Www.BatesInfo.com 1 Teaching the Web in Under an Hour Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services...

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Teaching the Web in Under an Hour

Mary Ellen Bates

Bates Information Services

[email protected]

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What We’ll Cover

Start from their assumptions Sample outline and demos

Five steps Final thoughts on teaching the web

{I won’t cover copyright and plagiarism issues}

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Start From Their Assumptions

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Search engine logs show: Only 1 in 20 searcher scrolls to 2nd page of

results 1 search in 5 produced no results Half the searches were a single word

Google is by far the most-used search tool. Yahoo, second with only a quarter of the use of Google

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Outsell survey on end users: 66% of Web researchers have no training 96% consider themselves “skilled” or

“very adept” at finding information

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Address Their Assumptions

Show what you find on the second page of search results

Show success of 1-word vs. multi-word searches

Side-by-side comparison of search engines

Comparison of search engine vs. a portal or directory

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Sample Outline and Demos

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1. Search Engines

How are search engines built? Spiders start with sites they know Spider “reads” those pages Follow links to other pages Look at submitted and paid links Content is indexed Searches are “served” with results

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1. Search Engines

Limitations of search engines: They’re not searching the web in real time They have a lag-time of days to weeks No search engine has even 25% of web

content They can’t find a site that isn’t linked-to or

submitted to a search engine

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1. Search Engines

Limitations of search engines: They can’t get into databases or sites that

require registration Need to distinguish between search results

and paid listings


1. Search Engines Demo

Search-off #1 Do same search in Google, Teoma and

AllTheWeb, compare results Search-off #2

Compare success of one-concept vs. multi-concept searches

Example: “sweet success” vs. “sweet success” pregnancy


2. Directories and Portals

Directories – large, hierarchical Yahoo, LookSmart, OpenDirectory

Portals – usually subject-specific FirstGov.gov, HealthFinder.gov

Not comprehensive, but focused and usually less irrelevant material


2. Directories Demo

Search-off Compare search results from a search

engine and a directory

Consciousness-raising Show where OpenDirectory listings appear

in search engines results


3. Invisible Web

Anything the search engines can’t or won’t index

Find information by thinking “Who cares?” and “Who knows?”

See Invisible-web.net


3. Invisible Web demo

Challenge them to find an article from last week’s New York Times from a search engine Works best if you give them a specific

article, with byline, but without the source. Also good consciousness-raising for the

value of fee-based online services.


4. What’s NOT on the Web

Professional online services Historical material Many non-English-language sources Many academic and scholarly sources


5. Information Hygiene

“Can you evaluate information?”

Demo: www.GATT.org (and compare to www.wto.org) Solution: check AllWhoIs.com Solution: “Oh, yeah?” Solution: Triangulate


5. Information Hygiene

Question everything Who would care about this? What am I missing? Is this really accurate, current,

authoritative? What about pre-web information? Where will I find info beyond a search

engine?


Final Thoughts on Teaching the Web

You can’t teach them everything you know

Don’t provide list of URLs Don’t get bogged down with browser

tools Don’t focus on advanced searching Test every example the day of the class


Final Thoughts

Stay in touch: offer them an email Tip of the Month

Hand out a checklist cheat sheet“Have I consulted: two search engines, two

directories, the library’s subject portal, and a librarian?”


Mary Ellen offers a free “Tip of the Month” email update.

If you would like to subscribe, just ask ([email protected])

or go to www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html


Mary Ellen BatesBates Information ServicesWashington, [email protected]

Www.BatesInfo.com 1 Teaching the Web in Under an Hour Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services...

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