Resources & Tools for Research Information
2012 Graduate Seminars for
Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECS) and Computer Science (SCSI)
Ted Baldwin, Head of CEAS Library (Engineering & Applied Science), 513-556-4211
September 6, 2012
Important basics:- CEAS Library website: www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/ceas/
- Location: 8th floor, Baldwin Hall
- Twitter @UCEngrLib and #CEASLibrary, Facebook www.facebook.com/CEASLibrary
- Hours and Floorplan; Info Commons available to CEAS students 24x7 using card swipe
- Ted Baldwin is Head of CEAS Library, 513-556-4211 (Office is 860C Baldwin Hall)
- Jim Clasper is Assistant Engineering & Applied Science Librarian, 513-556-1452
- Use the Ask-A-Librarian form to submit a question
- Search books and journals by title: use UC Library Catalog and Books Online
- Search journal articles, conference papers, patents, theses: use Databases and Full Text Journals
- Engineering & Applied Science Reference Guides
Defining a topic:
- Look at theses/dissertations at UC, and in OhioLINK (keyword search and limit material type to thesis)
- Look at books, reviews, encyclopedias and handbooks to get background information
- Check out faculty or researchers whose names you know and see what they are doing in databases and web sites
- Use the "funnel" approach
- name a broad area
name a subarea name a specific topic within the subarea - what aspect to look at: theory, application, design, material, construction process, function, use data
- what are your independent variables? your dependent variables?
- name a broad area
Search tips:
- For author searching, beware varying forms of name.
- For example, in ISI Web of Knowledge (Science Citation Index), only initials are used, e.g. Chong, A. Try ISI's Author Finder tool.
- Within a database, browse author name index if not sure of the form, or to pull up variants of same author's name and even misspellings!
- There can be many researchers with the same name. Verify person by topic of research and location, keeping in mind where they were working at the time an article was written.
- For subject searching, start with keyword
- Know how to use truncation, wild cards, and proximity operators in the database
- Combine synonyms (OR words together) to create a set of terms for a concept
- Combine sets with AND to limit search to the intersection
- Use search history to combine search statements
- Examine records in search results to see what subjects have been assigned (if any) to the record. These subjects may be used to expand to all records on the same subject.
- Expand to related articles, if opportunity exists (usually based on common references)
- Use citing features and tools, if any are provided.
- To narrow your results
- use advanced searching capability
- use " " or ( ) to identify a phrase unless database automatically does it
- use limit features such as date, material type (journals only, conferences only, patents only, theses only, online only), or treatment (theoretical, applied, historical, scholarly, review, etc)
- search your topic in title only (this can be helpful for internet searches
Where to look (also, see Reference Guides):
- UC Library Catalog and Books Online and Electronic theses and dissertations
- Compendex (Ei Village version)
- Scopus (also searches patents)
- USPTO Patent Databases (also see Patents Reference Guide)
- ISI Web of Knowledge (Science Citation Index)
- Academic Search Complete
- Specialized indexes:
- ACM Digital Library (Association for Computing Machinery)
- Scientific.net
- INSPEC for electrical, computer, physics
- IEEE Xplore (full-text of all IEEE papers and the IBM Journal of R&D)
- SPIE Digital Library
- Proquest Dissertations and Theses
- NTIS for government-funded technical reports
- Search Engines
- Scopus includes websites in results
- Scirus is the search engine that SCOPUS uses
- Google Scholar
- Tips
- Use advanced searching to specify what field it searches (title), type of domain (.com, .edu, .gov)
- Limit to title to reduce results
- JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) for peer-reviewed experimental videos
- Personal Logins and Search Alerts in databases:
- ISI Web of Knowledge - citation alerts, saved searches
- IEEE Xplore - search alerts, alerts on new issues of journals
- Scopus - search alerts, citation alerts,
- Other alert services: search alerts, journal table of contents, etc
- IEEE-Wiley e-books now available online
- Knovel for full-text books such as Handbook of Composites, Properties of Crystalline Silicon, Aqueous Organometallic Catalysis, and Chemistry of Precious Metals. Some of the books such as Polymer Handbook are have interactive graphs and tables.
- CRCnetBASE for full-text books online in systems and computer architecture, telecommunications, and electrical engineering.
- Safari Tech Books online books in computer science and computer engineering
- SciGlass 7.3 (2009), the largest glass property database containing data for 286,000 glass compositions, including 14,000 halide and 24,000 chalcogenide glasses. It provides also property predictions and calculations, to help you solve R&D problems. (Located on CD-ROM workstation in CEAS Library)
- Synthesis Digital Library of Engineering and Computer Science easy-to-read e-books on basic and specialized topics
Retrieving the material:
- If it's online, follow the links such as
or "Find Full-Text at UC" to locate full-text options. - If a journal title is not in the UC Library Catalog, try Full Text Journals for items we own but are not represented in catalog.
- If it's not owned by UC or is held at SWORD (SW Depository), use ILLiad to acquire through Interlibrary Loan. Login with your UC Central Login.
Presenting your work:
- RefWorks for Citing References - see the workshop list for to register for training on RefWorks and LaTeX.
- Top Ten Hints for Formatting Citations Properly
- IEEE and ACM Style formats (see bottom of page)
- Copyright Information (UC Libraries)
- Plagiarism information for instructors and students (UC Libraries)
- Plagiarism Intro (Authored by Professor Thomas Mantei/CEAS, .ppt file)
twb
9/6/12