Applying good search strategies allows students to optimize both the pertinence of the results and their quantity.
This objective includes tasks related to the search and the selected tools used to achieve it. Students apply search strategies, adjust them if necessary and briefly consult the documents.
Students must first carefully choose keywords that are related to the required information. They determine, if necessary, search limits and then formulate requests in the search tools.
They modify their requests by targeting both precision and relevance, and then consult the results.
Note that a collaborative search using social media and communities of practice can support individual initiatives.
Providing written or visual proof can show that the objective has been reached: a list of keywords used or a table containing selected terms and search operators, screenshots of the results, etc.
Students can use guides or working aids, advanced options of the tools used, descriptive data, on-line help, etc.
Selecting keywords and search limits are too often steps that are neglected, but which have a major impact on applying a fruitful search strategy.
A formative and preliminary assessment of a concept map by the teacher or tutor will help students carry out their search using the tools and also help them to be more successful.
This task requires that the search requests have already been carried out using search tools previously chosen. The requests are carefully formulated and students use the functionalities of the search tools.
Research strategies are varied: simple search, advanced options, keywords, truncations, operators (e.g. AND, OR), selection filters, etc.
Students formulate a request using keywords, synonyms and related words from their concept map. They use the various functionalities offered by the chosen search tools and adapt their operations accordingly.
Students should keep track of their requests to facilitate follow-ups and in case they need to complete their work at a later date.
Presenting a table containing search terms or a concept map with keywords using conjunctions (AND, OR, EXCEPT), truncation symbols (wildcards) and limitations (time, location, type of document) demonstrates the mastering of this task.
Screenshots of queries used in different fields or interface zones of search tools can be included in the concept map.
At this stage, to help with the creation of a concept map, students can use working aids as well as advanced search options for databases, library catalogues or search engines.
It is necessary to ensure that students make several search queries from the concept map using different tools. This way, they will realize that using different combined keywords in search fields gives fruitful results.
This task aims to evaluate the results of the strategy used to improve it until obtaining precise and relevant results.
Students evaluate the relevance of the information found (degree of concordance with the search topic) and the number of obtained results. They modify their query in order to make it more narrow or broad.
Evaluating the relevance of the results is made easier by precisely formulating what is needed, the topic or the search question.
Students provide a screenshot of their query and results before and after the modification of the search strategy. Supporting the screeshot is a justification for the changes made to the search strategy.
Working aid: design a concept map.
Students will use list sorting functionalities, which are available in search tools.
The available functionalities that either narrow or broaden search strategies vary depending on the tool used. Each search tool offers its own sorting functionalities. It is therefore important to encourage students to explore the functionalities that are offered with each search interface.
This task consists of locating and accessing documents that were identified during a search for information.
Students read the descriptive data of documents found (title, author, associated keywords, summaries, etc.), locate and access them, whether they are digital or paper documents.
To do so, they use different access, display, display and search functions. This stage takes the form of a quick scan of tagged documents.
Students can present the following:
To complete this task, students may use the following tools:
Even though we are moving towards a paperless system, documentation that is relevant to an assignment is not always found in a digital format. It is important to encourage students to find and use paper documentation if at all relevant to the objective of the assignment.
Metadata: Data which describes other data. For example, a description of a database in terms of its structure and the relationship between the entities in the database is an example of metadata. (Source: Oxford reference).
