Info on conducting an environmental scan for age-friendly community resources, critically evaluating information and finding demographic information about Niagara.
3. Today’s outcomes
You will recall strategies for:
• Conducting an enviromental scan using
scholarly & grey literature
• Critically evaluating information
• Finding relevant demographic information
• Getting help with APA style
4. Niagara Age-Friendly Community
Network Assignment
• How the library can
help:
– Finding information
for environmental
scan
– Finding demographic
info for Niagara
Christina Saint Marche, Flickr:
http://flic.kr/p/ejkfvf
5. Environmental scan
• Term originated in business and
marketing research
• Refers to:
– Actively scanning a variety of relevant
information sources (e.g. books, scholarly
journal articles, websites, news articles)
– Collecting relevant information on your
topic
– Evaluating and synthesizing
information from multiple sources
Source: Industry & Market research, Portland State University Library: http://guides.library.pdx.edu/industry
8. Finding background info
URL: http://researchguides.library.brocku.ca/RECL
>Find books tab
>SuperSearch
>use your keywords here
TIP: Start broad -- add more words as needed
Image: 'untitled'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11
797720@N00/8559607109
Found on flickrcc.net
9. Tips & tricks
1. Use “quotes” to search for an exact
phrase e.g. “age friendly”
2. Use * to search for variations of a word
ending e.g. plan* (plan, planning,
planned)
3. Scroll down: the first results may not be
the best
10. Succeed with SuperSearch
1. Refine your results: select “books & media
@ Brock” to get background info
2. Slide the Publication Date to adjust time
period
3. Select “Subject” to find results focused on
a specific aspect of your topic
4. Add another keyword to find results
focused on a specific aspect of your topic
5. To get a book: note location in library
(print books) OR click “read this online” (ebooks)
13. Ask yourself:
Currency
>How current is this info?
Relevance
>How well does it relate to my topic?
Authority
>Who wrote this? What are the author’s
qualifications? Can anyone add info to this
site?
14. CRAAP, continued
Accuracy
> Can the facts be verified? Are
references clearly listed?
Purpose
>Why does this information exist?
15. Like videos? Here you go:
Evaluating websites:
http://youtu.be/7w62Wfgfc7w
16. On the web
Many websites are good sources of info for
your topic: see Recreation & Leisure
Research Guide > Websites > for ideas
Remember the CRAAP test!
17. Leisure information network
“LIN's vision is to be recognized as the national
knowledge-based digital forum for sharing
value-added information regarding
individual and community nourishment and
well-being through recreation, parks, and
healthy living.”
Try searching:
1. “age friendly”
2. “age friendly” community
18. Other strategies
• Municipal websites e.g. Welland >
Departments > Recreation and Culture
Summary of Parks, Recreation and Culture
plan (Vision 2025)
• Community organization websites
e.g. Niagara Connects >
Niagara Knowledge Exchange
• Niagara Community
Observatory
19. Grey literature
Publications produced outside the traditional
scholarly platforms of academic journals and
books
Examples:
• Reports from organizations
• Government reports
• Policy documents
• Conference proceedings
• Working papers
Grey literature can be used for background & foreground info
20. Strategies for finding grey lit
• Use known sources e.g. Niagara
Connects, LIN
• Use Google/Google Scholar – carefully!
Antiques, by bibliojojo: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/68509201@N08/7360308172
21. Tips for Google/Google Scholar
• Use advanced search – click
• Try exact phrase – e.g. age
friendly
• Try any words – for synonym
searching – e.g. city OR community
• Restrict to a geographic region -e.g. Canada
22. Scholarly
articles
• Found in subject
databases such as
Leisure and Tourism,
SportDISCUS, Web of
Science
• Written by researchers
who are topic experts
• Your topic is multidisciplinary >
SuperSearch is a
good bet
23. Succeed with SuperSearch
1. Refine your results: select “peer-reviewed
journals” to get scholarly articles
2. Slide the Publication Date to adjust time
period
3. Select “Subject” to find results focused on
a specific aspect of your topic
4. Add another keyword to find results
focused on a specific aspect of your topic
5. To get an article: use the GetIt link
24. Search tools: combine concepts
Search words AND, OR are powerful tools for
retrieving relevant results
Distinct concepts: use AND
e.g. “community engagement”
AND planning
home.howstuffworks.com/power-drill.htm
Similar concepts (synonyms): use OR e.g.
recreation OR leisure
25. Niagara data
Try the Recreation & Leisure Research
Guide> Data & Statistics page:
• Census of Canada & National
Household Survey> age, gender,
income, etc.
• Info varies depending
on geographic level e.g.
economic region
(Niagara), census tract
26. Data and statistics
Other useful sources (on research
guide>data and stats page):
• Living in Niagara 2011
• Canada Info Desk > Major Canadian Cities >
St. Catharines
• Niagara data - mapped
Tip: data/stats may not be available at the level you want
27. Help with APA style
Recreation & Leisure Research Guide
– Library website > left nav menu “Research
Guides by Program”
• Writing and Citing tab
28. Getting Help
Chat with us from this widget
@ brocku.ca/library
Text us @ 289.271.8777
Search our
Question &
Answer Bank
Next stop: where & howto search >> think before you searchTo start, pull 1-2 keywords out of your topic and use them for your searchSearchengines such as Google and SuperSearch work by matching the words you enter in the search box to the words in the documents it searches. So for Google, that’s billions of web pages; for Supersearch it’s records for everything the library has – books, articles, movies, music, etc.Generally, search engines work by trying to match all the words you put in the search box – so the more words you type, the fewer results you will get; the fewer words you type, the more results you will get because it’s easier for the search engine to match fewer words
SuperSearch> library’s Google-style search engine-searches library’s collection of books, films, music and goes into journal databases to retrieve articles as well>> to get good background info, you may have to search for your topic at its broadest level e.g. instead of starting with age-friendly communities, start with community recreation planning
Quotes are particularly helpful if you’re the words in your phrase are common and might generate a ton of results otherwise e.g. “capacity building”
There are vast quantities of info available – lots of it is good, lots of it is bad. It can be hard to tell the difference.When you use SuperSearch, or a library database, you know that the information is scholarly. But what about info from the web?There are some easy ways to tell if what you’re looking at is the kind of high-quality relevant information you need to succeed on this assignment.Apply the CRAAP test – evaluate information according to its currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose
Questions?
How it works: Google Scholar indexes webpages and pulls citation information from journal articles, conference proceedings, working papers, reports and other documents – but we have no idea where exactly it is searching; no assurance material has been peer-reviewed; we also have to trust its weighting system will actually turn up the most relevant results for your search
Writing and citing resources:-guides to APA style – OWL at Purdue, Dalhousie University handout
We know that you’re working from all over the place – home, residence, etc – so most of our services are available online
Need help - we’ve got it > lots of how-to videos, etc. on our Help page
So we’ve learned:-to use the CRAAP test when evaluating info on the web – and elsewhere-strategies for finding background and foreground information – including grey literature – about recreation planning and age friendly communities-strategies for finding demographic information -that the library is here to help