experience Exercise you completed, you already sent an article you can use in your research through your email account. It should be waiting for you the next time you check your email. Go ahead and check it now if you're curious to see that it worked.
With the databases that have a lot of full-text articles, it's as easy as sending an email to get the full-text of an article. But what about when there's no indication that full-text is available? It's still easy. It's just one additional step. Let's try one.
First, let's choose a database to use from the list of education databases. You can use one you've already used or try a new one. Enter your search term again and limit the results to Scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals if possible. This time, choose an article that interests you but that doesn't have full-text available in the database. Jot down the article title, name of the journal, year of publication, volume number, issue number, and page numbers. Don't worry if you don't have all of this information. Get what you can.
Now, let's go back to the library web site to see if we can find the full-text of the article you'd like to read. You can read a bit about Journals@UIS or go directly to the tool. Enter the title of the journal you'd like to find in the search box. You can decide if it's best to select Starts with, Contains, or Exact. You can also list journals by the first letter of their title. You might get an amazingly long list so you'll usually be better off to enter the journal name if you know it. Once you enter the title, click the Go button. If that journal is available electronically, you'll see it listed.
Take a look at the image below.
From here, all you need to do is click on the title (or the SFX icon). You'll get a window that lists one or more databases where you can find full text of articles from that journal. Choose one of them and enter as much information as you have about the journal article you're seeking. Click on Go and you should find what you want. From time to time, you might have to browse about a bit, but more often than not, this will get you the full-text article you want.
From time to time, you'll see find the most recent journal articles aren't available in the electronic databases. You'll also find that older issues are not always available electronically. In both cases, you can search PrairieCat to see if you can find what you're looking for in some other format. If that doesn't work, you can fill out the form to request materials through Interlibrary Loan. Students who do not live near the campus may request photocopies be mailed. See the library web site for details about I-Share and resources for material review.
If you've tried everything you know to try, don't be afraid to ask for help. The Ask-A-Librarian service is there for you to chat, IM, or email a question. You can call or drop by if you'd prefer. Their hours are posted at the web site.
At this point, you should know:
You should also be prepared for this lesson's discussion with notes from your database experience and have two journal articles to use as you progress with your individual research project this semester. If you're unclear on any of these, please review this page again.
| Many thanks to the Graphics Communications classes at City College of San Francisco for making the icons used on this page and for making them publicly available. |