Computer Tool for a Researcher

7/30/2019 Computer Tool for a Researcher

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COMPUTER TOOL FOR A RESEARCHER

Burairah Hussin

SYNOPSIS

This module will equip researchers with information on computer applications thatenable them to capture related skills for their daily tasks. It consists of basicfundamental knowledge for a researcher such as Information Literacy,Networking, Communication and Disseminating result. This module demonstratesfew software applications for a researcher to be familiar with. It is hope that thiswill help the researcher to do research in an efficient and in timely manner.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this unit, students will be able to:

i. Equip them with fundamental knowledge being a researcher.

ii. Equip them with sufficient ICT applications for their daily task

iii. Link theoretical knowledge with computer tools to assist researchers to do

research.


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Information Literacy

Before we plan for a new research, findings ideas and related literatures are very crucial

activities. Thus a skill for finding good research materials is a must for a researcher.

Generally, research materials can be found in

University Library (Collections or Subscriptions)

Research Centres

Publisher (Proceedings, Journal, Books)

Digital repositories (e-prints, e-books, etc.)

The later is the biggest contributor as the advancement of Web 2.0 enables research

communities to share the works with others.

They are too many information nowadays at internet. It is a challenge for us to select the

relevant information. Hence the skills on how to use the search engine are crucial and

important to researcher. One need to understand how it works will all functions provided

by this search engines. We could find such data in various formats for research materials.

The format include

Web pages

Journal Articles (free access and subscribe)

Academic work ( projects, dissertations, thesis)

e-Books

bibliographic reference

Example 1.0


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The retrieved documents in the search engine results page may be:

Free (web pages, open access peer review journal articles, etc.)

Free if you are in the campus or connected to the campus network (articles

of the peer review journal that are subscribed by your University)

Not free: by payment because the journal is not subscribed by your university

(articles of the peer review subscription-based journal)

References only (not the document: you have to find out the full text

document by other ways)

We could found similar document if we use the electronic databases provided by our

institution.

Example 2

The main challenge to find the relevant information is knows where to start with. Here the

list of sites may help researcher.

Typical searching engines used for finding research materials

Google Scholar (Google) (free)scholar.google.com

Scirus (Elsevier)(free)www.scirus.com

Academic (Microsoft) (free)

http://academic.research.microsoft.com

Network Digital Library for Thesis and Dissertation (free)http://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-search
http://scholar.google.com/http://scholar.google.com/http://www.scirus.com/http://www.scirus.com/http://www.scirus.com/http://www.scirus.com/http://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-searchhttp://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-searchhttp://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-searchhttp://www.scirus.com/http://www.scirus.com/http://scholar.google.com/


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Mendeley (free)http://www.mendeley.com

Scopus (subscribe)

http://www.scopus.com

DOAJ (free)http://www.doaj.org/

Electronic Database(Subscribe by Institution)http://library.utem.edu.my

University of Cornell (free)http://www.arxiv.org

The main idea is how the researcher does a search for finding good research material.In order to do that you need to:

Know what youre looking for

Choose the best searching engine mentioned above

Know how to use the searching engine

Such skills needed when using a searching engine are is

i. Narrowing your search - How to focus when you get too many results

Use Advanced Search

Searching: AbstractTitle Subject

Phrase Searching (with quotes)

Using and

ii. Expanding your search - What to do when your search comes up empty

You might be using too many search limits (e.g. date, title, type of study).

Truncation

e.g. build* = build, building, buildings Using or with parentheses ()

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Google scholar

**Tips

We could download multiple documents from a page, just with one click.

If you use Mozilla browser, download the Plug-in named DownThemAll and install to

your Mozilla browser. It will enable you to select all files and download it to your place

with only one click.
http://www.mendeley.com/http://www.mendeley.com/http://library.utem.edu.my/http://library.utem.edu.my/http://www.mendeley.com/


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Managing research materials

Research materials as mentioned above need to be managed properly. Previously with

conventional way of filing system it is an extra burden for a researcher to do that. This is

because

Our research material contains huge informations.

We need to syntheses all the information as a reference.

We need to cite those research materials while writing the academic

publications

Example 3

How many research materials to be read?

Level Doctor of Philosophy Master Degree

Graduate on Time 42 months (3 years 6 months) 24 months (2 years)

Time to complete literatures 6 months 6 months

Average materials read/week 1 1

Expected materials to read 42x4 =168 96

Expected material to read

within first 6 months/week

168/(6x4) = 7 materials/week 96/(6x4) = 4 materials/week

** This is the minimum expectation from a candidate.

Thus, you need to manage your research materials. Of course we can use the conventional

filling system however, using reference management software saves time, effort and most

importantly it helps during the writing stage.

Common tools for managing your research

Mendeley(free)

www.mendeley.com

Endnote (commercial)

www.endnote.com

Microsoft(commercial)

Microsoft word
http://www.mendeley.com/http://www.mendeley.com/http://www.endnote.com/http://www.endnote.com/http://www.endnote.com/http://www.mendeley.com/


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Product Comparison

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Mendeley

**Tips

Measuring good journals

Before we publish our papers, we need to choose the best journals or proceedings as

possible. Choosing a good journal increases the chance for our paper to be read and

referred as many researchers usually refer to the top journals or proceedings. There aremany indicators of good journal have been developed in recent years. It has been found

that all of these indicators are correlate closely with each other. In other words, journal

rankings based on these indicators tend to be similar, though there may be differences in

the absolute journal rankings. So researchers should feel free to use any one of the

following indicators:

1. Scimago Journal Rank (SJR)

Data source: Scopus

Can be found at: http://www.scimagojr.com (free)

How its calculated: Citations from prestigious journals are given more weight
http://www.scimagojr.com/http://www.scimagojr.com/


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than citations from lower-tier journals (similar to Googles PageRank algorithm).

SJR for 2010 is calculated by counting 2010 citations to papers published in 2007,

2008, and 2009 (three-year period).

Why its useful: SJR indicates which journals are more likely to have articles cited

by prestigious journals, not simply which journals are cited the most.

2. Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Data source: ISI Web of Science

Can be found in: http://thomsonreuters.com Journal Citation Reports (subscription

required)

How its calculated: All citations are given equal weight. The IF is calculated over

a two-year period.

Why its useful: It is the traditional and most widely accepted measure of journalprestige. Most people in the academic world know about and use the JIF.

3. Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)

Data source: Scopus

Can be found at: http://www.journalindicators.com/ (free)

How its calculated: SNIP is computed so that citations are normalized by field.

Thus, it eliminates variations found in JIF wherein the IFs are high in certain

fields and low in others. They calculate several other metrics as well, like citation

potential in the journals subject field.

Why its useful: SNIP is a much more reliable indicator than the JIF for

comparing journals among disciplines. It is also less open to manipulation by

journals.

4. Eigenfactor score (ES) and Article Influence Score (AIS)

Data source: ISI Web of Science

Can be found at: http://www.eigenfactor.org/ (free)

How its calculated: ES is similar to SJR; it also gives greater weight to citations

from prestigious journals. ES is calculated over a 5-year period. Like SNIP, it also

normalizes citations by field. Finally, it tries to mathematically model the time

that a researcher spends with each journal. The AIS is similar to the IF, except the

AIS is calculated using the ES, making it a more robust calculation than the IF.

Why its useful: The evidence indicates that ES and AIS are more robust

indicators of journal prestige and influence than the IF.

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) and SourceNormalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
http://www.journalindicators.com/http://www.eigenfactor.org/http://www.eigenfactor.org/http://www.journalindicators.com/


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Findings Good Conferences

Conference ranking by the Australian CORE (Computing Research and Education)

http://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/conference%20rankings

IEEE Conference Calendar

http://www.computer.org/portal/web/conferences/home

ACM Conference Calendar

http://www.acm.org/conferences

Microsoft Academic Search

http://academic.research.microsoft.com

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Microsoft Academic Search and ACMConference Calendar

**Tips: Careful with the SCAM conferences
http://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/conference%20rankingshttp://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/conference%20rankingshttp://www.computer.org/portal/web/conferences/homehttp://www.computer.org/portal/web/conferences/homehttp://www.acm.org/conferenceshttp://www.acm.org/conferenceshttp://www.acm.org/conferenceshttp://www.computer.org/portal/web/conferences/homehttp://core.edu.au/index.php/categories/conference%20rankings


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Managing your profile

In academic word, let others decided what have you done. How many papers being cited

by other is an indicator that your work is referred. In order to monitor your progress in

academic or to check where you are in academic we could use such applications. It is a

transparent way of checking works by other researchers for project or papercollaborations. The tools are

Google Scholarhttp://scholar.google.com (free)

Publish or perishDownload this software from http://www.harzing.com/pop.htmandDownload

and install Publish or Perishin your computer (free)

Academic Research free

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

Scopus subscribehttp://www.scopus.com

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Google scholar and Microsoft Academic

Search

**Tips:
http://www.harzing.com/pop.htmhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htmhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm


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Academic Writings

Using right computer software is important in academic writings. Researcher may use any

applications such as Latex and Microsoft Word for their writings. Many of us are using

Microsoft Word, however, we are not using the software capabilities in order to help us

producing fast and neat outcome. Each of the function in Microsoft Word helps us a lot.This include

Document Maps

Formatting

Managing References

We need to have good skills while using this software as academic documents can be in

many types such as

Thesis Journal Proceedings

Each of this type had its own format.

Hands-On: For the practical session, we will use Microsoft Word and Mendeley


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Plagiarism check

Plagiarism is a big sin in academic world. It is unethical to copy others work as our work.

May be it is not our intention of doing that or because of bad references and etc. Thus to

minimized the possibility of plagiarism we can use these tools to check any similarity

with existed materials.

DOC Cop

www.doccop.com/(free)

Plagium

http://www.plagium.com/(free)

Turnitin

www.turnitin.com (subscribe)

Viper (download this software and install)

www.scanmyessay.com (free)

Tools for save and locate your files

In order to ensure that our files in secure and able to open anywhere, we may save it using

Internet accessible application such as Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service that lets us

bring our documents anywhere and share them easily. You may download it:

Dropbox (download this software and install)

www.dropbox.com (free)

Next, we also need to do backup or synchronize all our references and documents in order

to keep our files in secure. You may backup it as many as you want using simple

instruction with SyncBack application.

SyncBack (download this software and install)

http://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-

10413802.html(free)

Tools for English grammar checker

We can check our English grammer using:

WhiteSmoke (download this software and install)www.whitesmoke.com (free)
http://www.doccop.com/http://www.doccop.com/http://www.plagium.com/http://www.plagium.com/http://www.scanmyessay.com/http://www.scanmyessay.com/http://www.dropbox.com/http://www.dropbox.com/http://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.htmlhttp://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.htmlhttp://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.htmlhttp://www.whitesmoke.com/http://www.whitesmoke.com/http://www.whitesmoke.com/http://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.htmlhttp://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.htmlhttp://www.dropbox.com/http://www.scanmyessay.com/http://www.plagium.com/http://www.doccop.com/


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Post-publication

After we had published our publication, there is a need to monitor the progress.

Tools for post publication

Google Scholarhttp://scholar.google.com (free)

Publish or perishDownload this software from http://www.harzing.com/pop.htmandDownload

and install Publish or Perishin your computer (free)

Academic Research (free)http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

Scopus (subscribe)http://www.scopus.com
http://www.harzing.com/pop.htmhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htmhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm#downloadhttp://www.harzing.com/pop.htm


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Tools to get connected online

ResearchGate

ResearchID

WARNING

No method is perfect

Dont get hung up on methodological purityPick something and get on with it


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Some knowledge is better than none

Computer Tool for a Researcher

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