Digital Research

s a university student, digital tools and technology will play a central role in finding quality sources to support your coursework and research. Developing digital research skills will help you define and plan data searches, collect data, and identify relevant datasets to critically interpret reliable information. These skills will also support you in the workplace as you continue to engage in professional learning and research activities.

When conducting research, you will typically follow these steps (The Learning Portal, 2024):

Choose a Topic: Begin by identifying your general area of interest, within the boundaries of your assignment, and then narrow it down by asking specific questions within that domain. Ultimately, aim for a topic that's specific enough to delve into deeply, yet broad enough to find sufficient credible sources and make meaningful contributions to your assignment.
Identify Resources: Information comes in many different formats, including books, eBooks, journal articles, magazines, open-access journals, grey literature, websites, and social media. Understanding the various types of content available to you will make it easier to plan your research.
Search Library Databases and the Web: The searching stage of your assignment can often take a long time, but putting in the time at this stage will reward you with relevant results that will make writing your assignment much easier. This module will provide you with some helpful strategies to search library databases and the web.
Evaluate your Resources: While collecting content from your library and from the web, you should also be evaluating the information for quality. Keep in mind that not all the information you find online is credible, reliable, or even appropriate for your topic, so it is important to take a closer look at what you are reading.

Using web browsers and databases

Web browsers and databases are digital tools that can help you find the information you need to support your coursework and research. Learning to use web browsers and databases effectively is central to your success as a post-secondary learner (Dermody et al, 2022).

Web browsers

A web browser is a type of software that allows you to find and view websites on the internet. There are many different web browsers, but some of the most common ones are Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox (GCFGlobal, n.d.). You may already be familiar with one or more of these.

Let’s use Google Chrome as an example. When using Google Chrome to search the internet, you will type the information you want to find in the address bar. You can type in keywords or a URL.

Keywords pertain to the information you want to find (e.g., words, phrases, or questions about the topic). For example:

web browsers tips
How do I use Google Chrome?

The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a specific resource on the internet. URLs typically end in .com, .ca, .edu, .gov, .org, or .net. For example: https://support.google.com/

If you enter keywords, Google then sorts through hundreds of billions of web pages and other content stored in their Search index to find helpful information to present the most relevant, useful results in a fraction of a second. Google uses search algorithms based on meaning, relevance, quality, usability, and context to decide what information will be most useful to you (Google, n.d.). You can also use filters to refine your Google search and narrow results to images, videos, news, books, maps, and more. It is important to evaluate the quality of the sources Google presents and not rely solely on the search engine’s decisions. You will learn more about evaluating sources for quality later in this module (Google Search).

Google explains more about how its search ranking works.

Watch this video to learn more about how to use web browsers here!

Video Source: GCFLearnFree. (2014, July 16). Browser Basics? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxirRVJWUTs
Length: 3:23

Databases

A database is a searchable collection of resources on a variety of subjects. Scholarly databases are subscription-based and paid for by post-secondary libraries so learners, faculty, and other institution members can access the information. The content found in databases can include scholarly journal articles, encyclopedia articles, newspaper articles, e-books, streaming media, and other digital sources. When instructors or professors ask you to find scholarly, peer-reviewed academic articles (The Learning Portal, n.d.), you can search for them in databases.

Popular scholarly databases provided by post-secondary libraries include:

Some databases are freely accessible, for example:

While both databases and web browsers allow you to find information to support your coursework and research, there are some key differences to be aware of.

Video Source: The Learning Portal / Le Portail d’Apprentissage. (2017, February 15). The Web and the Library: Which One Should I Use? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kyD77jXb8&list=PLTnjjdSlNvx2kcfBh4rXuWIP20W6zRHo2&index=6
Length: 2:02

Google Scholar

Google Scholar – https://scholar.google.ca/ – is a popular, free search engine that finds open-access scholarly articles (Cornell University Library, n.d.), academic books, case law, and grey literature online (Gerstein Science Information Centre, n.d.).

Grey literature refers to materials published non-commercially. These materials can be made available by the government, academia, not-for-profit, business, and trade organizations, in print and digital formats. It is sometimes more current than published research, and it is a great way to supplement your research, providing your project with a more complete viewpoint. Examples of grey literature include:

Conference proceedings
Reports (e.g., statistical, technical, committee reports)
White papers
Flyers Newsletters
Fact sheets
Theses and dissertations
Patents
Unpublished materials (The Learning Portal, n.d.).

Searching with Google Scholar

You can use Google Scholar to find open access sources. However, if you log into Google Scholar through your post-secondary institution’s library, it will also search your library’s databases. Google Scholar is relatively easy to use and can help you become familiar with journal titles and authors of interest. You can search Google Scholar by author name, title, or keywords.

Search Features of Google Scholar

Date range: Choose the currency of your results.
Cited by: View other articles that list this article as a reference.
Citations: Click on the quotation mark to get an auto-generated citation. Just be sure to check it against the library's citation guides before including it in your assignment.
Related articles: If you find a good article, you can see similar ones.
Create alert: If you will be working on a project over the course of a semester, set up an alert to get notified when new articles are published that match your search terms.

Limitations of Google Scholar

Cannot perform advanced searches to narrow results like library databases
Relies on keyword searches, not expert metadata
Includes sources that are not peer-reviewed
Sources are not always credible
Does not always provide full-text versions of sources

Search language

When using library databases and search engines to find sources and conduct research, you can use keywords, Boolean operators, truncation, and wildcards to focus your results (Dermody et al., 2022).

Keywords (also known as search terms) are important for effective searching. Your search terms are directly related to your topic or research question and will appear somewhere within the resource you are looking for (e.g., title, abstract, or author keywords). Along with search terms, you can also use search concepts. Search concepts are the most important ideas associated with your topic or research question. In short, search terms are the main ideas of your topic and search concepts are the big ideas related to your topic (Dermody et al., 2022).

For example, your keywords might be “global warming”, “climate”, and “greenhouse gas”. Your key concepts would be “ecology” and “environment” (Dermody et al., 2022).

Boolean operators connect your search terms (keywords) and search concepts together. The three basic operators are: OR, AND, and NOT.

The OR operator broadens your search results by retrieving records that contain either or both of your search terms or concepts. Usually, terms within a concept are combined using the Boolean OR operator.
The AND operator narrows the search results by retrieving records that contain both of your search terms or concepts. Usually, different concepts are combined using the Boolean AND operator.
The NOT operator narrows the search results by eliminating a specific search term. You should use the NOT operator with caution. This is because it can eliminate relevant results that happen to mention the term you are “noting” out.

For example, you could search Cognitive Behavioral Therapy OR C.B.T. AND Depression.

Depending on the database (e.g., PubMed) or search engine (e.g., Google Scholar) you use, the operator(s) may be required to be entered in upper case letters. Consult the database’s or search engine’s Help information or Search Tips for details about how to enter the Boolean Operators.

Truncation involves using a symbol to avoid typing out all possible variations of a word. For example, surg* will retrieve surgery, surgeries, surgeon, or surgical. The truncation symbol should be used with caution to ensure relevant words are being retrieved. The most common symbol used is an asterisk (*).

Wildcard symbols can be used to substitute for one or more characters, or any single character. This is useful when dealing with variant spelling (e.g., pediatric and paediatric). One of the most common symbols used is the question mark (?). For example, in the Ovid database, p?ediatric* will retrieve pediatric OR paediatric OR pediatrics OR paediatrics. Databases use different wildcard symbols, so check the database Help information or Search Tips for details about which symbol to use (Dermody et al., 2022).