Systematic literature searching computer-based searching · 2011-10-25 · Systematic literature...

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06-06991 – Research Skills

Systematic literature searchingcomputer-based searching

Several machine-based services are reviewed. A distinction is drawn between keyword-based services (such as Inspec

and Medline) and citation searching services (such as Science Citation Index).


3 - Machine-based searching - 2 1

Services covered in this lecture

This lecture will cover:

• other keyword-based services (briefly)• Index to Theses• Dissertations and Theses• Searching for technical reports• Citation Indexes – e.g. Science Citation Index

The standard questions about evaluating indexing and abstracting services apply to machine-based services.

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Other keyword-based services

Mathematical aspects:MathSciNet: Mathematical Reviews on the Web

http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/Zentralblatt MATH

http://www.zentralblatt-math.org/zmath/

Natural language processing:Linguistics Abstracts Online

http://www.linguisticsabstracts.com/



Index to Theses

UK and Irish listing of research theses.

The machine-searchable version has records back to 1716.

Searching is very easy - with full text available• usually for very recent theses;• subject to the access policies of the university.

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Dissertations and Theses - 1

This service has been/is known by several names:• Dissertation Abstracts International• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) • ProQuest• Dissertations and Theses

ProQuest is a company selling information retrieval services and full-text copies.




Microfilmed theses from the US and sold copies –1938-

Archives are so large that it’s the official US dissertation site outside the Library of Congress.

Full text is an option - but not free. Use Interlibrary Loan.

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Consists of:

– Dissertation Abstracts International parts A & B• from > 1,000 North American graduate

schools – Dissertation Abstracts International part C

• provided unsystematically from outside the US

Most records will contain an abstract.About 72,000 new records are added each year.



Technical reports - 1

Searching systematicallyfor technical reports is very difficult - probably impossible.

It used to be extremely time-consuming and difficult to get paper copies of technical reports.

However, it is now much easier to find reports and to read them online.

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Technical reports - 2

There are many sites that claim to list technical reports series.

Look at for sites that collect electronic copies of the reports and index the wholecollection - not just their own reports.

Best site used to be: University of Waikatohttp://www.nzdl.org/cgi-bin/library

Perhaps best to try Google Scholar ….



Oddities

With the growth of the WWW, there have been a number of odd search engines.

One such is:The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies

http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/

This is a searchable collection of lists of references. Goodbecause it includes what people think is good.Badbecause it is unsystematic.

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Science Citation Index Subject coverage

The scope is so wide as to be multidisciplinary.

It indexes:– journals - almost 8,700 science journals including

at least 200 computing journals and probably more.

It doesn’t index:– conferences* – books– reports – theses



Science Citation IndexComprehensiveness/coverage

– covers many of the principal journals in computing:• has a wide computer science coverage,

choosing the most widely respected journals rather than (e.g.) an engineering bias;

– includes the Springer LNCS series (which includes many conferences).

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Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science

There are other Citation Indexes:

– Social Science Citation Index• includes applied/human-centered aspects of

computing

– Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science • includes Lecture Notes in Computer

Science/Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (back to 1990)



Inspec Subject overlap

SCIoverlaps with several other indexing services.– Compendexhas many of the same core journals -

but also has non-LNCS conferences;– Inspechas many of the same core journals and

lots of other journals - and also has non-LNCS conferences.

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Science Citation IndexCurrency

– Online services tend to be very up-to-date.

– Science Citation Index’sdatabase is updated weekly - but it isn’t clear how old the items in the update are.

– Science Citation Indexhas a good reputation for trying to be very up-to-date.



Science Citation IndexRecord content

How much information do the entries contain?– Basic bibliographic information– Abstract– Institution - e.g. University of Birmingham– Language of original article

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Science Citation Index Indexing

How are the entries indexed?– Keywords

• taken from title• taken from abstract• written by the indexer

– Citations



Searching SCI - 1

The search interface is simple enough for ComputerScientists to use for anything.

1. Formulate your search statement as shown in the first searching lecture.

2. Search using the keywords box.Note you have a range of options:

Boolean logic:AND OR NOT

e.g. (machine OR automatic) AND translation NOT compilers

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Searching SCI - 2

Search options (continued)Wild cards– of the ends of words, so pars* will match with

parse, parser, parsers, parsing, etc– of characters in words, so optimi?ewill

match with optimiseand optimize



Searching SCI - 3

3. Delimiting your searchSearches can be delimited in a number of ways, commonly:– by date rangeof publication– by languageof publication

4. Getting a copy of the results of your searchMark the references you want to copy and then request for them to be emailed to you.

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Searching SCI - 4

5. Additional things to look for– Whole text retrieval of selected documents in

PDF form.– Ability to store search statements so that they

can be used another day - useful for current awareness.

6. Points to think about– Does machine searching improve recall and/or

precision?– Is the more restricted range of publications

covered compensated for by the ease of machine searching?



Searching SCI for citations - 1

The features of SCIshown so far can be useful when used as one of several services in a comprehensive, systematic search.

It is much stronger when searching for citations.

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1. Select a significant (”base”) referenceFor citation searching, this document does not have to be restricted to being a journal paper.

2. Retrieve this “base” reference using the citation searchIt is best to use the author’s surname, first initial and a wildcard (*) - e.g. Hancox P*.




3. Retrieve the items that cite the “base” referenceUse the “Finish Search” button to retrieve the citations.

Note that the references retrieved by the citation search include anything that has been cited -obviously journal articles, but also conference papers, books, theses, patents, letters, etc.

References are presented in alphabetical order unless you specify otherwise. Look especially for the options to sort references by dateor by the number of times they themselves are cited.

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4. Getting a copy of the results of your searchMark the references you want to copy and then request for them to be emailed to you.

5. Additional things to look for– whole text retrieval of selected documents in

PDF form;– ability to store search statements so that they

can be used another day - useful for current awareness.




6. Points to think aboutDoes the use of citations improve recall and/or precision?

What criteria are used to include cited items? – Are items cited because they are relevant?– Because the author wrote them? – To criticize an alternative approach? – To impress readers with the author’s

erudition?

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Searching SCI

The useful addresses are:

– Description:• http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/support/

– Service:• http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/



Finally

I have a personal page in which I keep links to the best tools:

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pjh/info_searching/

Systematic literature searching computer-based searching · 2011-10-25 · Systematic literature...

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