Major Course Materials and Resources

Week One covered the Deep Web. Major concepts:

Use top level domain names (.org, .edu etc.) to refine a search

Target "niche content" using Google Advanced search mode to limit to fields and types of files, including specific usage rights.

The Web can be thought of as having various layers. Google and other search engines provide access only to materials pretty much "on the surface."

Use periodical databases available through your local library. Use Advanced Search modes; click to limit to full text if wanted. Watch for how you can email these materials to yourself.

Week Two covered files and databases available on the Web whose homepages are accessible via a Google search, but not their contents.

Examples: newspaper and news broadcast files; databases of statistics, videos, classifieds, airline schedules, library catalogs, etc. Also, certain types of resources, e.g., mashups and wikis.

Most libraries organize access to databases and files such as these. Cabrillo College Library has its Internet Links pages.

Week Three covered Deep Web Databases, such as OpenSecrets, In The First Person, Household Products Database.   

Federated searching creates one interface to search multiple databases. Using Google's Custom Search Engine you can create a custom federated search engine. In the Exercise for this week, more exploration of mashups.

Hoaxes and Stuff listed Snopes, Internet Hoaxes from the Department of Homeland Security, etc. Also covered: how to check on computer hoaxes and risks using Symantec.com and McAfee. How to use a WhoIs Directory such as the one at Network Solutions, to find out who bought a domain name.

Week Four went deeper into search engines.

Covered Google's ranking algorithm (as much as we can know about it). How subject directories, e.g., Librarians' Internet Index, are different from search engines. Link to Search Engine History. Search engine comparisons: Twingine and Comparing Google and Yahoo! Search results, and results for China.

Major search engines covered: Google || Yahoo!Search || Live || Ask

Metasearch engines and clustering search engines: Dogpile || Kart00 || Clusty || Carrot Clustering || SearchMash (new flash version). Google universal search is doing more and more blending of results. Yahoo!Search suggests new search terms on the results page.

Search engine Shortcuts such as time, weather, conversions, definitions, etc.

Databases of books: Google Books. ] Add a two character abbreviation for the language, and you get Google Books in other languages, e.g., books.google.com/ar for books in Arabic; books.google.com/fr for books in French. Also: The European Library || Gallica || WorldDigitalLibrary

Periodical databases at Google is called Google Scholar

What's coming: Google Labs || Yahoo Research || Microsoft Live Labs

Week Five covered digital libraries -- list of digital libraries.

Two modes for searching digital libraries: browse by subject or theme; direct search for something specific.

Third approach (I didn't talk about this in the course) is coming -- search by matching. For example, you have a photograph of a spider; you want to identify it; you will someday upload the image to a database about spiders and voila! -- you'll be able to identify it. Sounds pretty nifty. Still in developmental stages.

Week Six covered Web 2.0 and looked ahead at trends.

New Web 2.0 applications: Blurb -- write your own books. Flickr -- upload your photographs and share

What blogs are and how to search them.

More about wikis.

Twitter. Twitter now has its own index!

What Web 3.0 might look like and characteristics of the semantic Web.

How to keep up with new developments on the Internet: Internet Scout Project || Search engine Showdown || Search Engine Watch || Research Buzz.

I created a page called The Fun Stuff. I linked to it twice: at the end of the page More about Search Engines and at the end of the page that covered Digital Libraries. I created this page wholely within Blackboard. It would take me a little while to transfer them out of Blackboard so they could link to this page, but if you'd like me to do that, just let me know and I'll be happy to do it. Really. : -)

Have I said it enough about how much fun I have had with this course? All of you have been fantastic students!

I hope to offer the course again Spring 2010. It will will be renewed and updated, of course, and will be lots better due to your comments and suggestions. Alert your friends and neighbors! <grin>