Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Practical Worksheet 4 & 5 (Weeks 5 & 6)
Introduction to Internet Resources: Internet Search Facilities 1 & 2
Type of Search facility:
Search Engine [Google]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: Information
The Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music
Hits: 1,130,000
Meta Search Engine [Mamma]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: News
The Web: https://www.elca.org/lutheranpartners/archives/teenmusc.html
Hits: 36
Search Engine [Yahoo]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: Information
The Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_trends_in_music_(1950-1959)
Hits: 673,000
Reflections on Comparison and Evaluation on search effectiveness
Compare the search results. Identify 2 characteristics that make all 3 search facilities similar or different from one another.
Results of total number of websites found (however, the results of the subject directory and search engine is really a huge amount)
They have an advanced search option which allows users to perform a more specific search.
All three search engines are easy to use and very user friendly.
Do you find any strength/weakness of each of them, in terms of search capability?
Search engine: Google
Weakness
-A lot of irrelevant results
E.g. Results contain a webpage from a site which promotes a drug-free environment
Strengths
-Many variety of results from different sources:
e.g. Definitions of search topic or Forums which discuss the topic
Meta Search engine: Mamma
Weakness
-The results are not specific enough
Strengths
-Smaller range of results, easier to review and explore
- options to search for different sources
Subject directory: Yahoo
Weakness
-A wide range of results (in which there maybe some which are irrelevant to the topic or unhelpful websites)
Strengths
-More specific to the topic which is being researched on (advanced search option)
- provides the size of each individual webpage
Overall, which search facility best meet your searching needs? Why?
The Meta search engine would be quite useful as it provides a smaller range of results rather than a huge amount of results like the search engine or the subject directory, and most of the websites from the results are either irrelevant or useless for my searching needs.
Comment whether your research topic has any co-relation to the purposes of the resources retrieved.
My research topic has some co-relation to the purposes of the resources retrieved. To know more about the latest trends in music, forums discussing about the latest trends of music would be very helpful. Also, news articles reporting about the latest news or statistics would benefit my search process. The information websites like wikipedia (an online encyclopedia) would help me understand the definitions of certain technical terms which I do not understand.
-when are you
coming back? ;
