Exercise on information seeking

3.1. Warm-up search with Google Scholar. If you are working outside of the campus area, from e.g. your personal computer, you need to set up Scholar settings so that they utilize the library's SFX links ("Library links" in Settings, see instructions). Remember to save your settings.

Do a warm-up search and search for two references, which include the link FullText: sfx@Aalto. Open the link and after this the Go-link from "Full text available via (the name of the database) - Go". Through  the latter, you can examine the database from which Google Scholar has indexed this article. (You will be able to locate this database from Aalto-Finna by writing its name into the search field.)

To complete this exercise, write the names of the found two full text articles, the names of the journals, in which these articles are published and the names of the databases through which these journals are available.

Example: Using encryption for authentication in large networks of computers, Communications of the ACM, ACM Digital Library.

3.2. Get familiar with the resource guides on your subject field and search 2-5 databases, which might be useful to you (on Articles and databases tab).

Briefly explain why you selected these databases. Information concerning a single database you will find from the read more links.

Example: Materials Research Database (Proquest). The Materials Science & Engineering Database provides full text titles from around the world, including scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings and government publications.

Optional exercise 3.3

Study the Learning Centre’s instructions on Journal impact factors and then Journal Citation Reports (ISI) database, where you can view the impact factor of each journal separately according to discipline (categories). Check also the Finnish Publication Forum classification.

Define three most important journals on your subject field.