Saturday 21 December 2013

Information Analysis and Synthesis


This is the last topic of information literacy and fifth step of big-6. Evalaution is the last step and  hopefully, we have completed course and whole mechanism of Big-6 process. This infrastructure is really helpful in our academic because we have used in our research.
What is synthesis?
                               Synthesis is like putting a puzzle together and we have to sort out our thinking and put it in the right place. Actually, it is all about judgment of information and process that we use. In other words, we can say Organization.
It has many benefits in our research such as ,
Allows people to understand the organized information
It has more readily used and meaningful
Maximum opportunity for audience to receive an accurate message
Organization strategies
   
1. Organization by category
                                             Separate ideas combine to produce a concept must be understood individually before their synthesis makes sense

2. Chronological organization
                                                 Organization according to time and sequence of events is called chronological organization.

3. Hierarchical organization
                                              Organization of information from least important to most important and least complex to most complex to convey the meaning and message of information.  

4. Alphabetical Organization

                                                The method of organization based on alphabets and does not imply on any type of order based on any attribute and characteristics. 

Introduction to Citation


Chapter-4 is about 4th step of Big-6 which is called "Use of information". After location and access the next step is to learn how we can use our information in research and reports. 
what is refernce list?  
                               A reference list is a list of books,articles and other sources that we use in our research and paper.It should be appear at the end of the paper. The style that we use for referencing is called APA-style.

APA STYLE:
            APA is an academic format of writing which was introduced by American psychological Association to provide guidelines for publication in social science journals. Mostly it is used for term papers, research reports, empirical studies, literature reviews, theoretical articles, methodologies and case studies.

References:
            Now we are going to jump from start of paper to the end of the paper.  It is a term that refers to the list of references that are provided to show “what are the sources that you used to do that research or the paper work”. It contains the following four things:
·         Author(s)’s Name
·         Publication Date
·         Title of the work
·         Publication Data
Besides that we also learnt the rules to document the author’s name, rules for the title of the work; for example books with one author, books with two or three authors and books with more than six authors.

Introduction to Citation:
There are several steps that we learnt during this lecture.  Here are some of the formats writing the materials in APA style.

Corporate  Authors:
Corporate author. (Year). Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher.
If there are Government bodies, start with the country or the state.

More than First Edition:
Author. (Year). Title of book. Edition. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Edited Books:
Editor. (Ed./Eds.). (Year). Title. Place of  publication: Publisher.

Chapter from Books:
Author’s name. (Year). Title of the chapter. In Name of the editor. (Ed. /Eds.), Title of the book. (pages of the chapter). Place of publication: Publisher.

Journal Article:        
Author’s name. (Year). Title of the article. Title of the Journal, Volume (issue/no.), page.

Newspaper Article:
Author’s name. (Year, month day). Title of the article. Title of the newspaper, page.

Online Journals:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number. Retrieved month date, year.

Websites:
·         Model for an authored document that is a whole site:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article/document. Retrieved month date, year, from http://Web address

·         Model for an authored page/article from a site:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article/document. Title of Site. Retrieved month date, year, from.

We also learnt about how to cite electronic sources. This is very important to know about the citation that we have learnt in this chapter with detail.

Article from Online with no DOI assigned 
Autho. (Year). Title of the article. Retrieved from http://web address

Magazine
Author, A. ( Year, Month day). Title of the article. Title of the magazine, volume, page number(s).


Search Tool & Search strategies

Third topic is started with third main point of big-6. Location and access is a main step in big-6 model that tell us where we can find relevant and reliable information by using different sources. When we search on internet then we need a search tool.


Search Tool:
                       Is a utility on internet to find out the information among thousands of documents. Search tools are classified into three types.
Library catalogue
Internet directory or search engine
Database


1. Library catalog:
                                It is a lesson that provides information library online system and how to use it. For example, AIU library catalog. It tells us to find books, periodicals audiovisuals. It can be book catalog, card catalog or online catalog. Online catalog in AiU is called OPAC. It is stand for online public access catalog. This OPAC system is known as ITALIC. This provides information about books and many more information sources and facilitates students. Different universities have different OPAC system.
The OPAC is provided by VTLS (virginia tech library system). This is a company that provides library automation software and services mostly to universities and governments. The new name of VTLS is “Chamo”. This system allows students to interact with library management to tell them what they have found new on social media. This system also allows students to share information on Facebook or twitter. Students can tag others and can get more interaction. this system also can be accessed by mobile devices.
ITALIC provides two types of search. One is general search and other is advanced search. In general search, we can write books name, author name. But in advance search, we can purify our search. We can find by years, author, title, ISB , ISSN, LCCN, UPC and control number.  This system also allows us to change country and language to find books and other materials. There are many books in AiU library with different languages.

Internet:
               Internet is a network of interconnected networks that allows billions of people to communicate each other. It is also called “Global information system”. There are two ways to find information on web by
Search engine
Subject directories
Search engine is a largest database that provides quick and reliable information. We type by keyboard about related topic and search engine will find the related website. Turbo 10, Google, Yahoo, Surfwas are the examples of search engines.
  Subject directories in general are smaller and selective than search engines. They use categories to focus your search, and their sites are arranged by categories, not just by keywords. These may be called Internet catalogues. They are always compiled by people (rather than indexed automatically) who organize information according to a classification system. Examples,
Library search.com
Google scholar  
Online database:
                            Collection of computerized information such as articles, books and graphic multimedia that can be searched by online. Online database also provide facility to publish magazine or journals, newspapers and other information sources. For examples,
PROQUEST
Science direct
24/7





Search Tools& categories

Search strategy is a approach and structured organization of terms to find information by online. Its function is to provide accurate and factual information to user.
There are two ways of search strategy.
Searching with keywords
Boolean searching 
Truncations& Wildcards
Phrase Searching

1. Searching with keywords:
 Keywords are natural language or free text words and phrases.



















Boolean search allow user to combine words and phrases using symbolic logics called Boolean search to refine, define, limit and broad the search. There are three operators of Boolean search
AND
OR
NOT
By using AND, it will limit the search.
By using OR, it will expand the search
By using NOT, it will exclude the unwanted information.


3.Truncation& Wildcards:
                                            Truncation and wildcards broaden our search abilities by allowing us to retrieve multiple spellings of a root word or word stem, such as singular and plural forms.
A wildcard AND Truncation is a special character, such as an asterisk (*), question mark (?), or pound sign (#), that replaces one or more letters in a word.




4. Phrase searching:

                                 Searching two or more words as an exact phrase. We use brackets ( ) 0r commas “ “. 

Sunday 1 December 2013

Structure of Information

After learning about the first main step that is called” Task definition” of Big-6 and with full of intention of curiosity, our lecturer introduced a new topic that is known as “Structure of information”. We got the knowledge about the framework and what are the steps that we should implement to find factual and accurate information. Before going onwards, she told us about learning objectives that we learnt in this topic. The subtopics were about the differentiation of primary, secondary and tertiary source by using information. Now, we had proceeded to second step of Bog-6 that is called “Information seeking behavior”. She also reminded us nearby the two stages those are “determine range source” and prioritize sources”.
Information source:

                               It refers to any place, thing where user can get the information. It can be books, people, internet, website and many others information sources.  As we knew about the information source, so who is the producers of these information resources. There are many people such as, students, teacher, government and private sectors included profit organization and nonprofit organizations.
  Information source can be three types such as,

 1. Printed (Books, magazines, dictionaries etc.).
 2. Non printed (Wikipedia, Google, blogs).
 3. Interview or video
Primary source:
                        A primary resource is an original documents or known as first-hand information. This is the most reliable and factual information that enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the source.
Primary source information can be recognize in the form of,
Diaries, journals, autobiographies, speeches, historical documents such as birth certificate, government records, court documents, military records, publisher first-hand stories, recoding and interviews and many others.
Secondary source is a second hand information that conveys the experience of others. Actually, secondary source information is written about primary source. There are many secondary sources such as biography, Almanac and encyclopedia books.
Tertiary source is the distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources. It includes most types of references. There are three types of tertiary sources such as bibliographies of bibliography, directories of directories and guides to the literature.
After that, she gave us some sources for identification. we tried to recognize the sources and hopefully we identified most of them.  She also acknowledge about the newspaper and magazines articles. It can be primary or secondary source depend on the given situation.
Reference Sources:
                               Reference sources or materials that provide quick, factual information about the topic. They are designed to be consulted rather than read through. It can be books, serials, online database or internet. There are two types of reference sources, one is specific and other is general. They can provide definition and general information and arranged alphabetically, topically or chronological order. Encyclopedia, dictionaries, directories, Atlases and maps, handbooks, guide books and journal can be reference sources.
The question was in my mind, why we use reference sources? Our lecturer came to this point and cleared it to me. we use because it is the best place to start our research . They provide good instruction about the topic, provide brief and factual information, define unfamiliar terms and identify additional relevant sources.
1. Encyclopedia
                        An encyclopedia is a book that contains concise, factual information on topics or concepts. It also containing general information about topics and arranged alphabetically order. It can be two type, general or specific encyclopedia. General encyclopedia arranged articles by topics. Specific encyclopedia is available for academic discipline. They provide more in depth and technical information than general encyclopedia.

2. Dictionaries
                      Dictionary is also a reference source that provides information about words. Definition, spelling, pronunciation, usage, synonyms, abbreviation and grammatical information provided by it. it can also in the form of general, historical, etymological, subject directory, period or scholarly specialized, subject and others dictionaries provide various information about different words.
There are some types of dictionaries known by different names,

1. Glossary
2. Lexicon
3. Thesaurus
4. Vocabulary

3. Geographical sources
                       A biographical source is a directory of prominent person, usually arranged alphabetically, by surnames, with biographical identification that range from brief outline to extend narrative.
4. Geographical sources
                                    It is another form of information source that allows people to gain information about places. Maps, Gazetteers, Atlases, Globes, Travel guides and Global positioning system are included in geographical sources. After that, she illustrate the. A map is a flat drawing that describes a place or part of the world. A globe is a three dimensional model of earth. Atlases contain collections of maps. They provide information on geographical or political changes. Gazetteers referred as geographical dictionaries and provide descriptions of places.
5. Year books
                      Our lecturer also demonstrates about year books that is a record of annual development in a geographical area in a subject discipline or in an organization.
6. Periodical Publication
                          It refers to a material that is published at regular basis. Its publication comes out regularly or occasionally. For example, Journals, Magazines and newspapers.
At last we learnt about the format of information source that include microfilm, audiovisual media and bibliographical database. A bibliographical database is a bibliographical record, an organized collection of references including journal and newspaper article, reports and government and legal publication.

Where we can find information sources?
They can be found in the form of
1. Archives
2. Library
3. Internet 

Saturday 30 November 2013

Information Literacy and Research Process

After completing 1st trimester of Foundation study program, I started my next semester with new passion and motivation. I developed wide range of inspiration and an encouragement in me because I passed the 1st trimester with fabulous grades and I was satisfied with it.

On the 1st week of this semester, our lecturer started with the ice-break session to get know each other. It was a great opportunity for me because I had the same lecturer in Information Technology (IT).  She gave a brief about the outline in Information literacy. She told us about the assessment and their respective schedule of our projects. Before starting the topic, she gave a written assignment to check our fundamental knowledge. Our concepts were not so week about the given assignment.

She started with the definition of information literacy because it is necessary for us to get the basic knowledge. The framework of information literacy is the process to fulfill the requirement in our research paper. Actually, information literacy is the skills, ideas that we use to analyze, interpret the information and ways of thinking. According to the American association, information literacy is the research of information to solve the problem in information. It has many names, information skills, information management, information competency and problem based learning. These names show the interior framework of information literacy. After that she told us about the elements of Information literacy.
  •      Media literacy
  •    Computer literacy
  •    Library literacy
  •    Critical thinking literacy  
  •       Internet literacy
  •      Research literacy 

The question arises in our mind, who needs information literacy? Basically, it is used in every field to solve the problems in information needed. For example,
  • students need to make their projects more effective
  • Businessman use to check and analyze the information  for better improvement to get more profits
  • Managers use information literacy in banking to calculate the transaction
  • And in every organization weather it’s profit or non-profit organization

What is the information literate person? The question is very simple because I have got deeper concept of information literacy. A person who uses the information literacy framework is called information literate person.  But this work has many steps that person use to solve the problems.  Firstly, he identifies the information to check its scope, plane to gather the information, evaluate the information. After that he manage the information either it is relevant or out of the project because next step is to present to others. It is very important because it the simultaneous process of taking decision and helps us to analyze our information. It creates confidence to make them sure the information is effective and useful for the relevant work. Information literacy is a modal and it has many processes such as,
·         Big 6

·         Mc Kenzie Research Cycle

·         Alberta model

·         Pitts Research model

·         Seven Pillars model

·         Action Learning model

Big 6 are crucial to be learnt to analyze the information. Our lecturer taught us about its frame work from the definition.

“The framework that we use in information literacy to guide others through six step process to solve the problems in our research”. 

This process is very simple. Firstly, we find the task definition which is the meaning to understand. After understanding the definition, we search the information which can be online or from book or other sources. We locate and access the information by determining the different resources and then prioritize the information which is more relevant and useful either its online or from manual source. Thirdly, we locate the information where we can find it and select the appropriate and suitable information. The next step is to use the information by reviewing, reading or by touching and take out the information. After that, we organize and analyze the information to present others. Lastly, we evaluate the information to judge the information and requirement needed has accomplished.

In research we can use the simplest form to solve the problems by identification and implementing some strategies

  •          Choose the topic
  •          Narrow down the topic by understanding its deeper meaning critically
  •        Develop the statement and formulate the question.
First we choose the topic name which is the basic strategy in research. Then we narrow down the topic by asking different question to ourselves. What we know about the topic and what we want to know about it? Lastly formulate the question where, how,  who, what, when, and why we are going to know about the topic.
The problem statement is to define the research problem,  to demonstrate different steps to solve the problem, choose the facing problem and state the problem in an appropriate way.