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The Student's Internet Research Guide - 2024 Edition

Research skills are the foundation of academic growth. our 2024 edition equips students with the latest tools and techniques..

Lyndon Seitz - Editor-in-Chief

Date Modified: April 18, 2024

In today's digital age, internet research stands as an indispensable skill for students worldwide. As Bill Gates once remarked, "The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow." Recent studies indicate that 96.4% of students rely on the internet for academic research, emphasizing its pivotal role in education.

However, while the vast expanse of the internet offers immense resources, discerning credible information remains a challenge. This guide aims to equip students with strategies to navigate and harness the web's potential, ensuring academic rigor and success.

Understanding Internet Research

Basics of internet research for students.

Internet research refers to the systematic process of seeking, collecting, and evaluating online information to draw meaningful conclusions or aid in decision-making . Its significance is underscored by the rich reservoir of data and perspectives it unlocks for students, granting them access to a universe of knowledge beyond traditional textbooks.

Types of Internet Research

• Academic Research: Primarily focuses on scholarly pursuits, involving the utilization of journals, educational databases, and official publications to procure credible and in-depth information pertaining to various subjects.
• Comparative Research: This involves juxtaposing various sources, opinions, or datasets available online. It aids students in developing analytical acumen, enabling a multifaceted understanding of topics through comparative analysis.
• Data-driven Research: Grounded in statistical exploration, this type leverages online databases, government publications , and credible organizations’ resources to obtain factual, quantitative information essential for objective analytical assignments.

The diligent use of internet research is directly proportional to academic success . A student's capacity to discern quality sources, synthesize varied information, and utilize it effectively in their academic pursuits is a testament to not just their research acumen but also their readiness for higher education and professional life.

Challenges in Online Research

As the digital landscape burgeons with information, the complexities of sourcing, interpreting, and leveraging this information grow in tandem. It's not just about finding data anymore; it's about finding the right data and understanding its context .

Key Challenges in Online Research:

• Information Overload: With billions of pages at our fingertips, filtering pertinent information can be overwhelming. One must skillfully use search operators and specialized databases to hone in on relevant content.
• Evaluation of Credible Sources: Not all information is created equal. According to a report from the Stanford History Education Group, many students struggle to evaluate the reliability and credibility of online sources. It's essential to scrutinize the authority, accuracy, and objectivity of any source.
• Spotting Red Flags: The web is rife with skewed perspectives, intentionally false data, and biased content. Recognizing these pitfalls is a critical skill to prevent being misled.
• Avoiding Plagiarism: Directly lifting content from the web without proper attribution is not only unethical but can have serious academic and professional repercussions . Platforms like Turnitin and Copyscape have become essential tools to ensure originality.

The challenges of internet research are manifold, but with the right strategies and a discerning approach, one can transform these challenges into opportunities for enriched understanding. 

Starting Your Research

Define Objectives Clearly

Embarking on a research journey without a clear map can lead to wandering aimlessly in the vast ocean of information that the internet presents. 

Starting your research rightly not only sharpens your focus but also streamlines the process, ensuring efficiency and accuracy. The fundamental step in this endeavor is to define the research objectives with clarity, acting as a guiding light throughout your journey.

• Purpose: The primary step in any research journey. It's about answering the 'why' of the research. What is the main goal? Whether it's understanding consumer behavior, exploring a historical event, or gauging the impact of a technological advancement, the purpose sets the tone and direction.
• Achievement: This answers the 'what' of the research. What milestones need to be reached? It can be gathering specific data, drawing certain insights, or producing a comprehensive report.
• Target Audience: Knowing the 'who' can shape the 'how' of research. Is the research intended for academics, businesses, policymakers, or general audiences? Tailoring the research to the needs and preferences of the intended audience ensures its relevance and usability.

Efficient research leads to well-informed arguments, fosters critical thinking, and elevates the quality of academic output . Moreover, by serving the genuine interests of its readers, the research becomes a beacon of knowledge, contributing significantly to the academic community and beyond.

Choosing Reliable Sources

In online research, source credibility is crucial to maintain integrity. Choosing reliable sources ensures accuracy and validates your work to critical readers , as scholarly work depends on trustworthy sources.

• Scholarly Articles: Peer-reviewed journals and publications are gold standards in research. They undergo rigorous evaluation by experts in the field , ensuring accuracy and credibility. Sources like Google Scholar or JSTOR can be invaluable.
• Recognized Institutions: Universities, research centers, and professional organizations often publish studies, papers, and reports. Their reputation hinges on the quality of information they disseminate, making them trustworthy sources.
• Government Agencies: Government publications, statistics, and reports are typically well-researched and factual. Websites with domains ending in '.gov' or similar official extensions indicate authentic government-associated resources.
• Expert Blogs and Forums: While they may lack the formal scrutiny of academic journals, expert-authored blogs or niche forums can offer insights, especially on contemporary or emerging topics. However, they always cross-reference their claims with established sources .

Developing a Research Question

The essence of fruitful research often lies in the strength of the question that guides it. A well-phrased research question not only provides clarity but also ensures that your exploratory journey remains productive, purposeful, and focused.

Crafting Questions

Forming open-ended and focused questions is crucial. While open-ended questions such as "What are the impacts of social media on mental health?" provide a broader perspective, focused questions like "How does social media usage among teenagers in the US correlate with anxiety levels?" delve into specifics, ensuring depth in research.

Focused Topics

A research project's success often hinges on the specificity of its subject matter. Instead of attempting to cover the vast expanse of a topic like "The history of art," narrowing it down to "The influence of Renaissance art on modern graphic design" can provide more actionable insights and allow for a thorough exploration.

Guided Search

A well-constructed research question is a researcher's compass. For instance, if one were to investigate the " Economic impact of the 2008 financial crisis on small businesses in New York ," search engines and databases can be used more effectively to filter relevant studies, articles, and data pertaining to that precise topic, making the process efficient.

The art of formulating a research question is a blend of curiosity and precision . In an age where the internet offers an overwhelming abundance of information, the ability to ask the right questions is the key to unlocking valuable insights.

Creating a Research Plan

Crafting a research plan offers a blueprint, illuminating each step of the process and ensuring efficiency and direction. Given the sea of information available online, this blueprint becomes especially pivotal in maximizing productivity and maintaining focus.

Task Breakdown

Deconstructing your research into granular tasks and steps ensures a systematic approach. For instance, researching the impact of AI in healthcare can be broken down into tasks like "Study AI algorithms," "Analyze AI applications in diagnostics," and "Evaluate AI's role in patient management."

Realistic Deadlines

Establishing a timeline fosters accountability and pace. If you're researching for a 10-page paper on "Sustainable Energy Solutions for Urban Areas" due in a month, you might allocate the first week for background reading, the next two for detailed research, and the final week for drafting and refining.

Review Time

No research is complete without thorough revision and validation. Setting aside ample time to revisit gathered information ensures accuracy and comprehensiveness . For a topic like "Blockchain in Financial Transactions," after accumulating data and drafting initial findings, dedicating a few days to validate sources, cross-check facts, and tighten arguments can make all the difference.

Developing Effective Research Strategies

Utilizing Keywords Effectively

Keywords are crucial in digital research because they help filter and find relevant information in a vast digital archive. Using keywords effectively is not just about searching well; it's about getting precise and in-depth results in an age of information overload.

Relevant Keywords

Central to any search process, understanding and selecting appropriate search terms is paramount. For instance, while researching the "Impact of climate change on marine life," terms like "ocean acidification," "coral bleaching," and "sea temperature rise" can hone in on niche topics within the broader subject.

Long-tail vs Short-tail

Short-tail keywords, like "climate change," provide a broader scope, ideal for an initial exploratory phase. In contrast, long-tail keywords, such as "effects of climate change on Antarctic penguins," offer a narrow, in-depth perspective, beneficial for detailed investigations.

Keyword Tools

While search engines are powerful, tools like Google Keyword Planner can elevate the search experience. It provides keyword suggestions, search volume data, and competitive insights. Alternatives such as SEMrush or Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer can offer expanded functionalities, catering to diverse research needs.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators act as a refined toolkit, enabling scholars to navigate vast datasets with surgical precision. Mastering these operators transforms searches from simple queries into strategic endeavors, streamlining access to desired content .

Using AND, OR, NOT

The Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT are the guardians of search relevance. Using "AND" unites terms, narrowing results (e.g., cats AND dogs). "OR" broadens searches by embracing multiple terms (e.g., cats OR dogs), while "NOT" excludes unrelated information (e.g., cats NOT lions).

Nested Searches

Parentheses breathe structure into complex searches. They help manage the chaos, allowing for intricate combinations of terms and operators, thus sharpening the sword of specificity. For example, using parentheses in a search like (cats OR dogs) AND (pets OR animals) refines and organizes the onslaught of information.

Truncation and Wildcards

Symbols like '' or '?' are the allies of adaptability in search queries, allowing for variations of keywords to be included. Truncation (e.g., teach) would embrace 'teacher', 'teaching', or 'teachable', while wildcards (e.g., wom?n) allow for flexibility, capturing terms like 'woman' or 'women'.

Using Advanced Search Features

Advanced search functionalities, often underutilized, are akin to a master key, unlocking doors to refined results. Their adept use can streamline the research process, bringing accuracy and efficiency to the forefront.

• Search Engine Features: Leverage specialized functionalities such as Google’s "verbatim" or "similar" searches to cultivate richer, more precise results. These features, when adeptly utilized, transform generic searches into focused, purpose-driven queries, offering a gateway to more relevant information.
• Filters: Applying filters like "time," "region," or "language," elevates the specificity of search outcomes. For instance, filtering news articles to display results from the past week can significantly refine the timeliness and relevance of the information retrieved, ensuring it aligns more closely with current trends or discussions.
• File Type and Date: Direct your search towards specific document types such as PDFs or PowerPoint presentations, or focus on publication dates to ensure the relevance of sourced materials. For example, seeking academic research papers published in the last two years and filtering for PDF file types can help locate the most recent scholarly discussions available in a ready-to-use format.

Evaluating Online Sources

Criteria for Assessing Source Credibility

The credibility of sources shapes the foundation upon which our knowledge and arguments stand. But how do we differentiate the trustworthy from the deceptive? The following criteria offer a guiding light.

• Author Qualifications: A discerning eye towards the author's credentials is fundamental. For instance, a scientific article authored by a Ph.D. holder with expertise in the relevant field carries more weight , ensuring that the content is steeped in knowledge and experience.
• Source Citations: The robustness of a source is often reflected in its citations. A well-sourced article, referencing reputable and relevant works , stands as a pillar of reliability. For example, a health-related article citing recent medical journals demonstrates a strong foundation.
• Publication Date: Timeliness is key. An article on technology trends from a reputable source but dated five years ago may not contribute valuable, up-to-date insights. It's imperative to seek information that echoes the current state of knowledge or developments .
• Peer Reviews: In academic circles, peer-reviewed articles are golden standards. They undergo rigorous scrutiny, ensuring that the research presented is sound and validated by experts. For instance, in scientific research, journals like "Nature" and "Science" are esteemed for their peer-review process, bolstering the credibility of their publications.

Meticulous evaluation using these criteria doesn't just elevate the quality of research; it ensures integrity, fostering trustworthiness and excellence.

Understanding Source Bias and Perspective

In the age of information, discerning the neutrality of online content is paramount. As every source carries its undertones, identifying bias and recognizing objectivity becomes the linchpin of credible research.

Bias/Objectivity

Content often mirrors the perspective of its creator. For instance, a tech review may lean favorably towards a product if sponsored by its manufacturer, while independent reviewers might provide a more balanced assessment. Hence, researchers should cross-reference multiple sources, ensuring a holistic understanding devoid of undue influence .

Relevance to Your Topic

Ensure the source directly addresses your research query. For example, a study focusing on the impacts of social media on mental health is pertinent when researching mental wellness trends among teenagers in the digital age. This focused approach promotes relevant and valuable insights, bolstering the integrity of your research outcomes.

Accuracy and Reliability

Always validate the trustworthiness of information. For instance, a claim stating " 93% of global youth use social media daily " should be corroborated with reputable datasets or studies, such as those from Pew Research Center. Such a rigorous approach filters out discrepancies, ensuring research is rooted in undeniable facts.

Cross-Verification Techniques

Cross-verification stands as a researcher's sentinel, ensuring online information withstands scrutiny and consistently aligns with multiple trusted sources, thereby cultivating a garden of genuinely insightful and trustworthy knowledge.

Multiple Sources

The key to a well-rounded perspective lies in comparing information from various reliable sources.

• When researching climate change, cross-referencing data from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), NASA, and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) ensures a comprehensive view.
• For political analysis, combining insights from The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, and Al Jazeera offers a balanced outlook.
• In health research, verifying findings from the World Health Organization (WHO), CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and respected medical journals reinforces credibility.
• Exploring tech trends becomes more insightful when data from MIT Technology Review, Wired, Forbes, BroadbandSearch and TechCrunch converge, providing multifaceted perspectives.

Consistent Facts

One of the cornerstones of evaluating online sources is identifying consistent facts across multiple reputable references. For instance, in researching the health benefits of a particular diet, cross-referencing sources like Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School can validate consistent claims about its positive impacts. This verification approach strengthens the credibility of the information and minimizes the influence of bias, fostering more reliable research outcomes .

Cross-referencing

Efficient cross-referencing is a key element in source evaluation, empowering researchers to navigate the digital landscape with precision. Utilizing specialized tools and strategies ensures accuracy and minimizes the influence of bias.

• Google Scholar: An invaluable resource for academics , it allows users to explore academic papers, patents, and legal opinions across multiple disciplines, aiding in thorough source comparison.
• Library Databases: University libraries often offer access to databases like JSTOR, facilitating cross-referencing across peer-reviewed journals.
• Fact-checking Websites: Platforms like Snopes or FactCheck.org verify claims, helping researchers debunk or substantiate information.
• Media Bias/Fact Check: This online resource rates news outlets on their bias and credibility, offering insights into the reliability of news sources.

Identifying Fake News and Misinformation

Spotting characteristics of misleading content misinformation and fake news are rampant online, threatening to erode trust in information sources. Understanding their common characteristics is essential:

• Sensationalism: Content with exaggerated claims or alarmist language, such as "Groundbreaking Cure Found for All Diseases!" often aims to evoke strong emotions , leading to uncritical acceptance.
• Lack of Credible Sources: Misleading information often lacks reputable references, making it challenging to verify claims. For example, an article claiming a new scientific discovery without citing any scientific journals or experts.
• Confirmation Bias: Misinformation often reinforces existing beliefs or prejudices, resonating with preconceived notions. This bias can cloud critical judgment , as individuals are more inclined to accept information that aligns with their beliefs.
• Anonymity or Pseudonymity: Sources that conceal the identity of authors or organizations may raise suspicion. Misinformation can thrive in the shadows, as accountability is often absent.

By recognizing these characteristics, individuals can become more adept at evaluating online sources and safeguarding themselves against the spread of misinformation.

Managing and Organizing Information

Effective Note-taking Strategies

Effective note-taking is a superpower. It's the compass that guides us through the mystery of knowledge, helping us capture insights, facilitate learning, and stay organized.

Digital Tools for Note-taking

Digital note-taking tools have revolutionized the way we capture and organize information . Discover how these versatile tools, like OneNote, Evernote, and Google Keep, empower users to streamline note-taking, enhance productivity, and effortlessly manage digital information, making them essential assets in the digital age.

• OneNote: Microsoft's OneNote is a versatile digital notebook that seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft apps. Users can create notebooks, organize notes into sections, and incorporate multimedia content. For instance, students can create dedicated notebooks for different subjects, enhancing study efficiency.
• Evernote: Evernote is a cross-platform note-taking app that excels in organization. It offers features like notebooks, tags, and a powerful search function. Business professionals can use Evernote to collate meeting notes, research, and ideas, streamlining workflow.
• Google Keep: Google Keep is a user-friendly, cloud-based note-taking app ideal for quick, accessible notes. Its integration with Google Workspace enhances collaboration. For instance, teams can use Google Keep to brainstorm ideas, create to-do lists, and share them seamlessly.

Strategies for Organizing Notes Effectively

Effective note-taking isn't just about jotting down information; it's about organizing it systematically:

• Create Categories: Organize notes by themes or subjects. For instance, a student can categorize biology notes into subtopics like "Cell Structure" or "Genetics."
• Use Tags: Apply descriptive tags to notes. In a work setting, tags like "Meeting Minutes" or "Project Updates" help quick retrieval.
• Color Coding: Assign colors to categories or priorities. For example, in a to-do list, urgent tasks can be highlighted in red.
• Date Stamping: Always date your notes. This practice aids in tracking the timeline of events or progress on projects.
• Table of Contents: Create a summary or table of contents for longer documents, facilitating quick navigation within extensive notes.

Effective Summarizing Techniques

Efficient summarizing techniques are essential for distilling complex information into concise, comprehensible notes:

• Highlight Key Points: Identify and underline the most important details within your notes to create a quick reference.
• Use Bullet Points: Condense information into bullet points, simplifying content while retaining crucial data.
• Paraphrase Succinctly: Rewrite information in your own words, ensuring clarity without losing the essence of the content.
• Mind Mapping: Visualize relationships between ideas with mind maps, aiding in grasping concepts holistically.
• Create Flashcards: Summarize key facts or concepts on flashcards for efficient revision and memorization.

Annotating Sources

Annotating sources enhances note-taking efficiency and comprehension:

• Margin Notes: Jot down key insights and thoughts directly in the margins of physical texts or PDFs, providing context and quick reference.
• Highlighting and Underlining : Use colors to emphasize essential information within texts, aiding later review and understanding.
• Sticky Notes: Digital sticky notes in applications like Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Edge enable you to add comments, questions, or insights to specific pages.
• Linking to Notes: Create hyperlinks between notes and related source materials, facilitating seamless navigation and cross-referencing.
• Commenting and Annotating Apps: Apps like Notability and GoodNotes allow for in-depth annotations, including handwriting, diagrams, and multimedia, transforming notes into comprehensive resources.

Citation Styles

Citation styles are the unsung heroes of research, ensuring that credit is given where it's due and lending credibility to academic and professional work.

APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard

• APA (American Psychological Association): Predominantly used in social sciences and education , APA focuses on clarity, conciseness, and precision in citation. Example: "Smith, J. (2019). The Impact of Social Media on Adolescents."
• MLA (Modern Language Association): Commonly used in humanities, arts, and literature, MLA emphasizes author-page format for in-text citations . Example: "(Smith 22)."
• Chicago (Chicago Manual of Style): Adopted in history, arts, and social sciences, Chicago offers two styles—author-date and notes-bibliography. Example (Notes-Bibliography): Smith, John. "The Chicago Skyline." In Chicago: A Visual Journey, 2019, 45-60.
• Harvard: Widely used in various disciplines, Harvard employs author-date citations, prioritizing accessibility. Example: "(Smith 2019) "The Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture."

Citation Generators

Citation generators are invaluable aids in maintaining the accuracy and consistency of citations. Here are a few reliable tools and their correct usage:

• Citation Machine : A user-friendly tool that generates citations in various styles, from APA and MLA to Chicago and Harvard. Simply enter the source information, and it formats it correctly. This is ideal for students and researchers looking for a hassle-free experience.
• Zotero : A robust tool for collecting, organizing, and citing research materials. It seamlessly integrates with your browser to save sources and generate citations. Perfect for scholars managing extensive references.
• Mendeley : A reference manager and academic social network that assists in generating citations, creating bibliographies, and collaborating with peers. It's favored by researchers who want an all-in-one solution.
• EndNote : A comprehensive citation management software often used in research institutions, EndNote offers advanced features for organizing and citing sources. It's particularly useful for large-scale research projects.

These tools save time and ensure accurate citations, reducing the risk of errors in academic and professional work .

Collaborating with Peers Online

Online collaboration has become an indispensable tool for individuals and teams seeking to work together efficiently, regardless of geographical boundaries.

Leveraging Collaboration Tools

Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams offer real-time document editing and communication features, streamlining collaborative work for teams worldwide. Google Workspace allows seamless collaboration on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, fostering productivity and teamwork. Meanwhile, Microsoft Teams facilitates secure online meetings and file sharing , making it ideal for remote collaboration.

Sharing Resources and Insights Effectively and Securely

With secure cloud storage and file-sharing platforms like Dropbox or SharePoint, you can easily distribute and access resources while maintaining data security. For instance, Dropbox Business provides secure file storage and sharing, ensuring efficient collaboration without compromising data integrity.

Coordinating and Managing Group Research Projects Online

Tools like Trello or Asana enable teams to manage projects efficiently. For example, Trello offers a visual project management approach with boards, lists, and cards, making it simple to assign tasks, track progress, and collaborate effectively on research projects.

These strategies empower you to collaborate seamlessly, sharing resources and knowledge while maintaining security and efficiency in an increasingly digital workspace.

Advanced Research Tools

Utilizing Academic Databases

Knowledge is power, and academic databases stand as digital treasure troves, offering access to a wealth of scholarly resources and research materials.

Access Methods

Navigating databases like PubMed, JSTOR, and Google Scholar involves utilizing specific search queries, filters, and advanced search options to unearth precise scholarly content.

Database Benefits

Academic databases offer curated, peer-reviewed content, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of research materials. In contrast, standard search engines may yield less credible sources , making databases indispensable for academic and professional research.

Subscription vs. Free

Subscription-based databases like ProQuest provide extensive collections of academic resources, while free databases like DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) offer open-access content. Subscription databases often grant access to premium research journals and archives , while free databases promote open knowledge sharing.

Essential Software and Extensions

Specialized software and browser extensions have become indispensable assets for researchers, amplifying productivity and information retrieval.

• Research-friendly Browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge): These browsers offer a multitude of extensions and plugins designed to enhance research, from reference management tools to PDF annotators. For example, the Zotero extension for Firefox allows seamless citation management and reference organization.
• Grammarly: Beyond correcting grammar, Grammarly analyzes context, offering suggestions for writing clarity and correctness. Whether you're composing an academic paper or a professional email, Grammarly ensures your message is precise and polished.
• Turnitin: An essential tool for academia, Turnitin aids in plagiarism detection and prevention . It scans documents for similarities with an extensive database of academic content, ensuring the originality and integrity of research papers.

AI and Machine Learning Tools

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools are revolutionizing research by analyzing vast datasets, predicting trends, and automating tasks, empowering researchers with unparalleled insights and efficiency.

AI-Powered Search

Tools like Semantic Scholar employ AI to provide relevant, context-aware search results, helping researchers discover articles, journals, and studies tailored to their interests. For instance, Iris.ai employs natural language processing to understand research papers and generate connections between them and Citeulike's AI-driven recommendations enhance academic discovery.

Machine Learning for Data Analysis

Machine Learning algorithms enable researchers to identify intricate patterns in vast datasets, aiding in fields like genomics and climate modeling. Example: TensorFlow, used for natural language processing in sentiment analysis.

AI Applications

AI-driven tools like IBM Watson and GPT-4 assist researchers in automating tasks, from literature reviews to data extraction, improving research efficiency and accuracy. Watson Discovery offers AI-driven data insights, while GPT-3 generates human-like text.

Ethical Considerations in Online Research

Respecting copyright laws.

Maintaining ethical standards in online research involves respecting copyright laws, acknowledging the importance of intellectual property , and seeking permission when using others' work to ensure a responsible and lawful online research practice.

Overview of Copyright, Fair Use, and Public Domain

Copyright laws grant creators exclusive rights to their work, but fair use exceptions exist for purposes like education and commentary. Materials in the public domain can be freely used. For instance, a public domain image can be used without restrictions.

Guidelines for Using Images, Videos, and Text from the Internet

When using online content, ensure proper attribution , adhere to usage restrictions , and obtain permissions when necessary . 

• Pixabay: Offers high-quality images and videos for free use.
• Unsplash: Provides a vast collection of professional photos.
• Pexels: Features free stock photos and videos.
• Flickr Commons: Offers historical images and cultural heritage content.

Ethical Use of Data and Privacy Considerations

Respecting data privacy and ethical data use are imperative in online research, safeguarding individuals' rights and ensuring responsible research practices.

Implications of Using Sensitive Data

Researchers must comprehend the legal and ethical consequences of handling sensitive or private data, especially in healthcare or financial studies, to protect participants and avoid data breaches. Comply with laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when handling personal data. For instance, GDPR ensures the lawful and transparent processing of individuals' data.

Respecting Participants’ Privacy and Confidentiality

Informed consent, anonymization, and secure data storage are crucial. Research ethics boards and organizations like the American Psychological Association (APA) provide guidelines. For example, in medical research, patient data should be de-identified to protect confidentiality. 

Following Ethical Guidelines for Data Handling

Platforms like Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and journals have specific ethical standards for research data. In social sciences, researchers must gain consent, store data securely, and follow ethical guidelines during analysis and publication.

Engaging with Online Communities Ethically

Engaging with online communities ethically entails respecting their norms, privacy, and trust. It involves upholding the principles of informed consent and ensuring that the research contributes positively to the community.

Participating Responsibly in Online Forums and Groups

Uphold respectful and responsible conduct when engaging in online communities such as Reddit, Quora, and Stack Exchange. Respect community norms, obtain consent if necessary, and avoid spamming or self-promotion.

Understanding the Implications of Misinformation and Disinformation

Misinformation and disinformation have profound societal impacts . Recognizing their consequences helps researchers address these issues effectively, as highlighted by studies conducted by organizations like the Pew Research Center.

Avoiding and Addressing Cyberbullying and Harassment

Online harassment is a growing concern . Referencing recent statistics from platforms like Twitter or academic research on online harassment trends can shed light on the prevalence and strategies for addressing this issue.

The Takeaway

In the realm of academia, mastering the art of internet research is akin to unlocking a treasure trove of knowledge. Throughout this comprehensive guide, we've navigated through the essential principles of internet research, from formulating precise research questions to employing advanced research tools. We've explored ethical considerations, source evaluation, note-taking strategies, and the ethical use of data, equipping students with a robust skill set to excel in their academic journeys.

As students, your capacity for growth is boundless. Embrace internet research as a lifelong skill, an ever-evolving art that can open doors to new discoveries and insights . In a world brimming with information, your ability to discern, evaluate, and synthesize knowledge will set you apart.

So, here's the call to action: embark on your research endeavors with confidence, apply the techniques learned, and approach each quest for knowledge with curiosity and critical thinking. As you do, you not only enhance your academic prowess but also contribute to the broader culture of continuous learning and intellectual advancement. Your journey as a researcher has just begun; the virtual library of the internet awaits your exploration, so keep learning, keep growing, and keep researching.

Can I rely solely on open-source information for my research?

Open-source information can be valuable, but it's essential to diversify your sources. Depending on your topic, you may need peer-reviewed articles, data from academic databases, or expert insights not readily available in open sources.

What role do social media platforms play in research?

Social media can be a resource for real-time data and discussions, but it should complement, not replace, traditional sources. Use it cautiously, considering issues like bias and privacy, and cite social media posts properly in academic work.

Is it necessary to pay for academic databases when much information is available for free?

Paid academic databases offer access to extensive, peer-reviewed content critical for in-depth research. While free sources are valuable, consider the depth and quality of information required for your study when deciding.

How can I improve my research efficiency without compromising on the quality of information?

Enhance research efficiency by refining your search queries, using advanced search tools, and organizing sources effectively. Prioritize sources based on credibility, relevance, and recency to streamline your research process.

What steps can I take if I cannot find information on my research topic?

If information is scarce, broaden your search terms, explore related fields, or consult with experts. Additionally, consider adjusting your research question or exploring unconventional sources for insights.

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Student’s internet research guide for 2024

Apr 29, 2024 — 5 min read

Read our student internet research guide for ways to search smart, check for credible sources and cite your sources.

The internet is crowded! It’s brimming with all kinds of information and resources. With so many choices online, it can be tricky to narrow down what you’re looking for.

But, with the right tips and tricks, you’ll learn how to responsibly navigate the internet and give credit to your sources when doing research.

Read through our student internet research guide below for ways to search smart, check for credible sources and cite your sources. 

• Where do you start

Search smart

• Is your source credible ?
• Cite carefully

Let’s get started!

Where do you start?

Before you embark on your research, you should:  • Ask lots of questions.  • Brainstorm and think out of the box!  • Make a list of what kinds of sites would work best for your topic.  • Break down your research assignment into small parts to tackle it easier. 

What types of resources will you come across in your research?  • Opinion : Based on personal feelings, thought, belief or anything that can’t be proven. Often contain stories and experiences.   • Fact-Based : Can be proven and observed. Often based on reports and studies. Use fact-based sources to guide your research!

Don’t forget to use your school network! It’s likely that your teacher or a librarian can give you access to paid subscriptions or journals that aren’t available in a regular internet search.

Lastly, be patient and stay focused. Search engines turn up millions of results, so it’s easy to get distracted. 

Tips to stay focused:  • Log off of your email or social networks before you start.  • Mark your place and take 5 to 10 minutes to refresh and stretch if you need a break. 

How to search smart: Start your research with a well-known search engine, like Google or Bing. Always check your spelling and be clear when typing in the search bar. 

Narrow down your search by using unique and specific words. Specific searches can make a huge difference in finding what you need! 

Example: If you’re researching the history of mobile cell phones, typing in “cell phone” is too broad. This will bring up cell phone companies or products to buy. Narrow it down by typing in “When did cell phones become popular?” Try putting quotation marks around “your search” to limit the results. 

Although the search engine may list your results in a certain way, this doesn’t mean the ones at the top are the most relevant for your topic. Sort through your results!

Is your source credible? 

You are in the middle of research and come across a new source you’ve never seen before! How do you know if it’s credible?

Follow this checklist: 

Type of website

A college or university website that ends in .edu or a government website that ends in .gov are typically safe choices. Government websites are good for statistics and reports! 

Sites that end in .org are run by a nonprofit organization. These can be good resources but may have a strong bias or opinion. Check with your teacher if it’s a good site for your project.

A business or commercial site that ends in .com is in most cases created to help sell a product. Blogs, personal sites and social media platforms that end in .com are likely to give you an opinion, not facts. Be wary of these sites when doing online research! 

Established news sites are often safe to use, but always check that it’s an original source. If the article cites another source, go directly to that source for the information. 

Subjective vs. objective 

Remember earlier in the guide when we talked about opinion vs. fact-based sources?

A subjective source is opinion-based. You may come across Wikipedia.org in your search. This is a very popular site, but the info can be edited by anyone, no matter what the topic is! It’s best not to rely on Wikipedia. Treat it like any other site, and double-check the sources that the article cites.

An objective source is fact-driven. It’s unbiased, meaning it is not swayed by a person’s opinion. Examples of objective sources are research studies and government statistics.

Is your source credible? (Cont.)

• Currency ◦ Is there a publish date listed? If an article or study was written 10 or more years ago, it may not be the most reliable. Dig deeper to see if your topic has newer, fresher information. If not, it may be that the topic doesn’t change frequently. • Authority ◦ Is the name of the author on the page? Look for the author’s occupation, years of experience, job position or education. With what organization or institution are they with? Is the author qualified to write on this topic and why? Ask these questions to verify.  • Cited Sources ◦ If you find a list of references for your resource, this is a good sign! People can write anything they want online, so it’s a good idea to check the info against other sources to make sure it’s reliable.  • Functionality  ◦ If the site looks very poorly made, has misspellings or security warnings pop up, it’s best to steer clear! But be careful, just because a site may look good, it doesn’t mean it’s always reliable. 

Cite carefully 

When you research online, it can be easy to copy and paste text, then forget to go back later and cite it. However, this is considered plagiarism! 

Plagiarism is when you take someone else’s words or ideas and pass them off as your own. There are tools your teacher can use to quickly check your work for plagiarism. This can have serious consequences, so it’s best to stay on the safe side and always give credit to your source!

If you don’t think you can express an idea better in your own words, you can directly quote the source. It’s helpful to cite as you go and keep track of what you quote from a source each time. 

There are many different formats to cite your source. Read on to the next slide for common citation styles! 

Citation Styles 

The two most common formats are MLA and APA. If you aren’t sure what format to use for your project, check with your teacher! 

MLA – This format is commonly used by the Humanities.

The core elements of this citation include: Author. Title. Title of the container. Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher’s name, Date of publication, Location

APA – This format is commonly used by Education, Psychology and Sciences. 

The core elements of this citation include: Contributors. (Date). Title. Publication Information.

Be sure to check the MLA and APA websites for additional details. There are also online citation generators that can help you cite your source. Always remember to give credit to other people’s work! 

Peer reviewed journals or websites ending in .edu or .gov are great places to start if you’re looking for reliable sources.

They are not necessarily unreliable, but they should be used with caution. Sites ending in .com are generally considered more reliable than .net sites.

Search engines can be extremely helpful when researching, but make sure you use clear and specific wording. You can narrow down your results by using keywords, Boolean operators and specific indexes while searching.

Written by:

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Elevate Your Assignments: A Comprehensive Guide to Internet Research

Refining Your Search Queries

A. utilizing boolean operators.

Mastering Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) allows you to tailor your search queries with precision. For example, combining terms with "AND" refines your search, while "OR" broadens it. Understanding how to use "NOT" can help exclude specific terms, streamlining your results.

b. Quotation Marks for Exact Phrases

Enclose specific phrases in quotation marks to retrieve exact matches. This technique is particularly useful when searching for academic concepts or quotes, ensuring that the results closely align with your intended focus.

Evaluating Source Credibility

A. assessing domain authority.

Examine the domain of the website to gauge its authority. Educational institutions, government websites, and reputable organizations often provide trustworthy information. Be cautious with user-generated content and personal blogs.

b. Cross-Referencing Multiple Sources

Leveraging advanced search operators, a. site-specific searches.

Use the "site:" operator to restrict your search to a specific domain. This is valuable when exploring academic databases or reliable sources within a chosen field.

b. Filetype Filters

Employing "filetype:" allows you to narrow down results to specific file types, such as PDFs or Excel spreadsheets. This is beneficial for accessing academic papers, reports, or statistical data.

Utilizing Online Libraries and Databases

A. google scholar.

Explore Google Scholar for scholarly articles, conference papers, and academic books. Utilize advanced settings to link Google Scholar to your institution's library, ensuring seamless access to full-text articles. This invaluable resource enhances your ability to gather relevant and credible information for your assignments. While the focus is on developing your independent research skills, it's worth noting that at times, assistance from top paper writing websites can provide additional insights into effective research strategies. Collaborating with these platforms can be a complementary approach to ensure that your assignments not only meet high academic standards but also showcase the depth of your research capabilities.

b. Library Databases

Effective keyword selection, a. brainstorming synonyms and variations.

Enhance your search by brainstorming synonyms and variations of your keywords. This expands the scope of your research, capturing diverse perspectives on your chosen topic.

b. Utilizing Google's Autocomplete Feature

Leverage Google's autocomplete feature to identify popular search queries related to your topic. This not only provides additional keywords but also reveals trending areas of interest.

Critical Reading and Annotation

A. active reading strategies.

Approach online sources with a critical mindset. Practice active reading by highlighting key points, jotting down questions, and annotating relevant sections. This enhances your understanding and facilitates the integration of information into your assignments.

b. Evaluating Bias and Objectivity

Be mindful of potential bias in online content. Assess the objectivity of sources by considering the author's affiliations, funding sources, and the overall tone of the information. A balanced viewpoint strengthens the credibility of your assignment.

Managing and Organizing Information

A. digital note-taking tools.

Utilize digital note-taking tools such as Evernote, OneNote, or Google Keep to organize and categorize information. Tagging, categorization, and easy retrieval streamline the research process.

b. Citation Management Software

Explore citation management software like Zotero or EndNote to effortlessly organize and cite your sources. These tools save time, ensuring accurate and consistent citation formats in your assignments.

Ethical Internet Research Practices

A. proper attribution and citation.

Maintain academic integrity by providing proper attribution to the original authors. Cite your sources meticulously, following the preferred citation style of your academic institution.

b. Avoiding Plagiarism

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34 Using the Internet for Research

What you’ll learn to do: d escribe strategies for successful internet research.

The first step to an effective internet search is being familiar with the terms you are searching for. You search term should be as concise as possible, while still covering the area you would like to find. —Eric Popkoff, professor

By the end of this section, you’ll be able to describe good practices for reading using technology and explain how to research using technology. You’ll also describe techniques for keeping your personal information safe in an online context and explore additional resources for learning online.

Online Reading Strategies

Learning outcomes.

• Describe effective strategies for reading online

In an online educational environment, you’re probably going to do more reading than listening. You may do some of your reading in printed form—say, an assigned novel or textbook—but some of it might also be online in the form of a web page. Reading online isn’t the same as reading in print, so you should practice some strategies that will improve your online reading comprehension and speed. Some of the tactics you learn about here will help you with any kind of reading you might do, not just the stuff that’s online.

Print vs. Online

So what do we mean when we say that reading print is different from reading online?

Evaluate the Source for Credibility

First, when you read something—let’s say, a book—that’s been printed by a reputable publishing house, you can assume that the work is authoritative. The author had to be vetted by a publishing house and multiple editors, right? But when you read something online, it might have been written or posted by anybody. This means that you have to seriously evaluate the authority of the information you’re reading. Pay attention to who was writing what you’re reading—can you identify the author? What are his or her credentials?

Online Reading is Interactive

Second, in the print world, texts may include pictures, graphics, or other visual elements to supplement the author’s writing. But in the digital realm, this supplementary material might also include hyperlinks, audio, and video as well. This material will fundamentally change the reading experience for you because online reading can be interactive in a way that a print book can’t be. An online environment allows you to work and play with content rather than passively absorbing it.

Reading Online Can Lead You to Unexpected Places

Finally, when you read in print, you generally read sequentially, from the first word to the last. Maybe you’ll flip to an index or refer to a footnote, but otherwise the way you read is fairly consistent and straightforward. Online, however, you can be led quickly into an entirely new area of reading by clicking on links or related content. Have you ever been studying for class and fallen down a Wikipedia rabbit hole while looking for unfamiliar terms? You might have started by investigating the French Revolution, but half an hour later you find yourself reading about the experimental jazz scene in 1970s New York. You can’t really do that with a book.

Reading Comprehension: Why, What, How?

Now that you’ve heard about how reading online differs from reading print, you should know that these differences have some really practical consequences for reading comprehension. Improving your online reading comprehension will save you time and frustration when you work on your assignments. You’ll be able to understand your course subject matter better, and your performance on your quizzes and exams will improve.

Consider the why, what, and how of reading comprehension:

• Why  am I being asked to read this passage? In other words, what are the instructions my professor has given me?
• What  am I supposed to get out of this passage? That is, what are the main concerns, questions, and points of the text? What do you need to remember for class?
• How  will I remember what I just read? In most cases, this means taking notes and defining key terms.

When you keep the why, what and how of reading comprehension in the forefront of your mind while reading, your understanding of the material will improve drastically. It will only take a few minutes, but it will not only help you remember what you’ve read, but also structure any notes that you might want to take.

Explore a Web Page

Let’s put this information to use with a short exercise. Imagine that your instructor has asked you to create an argument either for or against the institution of the death penalty in California. She has pointed you to the website www.deathpenalty.org to get started. What terms or headlines stick out at you so you can begin crafting your argument? Consider the following headlines of articles from the website. Which articles seem like they might work best for helping you get started?

• “Federal Judge Says CA Death Penalty Unconstitutional”: Great! This article will have a legal argument from a federal judge—a fantastic place to get talking points for your own argument.
• “The Death Penalty Failure They’re Trying To Hide”: Good instincts—this article may give you a great point of counterattack if your argument is against the death penalty.
• “Infographic: The First Time We Ended the Death Penalty”: Yes! This will give you a historical precedent you can point to in your argument.
• “Polls Show Preference for Death Penalty Alternatives”: Well done—what’s more convincing than numbers, especially when it comes to the will of the American people?
• “Former Florida Warden Haunted By Botched Execution”: Yes—a great rhetorical tactic is to use an anecdote from the life of a person with experience with the issues you’re talking about, and this article sounds like it might be very moving. After all, it was convincing enough to change this man’s mind about the death penalty—maybe it would sway your audience as well.
• “DPF Appoints New Director of Community Outreach and Education”: Hmm, this article doesn’t seem to be the best option for your argument because it’s not directly related to your argument. Let’s skip or skim this one!
• “How to Stop a Heart”: This is another good testimony from someone affected by the death penalty, but it’s in the form of a blog post, so there’s probably better evidence out there. Maybe come back to it if you don’t have everything you need.
• “Michael Millman accepts ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’”: This article doesn’t really pertain to your assignment, so it doesn’t seem like the best possible choice. Keep looking!

Tips for Reading Online

Reading online can be challenging, but here are a few tips to help:

Getting Distracted While Reading Online

When you read online, the hyperlinks, images, audio, and video interactivity embedded in the text can be a really tempting distraction. Try reading a passage straight through at least once without clicking on any of the hyperlinks or participating in any of the interactive opportunities. First, get a basic feel for the passage, then read it with the interactive components to augment your reading.

Reading Assignments on Your Phone

It’s best not to read your assignments from the small screen of a smartphone. It’s too easy to miss words and meanings when the reading process itself is challenging.

Increasing My Reading Speed

Reading quickly and efficiently will leave you more time to study, and improve your performance in your course.

To read more quickly and efficiently online, try most of all to avoid distractions like ads, pop-ups, or hyperlinks that will lead you away from your assignment. Another tactic you can try is to scan the page before actually reading, focusing on keywords and phrases rather than every single word. This is the same technique you just tried out in the death penalty exercise we went through. It will not only help you to read faster, it’ll also give you a sense of the text’s main ideas.

Research Using Technology

• Explain how to research using technology

Research Using the Internet

Using the Internet when researching for a class assignment is an essential skill for any successful student. The research process should not be frustrating or difficult when you follow the steps of the research process and evaluate your sources so you only use credible and reliable information. Before we discuss the process for researching using the Internet, it is important to think about what research is. This short video will provide you with a basic understanding of the research process.

Research Process

The research process includes a range of steps to ensure you are successful in finding the information you need using the Internet. The first step is to define your topic. While this statement seems straightforward, it is important to think about what you are actually researching for an assignment. A professor may give you a general topic as a starting point for your research. If you use the general topic when conducting research on the Internet, you could receive millions of results. Instead, think about what you really want to learn from your research and narrow the focus of your topic to something that is manageable.

If you find that you are having trouble understanding your topic or even narrowing the focus of your topic, find background information. This background information can be from a range of sources. Think about Wikipedia , which is ostensibly an encyclopedia. While for most topics, Wikipedia can provide you with the background you need to better understand your topic, it is always important to evaluate the information you find on the Internet for accuracy.

Once you define your topic and have a better understanding of the issues related to your topic based on your background research, you can develop a research question to guide your research using the Internet. Your research question should provide enough information that anyone can understand the purpose of your research. Once you have a research question, you can use your research question to develop a research strategy. Your research strategy will comprise the main concepts of your research question that can be used as your keywords and search terms.

Now that you have a research strategy, you will need to choose a proper search tool. This tool can be a search engine like Google or maybe a library database that is available to you through your institution. As you think about which search tool to select, it is important to think about what type of information you need. You can use a general search engine like Google to find a range of information, but may need to use a library database to find scholarly journal articles.

Finally, you will perform your search and evaluate your results. As you look at your search results, consider if the information you are finding answers your research question and is from a reliable source.

Search Strategy

Now that you have an understanding of your topic, have defined what you will be researching, and have utilized background information to develop a research question, it is time to develop a search strategy. If your general topic is “social media privacy,” it is helpful to focus your research question. You can focus your search on something like, what action should social networking sites like Instagram and Facebook take to protect users’ personal information and privacy?

From the above research question, you can develop your research strategy by focusing on the main concepts in your research question.

• Personal Information

Using these key concepts from your research question, you can develop your search strategy.

Build a Strong Search Strategy

Learn how to build a strong search strategy through this video below.

Tips and Tricks for Internet Searching

In this search strategy, you see there are a number of different things happening: “social networks” AND user* AND “personal information” AND privacy.

You see that social networks and personal information are in quotes. These quotations are called phrase searching . By placing quotation marks around a phrase, you are telling the search tool to look for those words together. In this case, the search tool will look for the words social network together and the words personal information. This ensures more accurate results when you search.

You will also notice an asterisk after the search term user . This asterisk is called truncation and will tell the database to search for not only user but other terms that start with user like users.

You will notice the word AND capitalized between each search term/phrase. This capitalization is a Boolean operator and it tells the search tool to connect my search terms together and look for a source that includes all the terms. You can broaden your search by using the OR Boolean operator to search for Twitter or Facebook. And the NOT Boolean operator to search for Twitter NOT Facebook.

You can find additional tips for searching the Internet here .

Evaluating Information to Determine Credibility

Once you find information through your search strategy, it is important to evaluate the information you are using to determine if it is credible and reliable. You can do this by using the CRAAP test. CRAAP stands for

• Accuracy, and

You can learn more about the CRAAP test as a tool to evaluate Internet sources here .

SIFT Method

You can also evaluate information, particularly information found on social media, using the SIFT method. View the following video to learn more about SIFT.

Attributing Your Sources in Your Writing

When using information from a source such as a website, journal article, magazine article, newspaper article, or books and eBooks, it is important that you attribute these ideas in your academic writing. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL) is a great source of information on how to cite your sources.

Safety and Personal Information on the Internet

• Describe techniques for keeping your personal information safe in an online context

More than ever before, it’s critical to keep your personal information safe on the Internet. It seems like every day there is another news story about a new database breach or identity theft scam. But in a world where we’re all connected almost constantly, how do you even know where to begin to protect your data and online identity?

As an example, let’s look at Eliana, a freshman at Mountain Brush Community College. Eliana has a Chromebook that she uses both for her schoolwork as well as her personal Internet use. She also has a Google-branded smartphone, and on both of these devices she uses the apps that came with them, like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Maps. Google keeps Eliana’s information very secure. However, she doesn’t have much privacy, at least when it comes to Google—they keep an astounding amount of information about Eliana. She has to decide whether she trusts Google to know so much about her or not.

Unfortunately, both security and privacy often come at the cost of some amount of convenience. It’s up to you to decide where the right balance is for you, but in order to make that decision, you need to understand the tradeoffs.

Interestingly, in today’s world, security is often easier to achieve than privacy. For one thing, we’re all used to some of the steps we have to take to keep our information secure, and it’s actually in the best interests of the big tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook to help us keep our information secure. The same is not true for privacy, as we’ll discuss later.

Passwords and Password Managers

The first step to achieving better online security is the one that we’re all familiar with—maintaining good, separate passwords for all of our online accounts. While it’s much easier to use a few simple, easy-to-type passwords for most of your accounts (and many people still do!), this is a great example of sacrificing security for convenience. The risk is that if someone obtains your email address and password for one account (for example, through a data breach at a company you do business with), they have your login credentials for many of your accounts and can start doing real damage.

Fortunately, password managers are a great tool for maintaining quite a bit of convenience in this scenario while achieving high levels of security. A password manager is an app that runs on all of your devices (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) and stores your passwords for all your online accounts. You only have to remember a single password: the one that unlocks your password manager. This app makes it easy to create super-secure unique passwords for your online accounts because you never have to remember them! Some popular password managers are 1Password , LastPass , and Bitwarden .

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an extra layer of security on top of your existing password. To gain access to a site, you must enter your password and then provide a second piece of information—often a code that is texted to your phone number. This increases the likelihood that you are who you say you are, and helps to prevent unauthorized access to your account. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of convenience—it can be annoying to have to enter two pieces of information every time you log on to a site! A good compromise is to use 2FA on your most important accounts, where the most damage could be done if someone gains access to them—for example, bank accounts, your school account, and your email account.

That last one, your email account, is more important than you might think at first. If someone gains access to your email account, they can immediately change your password to lock you out, and then begin to go through all your online accounts, resetting your passwords to gain access to all those accounts. So protecting your email account should benext to protecting your bank accounts in terms of priority.

Security Updates

As hackers find exploits in software and operating systems that run on our phones and computers, security updates on our devices try to block these exploits. However, it’s up to you to make sure that you keep the software on your phone and computer up to date so that you get the latest security patches. The easiest way to do this is to set your devices to download and install security updates automatically.

Antivirus/Anti-malware

Another effective way to block unauthorized access of your personal data is to run antivirus/anti-malware software on your computer. Bitdefender , Malwarebytes , and McAfee Total Protection are some common software programs you can check out.

Ad Blockers

An ad blocker is an extension you run in your web browser that not only keeps you from being inundated with ads, but can help prevent your computer from becoming infected by malware. Some browsers now block ads without you having to install anything (e.g., Brave). For other browsers, common ad blocker extensions are AdBlock Plus and uBlock Origin .

Finally, you should take steps to protect your data from yourself! We don’t mean, of course, that you are likely to steal your own data. Rather, data loss is a common occurrence that, while not nefarious in nature, can still be very problematic. We tend to rely on cloud backups for more and more of our data these days, but it’s worth giving some thought to what happens to your data if your account is closed, or the company goes away, or even if you just exceed your storage limits and don’t realize it before your data starts being deleted. For pictures and documents that we store in the cloud and on our computers and phones, it’s good to have a backup stored somewhere safe—for example, on an external hard drive.

Remember Eliana from our discussion above? She was the freshman who uses a Chromebook and a Google-branded smartphone, and on both of these devices she uses the apps that came with them, like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Maps. While Google keeps Eliana’s information very secure, we noted that she doesn’t have much privacy, at least when it comes to Google. Google knows her name, email address, home address, birthday, gender, and phone number. They know what she looks like, what she sounds like, who her friends are, how much she talks to them, and what she talks about with them. They know what her interests are, what she searches for online, what she buys online, where she goes, what stores and restaurants she likes to visit, how much time she spends there, and how fast she drives. If Eliana wears a Fitbit to track her steps, Google also knows her weight, height, age, fitness goals, and how many calories she burns in a day.

To look through some of the data Google has stored about you specifically, you can visit https://takeout.google.com . Check all of the boxes that you’re interested in, and then click the button to export your data. It can take hours or days for Google to assemble the download for you, but they will email you when it’s ready, and you can poke through all your personal information that Google has stored. To limit the amount of data that Google collects on you, and to delete saved data, you can visit https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols .

The following image is from Google Takeout, and shows all the different categories of data that Google collects about you:

What if Eliana was in the Apple ecosystem as opposed to Google’s—would she be better off in terms of privacy? The answer depends in part on whether or not she’s using all of the same Google apps—Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, etc.—on her Apple devices that she was on her Google devices. If she is using Google apps, then her situation is very similar. If she has opted to avoid all Google apps, then her level of privacy has improved as Apple is not sharing her data with advertisers. Remember that a key part of Google’s business model is creating a profile of you—all your interests, online purchases, web searches, etc., and using that data to deliver targeted ads to you. Apple’s business model is different. Apple charges you higher prices for their products and services rather than delivering ads to you. Because of this difference in business models, a study in 2021 found that Google collects around twenty times more handset data than Apple [1] .

However, it’s worth noting that Apple is still tracking Eliana in many of the same ways that Google does and storing her information on their servers for their own uses. So in the end, she would still need to decide to what extent she is willing to trust a large tech company with all of her personal information.

What can you do to improve your privacy? After all, almost all of us use computers and smartphones on a daily basis, and some amount of data capturing and tracking is all but unavoidable in order to use the services that we need in everyday life. However, there are some steps you can take to begin to improve your privacy without losing too much in terms of convenience.

Text Messaging

Signal and Telegram are two good privacy-focused messaging services you can use instead of the apps that come with your smartphone, and both of them are free. On an Android phone, you can even set Signal to be your default text messaging app, and it will let you communicate with your non-Signal-using friends in addition to other Signal users (unfortunately, this isn’t possible on Apple devices due to limitations in the iOS).

Web Searching

Google is the undisputed king of web searching. However, privacy-focused alternatives are starting to appear. One of the best is DuckDuckGo . Unlike Google, it doesn’t collect or share any kind of identifiable personal information. DuckDuckGo can be used in a web browser on your computer, and is also available as an app for your smartphone.

Internet Browsing

While Google Chrome has the highest market share of all browsers, other privacy-focused alternatives exist that are arguably just as good. Two popular ones are Brave and Firefox . Brave is actually built on the underlying, open-source code that Chrome is built from, which means that the browser plug-ins you use with Chrome will also work with Brave. Firefox is not built on the same technology, but has a wide range of plug-ins available as well.

Aside from privacy concerns, Gmail is a great email service—it’s easy to use, it works on almost any device, and it’s free. But again, it’s only free because Google’s business model is to sell ads rather than charging their customers. If you’re interested in improving your privacy, there are a number of email providers that you can choose from that offer private email, but the tradeoff is that they cost a few dollars per month. Popular ones include ProtonMail , FastMail , and Tutanota .

Using the Internet for Lifelong Learning

• Explore additional resources for learning using the Internet

Lifelong Learning Using the Internet

A Pew Research Center (2016) survey found that “73% of adults consider themselves lifelong learners.” This study also found that “74% of adults are what we call personal learners—that is, they have participated in at least one of a number of possible activities in the past 12 months to advance their knowledge about something that personally interests them” (Pew Research Center, 2016). This same study found that “63% of those who are working (or 36% of all adults) are what we call professional learners—that is, they have taken a course or gotten additional training in the past 12 months to improve their job skills or expertise connected to career advancement.” [2]

Whether for personal or professional development, it is now essential for everyone to continue learning throughout their life to stay on top of technological changes and innovations in society. While the Internet has been a gamechanger for how information is shared, it also provides those interested in lifelong learning with a number of options to stay on top of any topic.

As a lifelong learner, it is important to set your personal and professional objectives for learning, determine the best platform for learning, and evaluate your lifelong learning to ensure you are meeting your objectives. Like any process, you will likely need to refine your objectives as you advance personally and professionally.

Basic Lifelong Learning on the Internet

As you think about your own lifelong learning and how the Internet can facilitate the process, it is important to consider the range of platforms that are available to you and consider them for the content they provide.

For anyone who has a problem around the home, say a leaky faucet, YouTube is an excellent source of informative videos through this platform provider. The videos are often associated with user-created content from a range of sources, but it is important to know that companies and organizations often host how-to videos on this platform to reach a wide audience. These videos offer a quick and focused opportunity for lifelong learning.

In addition to YouTube videos, there are other platforms that offer skills-based lifelong learning. These platforms include WikiHow , which provides how-to guides on a range of topics.

MOOC Platforms

The range of available platforms for lifelong learning on the Internet continues to grow, but includes options based on your personal and professional interests and needs. Here is a list of massive open online course (MOOC) providers that can meet lifelong learning needs. While the courses offered as MOOCs should be open and freely available, some providers do charge fees for transcripts or certificates to indicate you have completed a course or program. Of course, this list will change but it offers an excellent starting point for anyone interested in learning a new skill or expanding their knowledge.

• Great Courses
• Khan Academy

Lifelong Learning through Synchronous Events

Whether for personal or professional growth, synchronous webinars hosted by professional organizations and other associations offer an excellent option for lifelong learning. In the professional space, webinars are often hosted by professional organizations and associations focused on providing professionals in a field with training to meet the current needs of their members. For example, the American Nurses Association serves as a professional association for registered nurses. This association, like those in other industries, offers professional development opportunities to their members. You can see on the American Nurses Association website that they offer a range of workshops, webinars, and continuing education courses.

While professional organizations and associations offer a range of lifelong learning opportunities, there are also opportunities for lifelong learning for personal growth. Just as the American Nurses Association offers a range of workshops, webinars, and continuing education courses, you can find lifelong learning opportunities from a range of organizations. For example,  the Smithsonian Institution offers a range of online events and has expanded their offerings through their Smithsonian Associates Streaming platform that includes lectures and tours. For those interested in continuing their personal education, it is a matter of finding the right organization or institution.

Regardless of your lifelong learning goals, the Internet will continue to expand access to information, making it easier for anyone to grow personally and professionally.

Boolean operator: terms such as AND, OR, and NOT that can be inserted to categorically focus an online search

interactive: the unique quality of online texts that allows a reader to move in a non-linear fashion to hyperlinked material and mixed-media resources

phrase searching: the online research technique that involves placing quotations around a phrase, which tells a search tool to look for those words together

privacy: the degree of control we have over who sees our online data and identity

security: the degree to which we protect our online data and identity

truncation: the online research technique that places an asterisk after a term to find terms that include and extend from the original term

vetted: a term describing an authoritative text that has been carefully reviewed, edited, and most likely peer-reviewed by qualified scholars

• Leith, Douglas J. "Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google."  Trinity College Dublin, Ireland , 25 March 2021, https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf ↵
• Horrigan, John B. "Lifelong Learning and Technology."  Pew Research Center , 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/03/22/lifelong-learning-and-technology/. ↵

a term describing an authoritative text that has been carefully reviewed, edited, and most likely peer-reviewed by qualified scholars

the unique quality of online texts that allows a reader to move in a non-linear fashion to hyperlinked material and mixed-media resources

the online research technique that involves placing quotations around a phrase, which tells a search tool to look for those words together

the online research technique that places an asterisk after a term to find terms that include and extend from the original term

terms such as AND, OR, and NOT that can be inserted to categorically focus an online search

the degree to which we protect our online data and identity

the degree of control we have over who sees our online data and identity

Using the Internet for Research Copyright © 2023 by April Ring is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Research Using the Internet

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More and more students are turning to the Internet when doing research for their assignments, and more and more instructors are requiring such research when setting topics. However, research on the Net is very different from traditional library research, and the differences can cause problems. The Net is a tremendous resource, but it must be used carefully and critically.

The printed resources you find in the Library have almost always been thoroughly evaluated by experts before they are published. This process of “peer review” is the difference between, for example, an article in Time magazine and one in a journal such as the University of Toronto Quarterly. Furthermore, when books and other materials come into the University library system, they are painstakingly and systematically catalogued and cross-referenced using procedures followed by research libraries the world over. This process is the basis for the way materials are organized in the Library, and it makes possible the various search functions of the Web catalogue.

On the Internet, on the other hand, “anything goes.” Anyone can put anything they want on a Web site, there is no review or screening process, and there are no agreed-upon standard ways of identifying subjects and creating cross-references. This is both the glory and the weakness of the Net – it’s either freedom or chaos, depending on your point of view, and it means that you have to pay close attention when doing research on-line. There are a great many solid academic resources available on the Net, including hundreds of on-line journals and sites set up by universities and scholarly or scientific organizations. The University of Toronto Library’s Electronic Resources page is one such academic source. Using material from those sources is no problem; it’s just like going to the Library, only on-line. It’s all the other stuff on the Net that you have to be cautious about.

Here are a few basic guidelines to remember:

• Don’t rely exclusively on Net resources. Sometimes your assignment will be to do research only on the Net, but usually your instructors will expect you to make use of both Internet and Library resources. Cross-checking information from the Net against information from the Library is a good way to make sure that the Net material is reliable and authoritative.
• Narrow your research topic before logging on. The Internet allows access to so much information that you can easily be overwhelmed. Before you start your search, think about what you’re looking for, and if possible formulate some very specific questions to direct and limit your search.
• Know your subject directories and search engines. There are several high quality peer-reviewed subject directories containing links selected by subject experts. INFOMINE and Academic Info are good examples. These are excellent places to start your academic research on the Internet. Google , Bing , Yahoo and other search engines differ considerably in how they work, how much of the Net they search, and the kind of results you can expect to get from them. Spending some time learning what each search engine will do and how best to use it can help you avoid a lot of frustration and wasted time later. Because each one will find different things for you, it’s a good idea to always use more than one search engine. For specialized search engines and directories you might also like to try Beaucoup which includes 2,500 + search engines and directories or the Search Engine Colossus International Directory of Search Engines that includes search engines from 230+ countries around the world.
• Keep a detailed record of sites you visit and the sites you use. Doing research on the Net inevitably means visiting some sites that are useful and many that are not. Keeping track is necessary so that you can revisit the useful ones later, and also put the required references in your paper. Don’t just rely on your browser’s History function, because it retains the Web addresses or URLs of all the sites you visit, good or bad, and if you’re using a computer at the University the memory in the History file will be erased at the end of your session. It’s better to write down or bookmark the sites you’ve found useful, so that you’ll have a permanent record.
• Double-check all URLs that you put in your paper. It’s easy to make mistakes with complicated Internet addresses, and typos will make your references useless. To be safe, type them into the Location box of your browser and check that they take you to the correct site.

The following points are guidelines for evaluating specific resources you find on the Net. If you ask these questions when looking at a Web site, you can avoid many errors and problems.

• Who is the author?
• Is the author’s name given?
• Are her qualifications specified?
• Is there a link to information about her and her position?
• Is there a way to contact her (an address or a “Mailto” link)?
• Have you heard of her elsewhere (in class, or cited in your course text or in Library material)?
• Has the author written elsewhere on this topic?
• Who is the sponsor of the Web site?
• Is the author affiliated with a reputable institution or organization?
• Does the information reflect the views of the organization, or only of the author? If the sponsoring institution or organization is not clearly identified on the site, check the URL. It may contain the name of a university (U of T Mississauga’s includes utoronto) or the extension .edu, which is used by many educational institutions. Government sites are identified by the extension .gov. URLs containing .org are trickier, and require research: these are sites sponsored by non-profit organizations, some of which are reliable sources and some of which are very biased. Sites with the .com extension should also be used with caution, because they have commercial or corporate sponsors who probably want to sell you something. The extension ~NAME often means a personal Web page with no institutional backing; use such sites only if you have checked on the author’s credibility in print sources.
• What audience is the Web site designed for? You want information at the college or research level. Don’t use sites intended for elementary students or sites that are too technical for your needs.
• Is the Web site current?
• Is the site dated?
• Is the date of the most recent update given? Generally speaking, Internet resources should be up-to-date; after all, getting the most current information is the main reason for using the Net for research in the first place.
• Are all the links up-to-date and working? Broken links may mean the site is out-of-date; they’re certainly a sign that it’s not well-maintained.
• Is the material on the Web site reliable and accurate?
• Is the information factual, not opinion?
• Can you verify the information in print sources?
• Is the source of the information clearly stated, whether original research material or secondary material borrowed from elsewhere?
• How valid is the research that is the source?
• Does the material as presented have substance and depth?
• Where arguments are given, are they based on strong evidence and good logic?
• Is the author’s point of view impartial and objective?
• Is the author’s language free of emotion and bias?
• Is the site free of errors in spelling or grammar and other signs of carelessness in its presentation of the material?
• Are additional electronic and print sources provided to complement or support the material on the Web site?

If you can answer all these questions positively when looking at a particular site, then you can be pretty sure it’s a good one; if it doesn’t measure up one way or another, it’s probably a site to avoid. The key to the whole process is to think critically about what you find on the Net; if you want to use it, you are responsible for ensuring that it is reliable and accurate.

This page is used with permission of the UTM Library.

Elizabeth J. Peterson

Thinking Through Philosophy, Culture, and Psychology

A Guide to Using the Internet for Research

This is the second in a series on using the internet as a learning device. You can read part one here and part three here .

We are looking at the best practices for using the Internet for research. Think of the internet as a library; it houses information on every topic you can imagine. It can point you to the best resources on Earth for information or link you to an authority on whichever topics capture your imagination.

The Internet as a Library

This massive library, a place where “reading materials are systematically arranged,” represents the whole of human knowledge, and sits accessible day and night. It can jump-start your research, narrow down sources, challenge your ideas on your topic and questions, and yield a ton of information very easily. In the words of Noam Chomsky, it’s invaluable as a research tool.

However, because the Internet isn’t regulated, anyone can post anything, regardless of it’s accuracy. There is no committee tasked with making sure the internet is a safe and truthful place; we are truly still in the Wild West days of internet usage. You need to develop an incredibly skeptical approach to claims or ideas you discover, and a process to determine their accuracy, to see through bias – the author’s and your own – to separate fact from opinion.

A few questions to start with:

• Is the owner or author’s name and contact information available?
• What kind of sources do they use, and are their conclusions reasonable based on the information presented?
• What sort of proof or references do their posts offer?
• Do they link to research or original documents, to news releases or other blogs?
• Do they link to other pages or offer proof at all?

Then, a few tips to keep in mind while looking for information online:

Be cautious and find out information about the author and their background or qualifications, as well as look at the information they link to or reference in their work. Verify their claims and sources back to the original source or document. You want to be confident in the reliability of a writer’s work.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking breaking news is better. It takes time for details and facts to be validated and a clear picture to emerge. Often, informing yourself with older, established aspects of the subject will equip you to process the newer and more detailed articles and reading you do later.

It’s worth looking at whether the website is updated and links are not broken, so you’re aware that facts or research found there may be out of date. However, not every website needs to be recently written to be accurate, especially when dealing with older, historical figures and facts. I’ve found hobby websites and posts on explorers and other figures through history which were written years ago to be full of facts and quotes which didn’t make it into the summaries on the person. They were simply written in 2012, instead of this year. However, do rigorously check the claims and facts on these older posts and sites.

Keep in mind the role bias can play in writing and reading research. Bias leads us to only seek out news or facts which bolster our beliefs. When doing research, we want to find information which challenges those beliefs, to test them for accuracy.

Most importantly, search with the end in mind. Consider the purpose of your research, as this will dictate the nature of sources to look for. If you’re doing research to come up with ideas, perhaps reading through blogs and websites will supply creative ideas. If you are writing for an academic audience, scholarly articles and peer-reviewed sources would provide a firm foundation for your paper. If you want to know the latest discoveries in current research on a specific topic, news releases and publications will likely point you in the right direction. Sources become more or less convincing depending on your goals.

As I’ve shared in a couple editions of Five for Friday, Wikipedia has significantly improved its quality and the veracity of its sources since its beginnings in 2001. Once a joke among students, and blacklisted by instructors, the “free encyclopedia” has all but reinvented itself. Now, its summaries often inform the search results in the sidebars of internet browsers, and more likely than not, the top search results lead to Wikipedia.

Where once Wikipedia pages were primarily opinion and often false or misleading, now entries are vetted and continually improved. Behind the webpages, a team of over 130,000 monthly editors work to clean up grammar, flag when a source needs to be cited, and discuss the intricacies of perceived bias and opinion.

This increase in standards has positioned Wikipedia to become a serious rival to other databases, like the Encyclopedia Britannica website. Where the Encyclopedia Britannica articles have historically been written by celebrated academics or leaders in their fields, including Nobel laureates and former presidents, Wikipedia allows anyone to edit and contribute. This has been the source of much hesitancy, and in part, contributed to the ribbing visited upon anyone seriously citing Wikipedia in conversation. If anyone can write what they want, how can anything be trusted?

The website requires rigorous validation and quality sources to be cited. There are discussions about bias, opinion, and diversity of experience. This also allows for more people, more debate, and ultimately more consensus on a topic. Britannica have paid their contributors, attracting talent, but therein limiting the number of participants and entries. Wikipedia, with their millions of registered volunteers, attracts writers and researchers because they care about the topic at hand. Perhaps this passion for knowledge is what has allowed Wikipedia to succeed.

Wikipedia is also the more extensive source to start with when researching living people. Wikipedia has made this their calling card, over the years, with updates happening seemingly instantaneously. The Wikipedia article on Elon Musk, for instance, currently sits at over 11,000 words, while the Britannica listing is just over 900 words, though, to be fair they do link to related articles about his businesses.

I’ve found the single most useful feature of Wikipedia to be the “Further Reading” section at the bottom of most entries. This lists books, videos, articles, and other vetted sources on the topic, often from which the entry has been compiled. After familiarizing myself with a summary of the person or idea, I click on this section. It is a wealth of information, listing out biographies, documents available online, and other quality source material which you can then explore and learn from yourself. For example, in my recent research on Marshall McLuhan, I discovered that his family maintains an extensive website with quotes, notable appearances or references to his work, and a full biography and bibliography. I was able to find several quality books and webpages from the single Further Reading one section on McLuhan’s Wikipedia page .

Other Websites

For any topic you can list, there is a blog about it. Blogs and other personal websites can also be very helpful, particularly when they list or link to their source material. Not all websites link to source material; many simply quote other stories without bothering to verify any further. When you are looking for accurate information, you’ll need to take on this work yourself, finding the actual book, study, or interview to which the article is referring. Don’t be content with the fact that everyone else seems to think it’s legitimate; do the work to know for certain that the information is valid.

Encyclopedia Britainnica is a great resource for historical research in particular. The Encyclopedia website is written by professionals, which adds a bit of weight to their articles. Those former Presidents and globally respected leaders write extensively about their interest and sources, which provides the reader with a long list of references to explore.

Scholarly sources are also a great place to gather information. Depending on your topic and the purpose of your research, you may want to focus primarily on these sources. Google Scholar searches through academic articles. The drawback here is that Google searches the entire document, rather than only the abstracts, which may or may not be available to you to view online. You may also need to pay to access the research returned in a search. Many of these studies are rather pricey, averaging $25 for a copy of a single study. If you are a student, most likely your institution has access to many of these databases already. Otherwise, I would recommend going through your public library, and asking which databases they have access to. In either case, ask your librarian and they’ll know how to help you gain access. Google Scholar allows you to refine with Boolean terms, or within a certain time range. This is great for when you are looking for particularly newer research. Their search results also show how many times a particular study has been referenced, and include links to other articles which cite the original study. This is a great place to discover studies on related topics.

JSTOR is an academic library, which hosts books, journals, and other scholarly material. Their search system is more similar to a database search. You can use quotations to search for exact phrases, which will help return more exact results.

For philosophy, and many psychology theories and figures, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an amazing source of scholarly essays on nearly every topic imaginable. They have biographies, thorough examinations of theories and implications of philosophical ideas, and helpful summaries of every major school of philosophy and philosopher.

Other resources to look at are the websites of the Library of Congress and National Archives. Many philosophers, authors, and historical figures have inspired dedicated websites, or even societies, which can also be rich sources of information.

Online courses and podcasts are also great options for learning and finding interesting ideas; they are just more likely take more time. If you want to take a deep dive into a particular topic or find more sources, you could look into a course. I don’t usually use these sources, though, unless I have weeks to devote to the topic.

A more recent discovery for me is lectures on YouTube. The platform has information on just about any topic you could imagine; there are lectures from JRR Tolkien on his Middle Earth epics; obscure history videos sharing lesser known details about historical events; you can hear lectures given by modern thinkers. There are also videos on art history, famous speeches, and any hobby you can think of. Rather than being a platform where we waste time, YouTube can actually be a great source of learning material and research. Recently, I’ve listened to several lectures and debates from Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher and professor in the 1960s and 70s. His work dealt with the impact of information and media on society and many of his lectures and interviews on YouTube, aren’t available in text or other mediums.

When you look for a video, you’ll want to be specific in your search terms, and look for videos from universities, legitimate organizations, or the estate of author’s (as in the case of Tolkien or McLuhan, for example). You’ll probably also want find a video around twenty minutes; long enough to cover an overview, but not so short you don’t gain any context or information. A great video will also list sources or further study suggestions in the video description for you to continue your research.

Discovering Books

The internet is also unparalleled in discovering books, particularly those which are obscure or older. Books are amazing for research because of the amount of concentrated information they contain. The underrated index and reference sections are gold-mines for finding more books on your topic of interest. Read the index and reference sections of books you enjoyed, or on topics you want to explore more. Go through the bibliography and write down the titles of a couple books to look up and read.

A habit I am working to develop is looking through the reference section of books as I finish them, and choosing at least one title to read next. Every book is written from an amalgamation of the author’s references and experiences, often in the form of dozens of books. While each and every title of inspiration may not be listed, the author will take great care to acknowledge the sources of the material which directly made it into the book. Every piece of writing is the result of cutting out and removing other ideas, references, and information – some of which will interest you. By continuing your reading in related books, you are building a more complete understanding of the topic at hand and how it fits into the larger context of society.

So far as choosing books, I first tend to look at how many times a title is referenced. After getting titles from the bibliography of a book, I’ll usually do an internet search on the topic, then go to Wikipedia to see the references and further reading recommendations.

If the same author’s name keeps popping up, that should indicate to you that their text is widely read and accepted. If Wikipedia lists a title, and that same title has been referenced in a book I’ve read, I usually go to Amazon to look it up. On Amazon, I first look for reported issues concerning the quality of certain editions. I’ll also look to see whether the work has mixed reviews. I’m not looking for high reviews so much as discussion or differing opinions. I tend to gravitate toward ideas with are older and maybe discussed a bit less, in order to widen my perspective on a topic. Reading through the reviews can usually give you an idea of whether their ideas are popular today or not.

There are of course many out of print books and primary sources which exist only in analog form. The internet, particularly Google Scholar, can help to narrow down the topics and ideas presented in these older books.

Round ups of books on specific topics can also be very helpful. Take a general topic, such as “media history” and do an internet search for the best books on media history. From there you can refine, perhaps you want to look closer at yellow journalism and muckraking in the early 20th century. Perhpas you are more interested in the digital revolution’s effects on journalism. Start out general, then use authors names and more specific topics to whittle down the results until you are left with a manageable number of sources.

Get Specific

The internet is the greatest resource mankind’s knowledge has produced. With a simple internet search, you have access to the wisdom of history – from Plato’s cave allegory, detailed and put into striking video – to NASA’s documentation of 1969’s mission to the moon and everything in between. There is no single resource as detailed, and capable of high quality as the internet. However, mixed in with these extraordinary creations and accounts of genius, there are a lot of duds; a lot of mediocre information exists.

No matter how specific your topic is, there are thousands of resources available. The internet is simply too large to function well under general terms. In order to find high quality information, we need to get specific. The internet rewards specific interests.

Putting It Together

While all of these resources are great starting places, they are only that – a place to start. Developing a deep understanding of a subject requires effort and quality material. Note the ideas and titles in your commonplace book, along with your takeaways. When you come across a name or new term, do an internet search and go to the Wikipedia page. Read the summary at the top, and jump to what stands out or lines up with your original reason for the search. Allow your curiosity to lead you to surprising places, and always verify that your sources are reliable. Keep in mind the purpose of your research, whether for deeper personal understanding, an academic presentation, or to familiarize yourself with new ideas. Take your responsibility toward your education seriously, and keep asking questions.

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Conducting Internet Research

Considerations for participant protections when conducting internet research.

If an activity falls under the category of human subjects research, it is regulated by the federal government and Teachers College (TC) Institutional Review Board (IRB). TC IRB has provided a guide to help researchers determine if their activities can be considered human subjects research.

Internet research is a common practice of using Internet information, especially free information on the World Wide Web or Internet-based resources (e.g., discussion forums, social media), in research. This guide will cover considerations pertaining to participant protections when conducting Internet research, including:

• Private versus public spaces for exempt research
• Identifiable data available in public databases
• Minimizing risks when using sensitive Internet data
• Common Internet research approaches

The following information is from an NIH videocast . ( Odwanzy, L. (2014, May 8). Conducting Internet Research: Challenges and Strategies for IRBs [Video]. VideoCast NIH. https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=13932&bhcp=1 )  

Private Versus Public Spaces for Exempt Research

Federal regulations define a category of human subjects research that is exempt from IRB review as:  

“ Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior (including visual or auditory recording) .” 

With regards to online information, if the data is publicly available (such as Census data or labor statistics), it is usually not considered human subjects research. However, if the data includes identifiable information—meaning the data can be linked back to a specific individual—then it may need to undergo IRB review. Additionally, de-identified data pulled from a private source, such as data provided by a company, may also be considered human subjects research.

Public behavior is any behavior that a subject would or could perform in public without special devices or interventions. Public behavior on the Internet, however, is more difficult to pinpoint. Federal regulations indicate that an environment may be private if a reasonable user would consider their interactions in that environment to be private. To help identify public behavior on the Internet, consider:

• Typically, posts on a private or password-protected social media profile or site are not considered public behavior.
• Even if a website is publicly available, the information on the website may be protected by other measures (e.g., community guidelines, terms of use, etc.).
• Sites that require users to pay for access to their content (e.g., purchasing a dataset) are not always considered private, even if the information is behind a paywall.
• Discussions and chats on public forums, news broadcasts, and free podcasts or videos are typically considered public communications. 
• Emails and person-to-person chat messages are often private, rather than public, communications.
• However, institutions may dictate that any activity on their devices (e.g., a company laptop or phone) is subject to review. In these cases, the institutions can limit an individual’s privacy.
• Some websites explicitly state that the interactions on their site are not to be used for research purposes.
• Other sites may not explicitly refuse research activities, but they may require users to be respectful of others’ experiences. Depending on the website, “respect” may have a variety of meanings, including respect of user privacy.
• Expectations of privacy may not always equate to the reality of privacy. 
• For example, individuals may share personal information on an open forum because there is an expectation within the community that other users will respect their privacy. However, the community guidelines may not explicitly state that their website is private.
• Forums and websites directed towards youth may require extra precautions, as the youth may be on the website with or without their guardian’s permission.
• If a user shares media on a private profile, but then that media becomes publicly available through re-posts, the media should still be considered private. It is likely that a reasonable user would expect shares on private profiles to remain private. 
• A site may only be open to certain types of users based on demographics or life experiences (e.g., cancer survivors, support groups for addiction, etc.). In these cases, a reasonable user may expect greater privacy based on the types of users they expect to interact with.

TC IRB will determine whether an Internet environment is private or public based on the IRB protocol submission.

Identifiable Data in Public Datasets

Identifiable data is information or records about a research participant that allows others to identify that person. Names, social security numbers, and bank account numbers are considered personal identifiers  and are protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). TC IRB has a blog posted on Understanding Identifiable Data that further explains the different types of identifiers. Data that includes personal identifiers does not fall under the Exempt category.  

Other types of participant information may include indirect identifiers , such as birthdate, age, ethnicity, gender, etc. Taken alone, these pieces of information are not enough to identify any single participant. However, researchers have shown that certain combinations of these identifiers may identify participants. For example, Sweeny (2000) demonstrated that 87% of the United States population could be uniquely identified based solely on their ZIP code, gender, and date of birth.

It is important to remember that while data may be publicly available, it may still contain identifiable information. In these cases, the IRB will decide the risk to participants on a case-by-case basis. With Internet information, consider these to be possible identifiers:  

Users may include their partial or full name in a username. When collecting usernames from a site, researchers should consider replacing usernames with pseudonyms.

IP addresses are unique identifiers for devices. Researchers should be wary of pairing IP addresses with other information.

Purchase Habits

With the surge in online shopping, individuals’ unique online purchase habits are shown to be possible identifiers. 

Digital Images, Audio, & Video

Photos, audio recordings, or videos of an individual are typically considered identifiable, unless the images or audio are ascertained in a way that protects the subject’s identity.

Avatars or Profile Pictures

Although avatars and profile pictures may not include real photos of the user, it is possible that they were chosen because of a resemblance to the user.

Keystroke Dynamics or Typing Biometrics

The detailed information of an individual’s timing and rhythm when typing on a keyboard is a unique identifier. "Keystroke rhythm" measures when each key is pressed and released while a user is typing. These rhythm combinations are as unique to an individual as a fingerprint or a signature.

Minimizing Risk When Using Sensitive Internet Data 

In cases where sensitive Internet data must be used for research purposes, researchers should take precautions to ensure the safety and privacy of participants. The nature of online research increases risk to participants in some areas. Researchers should develop a plan to minimize risk in the following areas:

• Reduced Participant Contact : when research is conducted over the Internet, researchers have limited or no direct contact with subjects. This makes it more difficult for researchers to gauge subjects' reactions to the study interventions. 
• Researchers should think through multiple possibilities for interventions, debriefing, and follow-up, if applicable.
• Researcher and TC IRB contact information should be presented on the informed consent before beginning the study. This will ensure that participants know whom to contact if they have questions or concerns.
• Breach of Confidentiality: when storing or collecting data on devices connected to the Internet, there is a heightened risk for identifiable participant data to be leaked. 
• TC IRB has published a Data Security Plan  outlining best practices for securing and transmitting data. Researchers should implement these practices as they apply to their specific study.
• In the case of a breach of confidentiality, researchers must file an adverse event with TC IRB.  

Common Internet Research Approaches

The Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) has provided examples of common Internet research practices. These include elements of research conducted over the Internet. Below are possible examples of Internet research where human subjects may be involved:  

• Existing datasets (secondary data analysis)
• Social media/blog posts
• Chat room interactions  
• Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Social media
• Patterns on social media or websites
• Evolution of privacy issues
• Spread of false information
• Online shopping patterns and personalized digital marketing
• Online interventions such as “nudging"

Increased Internet use for research requires researchers and IRBs to become familiar with Internet research-related topics and concerns. Research submitted to the IRB will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The Institutional Review Board at Teachers College will make the final determination of whether a study requires review. Researchers should email  [email protected] if they have any questions or concerns about their study design and whether it should be IRB reviewed.

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Address: Russell Hall, Room 13

* Phone: 212-678-4105 * Email:   [email protected]

Appointments are available by request . Make sure to have your IRB protocol number (e.g., 19-011) available.  If you are unable to access any of the downloadable resources, please contact  OASID via email [email protected] .

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Effective research assignments: home, communicate your expectations.

• Assess the quality of the sources your students cite as part of their overall grades, and explain clearly in your rubric how that evaluation will be made.
• Spell out your expectations regarding sources. Instead of asking for scholarly sources, for example, you could ask your students to "cite at least two peer-reviewed journal articles and two primary sources".
• Explain terminology and provide background regarding scholarly publishing. What’s peer-review? What are some differences between scholarly books and journal articles? When should one consult popular news sources? What’s a primary source?
• Clearly communicate which style manual is required.
• Include a policy on plagiarism in the assignment and discuss the purposes of proper attribution. Discuss examples: does paraphrasing another author’s ideas require a citation?
• Provide examples of topics that are appropriate in scope for the assignment at hand, and provide feedback to individual students as they begin to develop and refine their topics.

Design and test your assignment An effective research assignment targets specific skills, for example, the ability to trace a scholarly argument through the literature or the ability to organize consulted resources into a bibliography.

• Test the assignment yourself. Can you find the kinds of sources required? Are you required to evaluate the sources you find?
• Ask students for feedback on the assignment. Are they having problems finding relevant materials? Do they understand your expectations?
• If the assignment is particularly demanding, consider dividing a single research project into multiple assignments (outline, draft, final draft), each one focusing on a different aspect of the research process.

Ideas for alternative research assignments

• Assign an annotated bibliography in which students identify primary and secondary sources, popular and scholarly publications, and detect and comment on forms of bias.
• Ask for students to document the search tools they use (library catalog, article databases, Google, etc.) for a research paper and to reflect on the kinds of information they find in each.
• Provide a resource list or a single source from which students’ research should begin. Discuss the utility of known sources for identifying keywords, key concepts, and other citations to inform further searching.
• Assign students to prepare a guide for introducing their classmates to the essential literature on a given topic.
• Have students compile a glossary of important terms specific to a given topic in your discipline.
• Require students to edit an anthology of important scholarship on a specific topic and write an introduction explaining the development of the field over time.

Avoid these common mistakes

• Since many scholarly sources are available online, it can be confusing for students when “Internet” or “Web” sources are forbidden. It’s helpful to describe why certain sources (such as Wikipedia) may not be allowed.
• Make sure the resources required by the assignment are available to your students in the library or in library databases. 
• Last Updated: May 20, 2024 1:05 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/effective-research-assignments

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How to Do Internet Research

Last Updated: May 17, 2024 Approved

Where to Begin

Getting good sources, evaluating for credibility, compiling and saving your sources.

This article was co-authored by Megan Morgan, PhD . Megan Morgan is a Graduate Program Academic Advisor in the School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Georgia in 2015. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 14 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 258,315 times.

The internet has made researching a topic easier than ever before. Instead of making a trip to the library, people with internet access can simply pull up a search engine, type, and click away. But, in addition to making it easier to access information, the web has also made it easier to access misinformation. [1] X Research source [2] X Research source [3] X Research source However, by following some simple rules, you can avoid being fooled or misinformed by a phony, inaccurate, or biased web source.

Quick Guide: Researching a Topic on the Internet

• Select a database or search engine.
• Choose keywords to search for.
• Use advanced search techniques like Boolean operators.
• Look for credible, authoritative sources.
• Find and cite the original source when possible.
• Evaluate sources for credibility.

• You can usually access these databases through your home library’s website. Some academic and universities libraries may require a password if you are accessing them remotely (from somewhere other than in the library itself).
• If you don’t have access to a library, try using Google Scholar for your searches. You can find academic research through this search engine, and Google Scholar will show you where you can find free copies of the articles online.

• Most search engines can be “gamed” by savvy websites in order to ensure their content comes up first. Moreover, each search engine has its own algorithm, and some tailor their results based on your browsing history. So the “top” result on Google will not necessarily be the “top” result on Yahoo, even with the exact same search phrasing. [8] X Research source
• Be aware that simply because you find information online doesn’t make it credible or authoritative. Anyone can make a webpage, and the amount of poor, unverified, and just plain wrong information often outweighs the good stuff online. [9] X Trustworthy Source Pew Research Center Nonpartisan thinktank conducting research and providing information on public opinion, demographic trends, and social trends Go to source To help you sift through the useless stuff, talk to your teacher or librarian, and use library or academic search engines when possible.

• For example, if you are doing research on feminism in China, you might run a search for “feminism AND China.” This will return results that include both of those topic keywords.
• You can use OR to run searches for related keywords. For example, you could search for “feminism OR feminist OR social justice.” This would return results that contain one or more of those terms.
• You can use NOT to exclude keywords from your search. For example, you could search for “feminism AND China NOT Japan.” You would not get any results that included Japan.
• You can use quote marks to search for full phrases. For example, if you want to search for academic performance , you would search for the whole phrase inside quotation marks: “academic performance.” Be aware, though, that using quotation marks will kick out any result that isn’t an exact match. For example, you would not get results about “school performance” or “academic functioning” because they are not worded exactly the way you searched.
• Use specific keyword phrases to locate the most relevant information. For example, if you are looking for information social welfare expenditures in the U.S., you’re more likely to get the results you want by searching for “total yearly amount spent on welfare programs in U.S.” than searching for “welfare,” which would bring up definitions of welfare, types of welfare in other countries, and thousands more results you don’t want. Be aware, though, that you can’t always find information like this -- the more words you enter, the fewer results you’re likely to get.
• Use alternate words or keyword phrases to locate additional research sources. For example, if you are researching “welfare,” consider using “safety net” or “social programs” or “public assistance” in place of “welfare” to find different results. In many cases, your word choice might unintentionally bias your results, since terms like “welfare” are often politically loaded. Using a wider variety of terms ensures that you’ll be exposed to a broader — and therefore potentially less biased — set of sources.

• For example, in your search for “total yearly amount spent on welfare programs in U.S.,” you’ll quickly discover that there are several different public assistance programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Use that information to decide which program(s) you’re interested in, and then perform a new (more specific) search, such as “total yearly SNAP expenditures in U.S.”

• Government sources will often have “.gov” somewhere in the webpage. For example, the United States Department of State’s website is www.state.gov. The official website for Australia’s Department of Defence is www.defence.gov.au.
• Websites that end in .edu belong to colleges and universities. However, you do need to be careful with .edu sites, because often faculty and students can run personal webpages that will have the .edu extension, but the information there may not be vetted by the university. [11] X Research source It’s better to find academic sources through an academic database or search engine, like EBSCOhost or Google Scholar.
• Websites that end in .org belong to non-profit organizations. While some of these are highly credible, some are not. Anyone can purchase a website with a .org extension. Check these sites carefully, and don’t rely on them as your sole source of information if you can avoid them. [12] X Research source
• Major news sources such as The Guardian, CNN, and Al Jazeera tend to be credible, but you also need to make sure you’re reading a factually based article and not an opinion piece. Many news sites also have blogs and editorial sites where people can state their opinions, which aren’t necessarily backed up by facts.

• While it’s impossible to view all of the results for most searches, it’s important to view at least several pages of results in order to ensure you’re not missing important information. Because of search engine optimization, if you’re using a regular search engine like Google or Yahoo, the first several pages might contain the links that were most effectively promoted, not the ones with the best information. [14] X Research source

• For example, if you are writing a report on penguins, you could start with the Wikipedia page on Penguins. Scrolling to the References section would show you several peer-reviewed academic journal articles on penguins, along with references to book chapters by academic publishers. Look at those sources for more authoritative information.

• For example, if you’re doing research on changes in welfare expenditures during the past 20 years, there’s no reason to trust a blog, or any secondary source. Most credible sources will note that they’re using data from federal agencies. Therefore, it’s usually better to search for the original government data sources and cite them directly, rather than citing a page that is itself just reporting (possibly incorrectly) the data.
• Citing the original source will also make your own research more authoritative and credible. For example, it is much more impressive to your teacher if you cite an article from the National Institutes of Health (a US government source) than if you cite an article from WebMD -- even if they have the same information. If you can cite the original scholarly research that produced the information you're discussing, that's even better.

• No matter what information you’re seeking, if you can’t find a single official source, it’s advisable not to trust a piece of information until you find identical information on several independent sites. So, for example, if you can’t find an original source for SNAP expenditures in 1980, enter the data you found into a search engine to ensure that the same number is reported on multiple sites and that those sites are not all citing the same (potentially erroneous) source.

• If you’re using an academic database, check out who published the article or book. Texts from prestigious journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine , and books from academic publishers like the Oxford University Press, carry more weight than sources from less-known publishers.
• If you’ve never heard of a source, the first place to look is the “About Us” (or similar) portion of the website. If that doesn’t provide you with a good idea of who’s producing the web page, try conducting an internet search for the site itself. Often news articles, Wikipedia entries, and the like that reference a source will include information about its affiliation(s), ideology, and funding. When all else fails, consider using a web domain search engine to discover who owns the website. However, if you’ve had to go to that length, chances are good that the site is too obscure to be trusted.

• For example, does this person have education in their field? Neil deGrasse Tyson has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the prestigious Columbia University, so it’s likely that what he says about astrophysics is credible and authoritative (meaning trustworthy and up to date). On the other hand, an amateur star-watcher’s blog will not be authoritative, even if the information is accurate.
• Has the author written anything else on the topic? Many authors, including journalists and academic scholars, have areas of specialty and have spent years studying and writing about these topics. If the author has written many other articles on the same area, this makes them more credible (especially if those articles are peer-reviewed).
• If there is no author, is the source credible? Some sources, particularly government sources, will not list an author. However, if the source you are getting the information from is authoritative -- such as an article on chickenpox from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the absence of an author isn’t cause for concern on its own.

• For example, if you were writing a research paper on treatments for cancer, you wouldn’t want to use only articles from the 1970s, even if they were published in prestigious academic journals.

• Look for the site’s sources. A credible internet site will cite its sources. A really great site may even link out to the original research articles so you can track them down. If you can’t find any references for the information provided, or if the references are out of date or poor quality, it’s a good sign that your site isn’t reliable.
• Watch for bias. Highly emotional language, inflammatory rhetoric, and informal writing are all signs of potential bias in your source. Most academic writing tries to steer clear of these and aim for impartiality and objectivity as much as possible. If your website uses emotional language like “Manipulative big pharma companies are out to keep you broken and unhealthy to line their own pockets!” it’s a good sign that there is bias present.
• Review each website for grammatical errors and broken links. If the website is credible and reliable, grammar and spelling should be accurate, and all links should take you to the appropriate landing page. Websites with numerous grammatical errors and broken links may be copying their information from another source or may not be legitimate.

• Bibliography entries for webpages traditionally consist of the author of the web article or webpage (if available), the title of the article or page, the name of the site, the site’s web address, and the date on which you accessed the article or page.

• The simplest way to save a webpage as you see it today is to print a hard copy or save it as a PDF. [19] X Research source This will allow you to refer back to the page, even if it's moved or deleted.
• Since a hard copy or PDF version will only be available to you, you should periodically check the links in your research if it is published on the web. If you discover a web page has been deleted or moved, you can keyword search for its new location in a search engine or check to see if it was archived by Archive.org's Wayback Machine, which preserves web pages as they previously displayed. [20] X Research source

• Using the bookmarks feature of your web browser is the simplest way to save sources. Rather than saving every source in the parent “Bookmarks” folder, consider creating subfolders for specific topics. For example, if you’re researching welfare, you might want to create a folder for “Welfare” in “Bookmarks” and then maybe even create more folders within “TANF,” “SNAP,” etc.

• Numerous services and apps have made it possible to sync sources to the cloud, capture images of web pages as they appear on the day you accessed them, add keywords to sources, etc.
• Many of these services, such as Zotero, are freeware created by academics and other open-source advocates. Others, such as Pocket, offer some services for free and charge for others. If you need functions beyond your web browser’s standard bookmarking features, consider using one of these sources to make organizing your sources easier.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/401/internet-politics.html
• ↑ http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=97336&page=1
• ↑ http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/corrections_dont_go_viral.php
• ↑ http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/research-using-internet
• ↑ https://eric.ed.gov/
• ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
• ↑ http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/professional
• ↑ http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/internet.htm
• ↑ http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/11/01/how-teens-do-research-in-the-digital-world/
• ↑ http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo
• ↑ http://www.pcworld.com/article/2853698/how-to-save-a-webpage-as-a-pdf-or-mht-file.html
• ↑ https://archive.org/web/

About This Article

To do internet research, look for sources that are credible and reliable by prioritizing information from academics, government sources, and nationally recognized news organizations. The best way to find academic sources is through a reputable academic database like Google Scholar or EBSCOhost. If you’re using a news source such as The Guardian, check that what you’re reading is a factually based article and not an opinion piece. Once you’ve found reputable sources, make sure to back them up either by printing or saving them as PDFs, since web pages can get moved or deleted. For more tips, like how to spot information that is reliable and accurate, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• In accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools , Large Language Models cannot be credited with authorship as they are incapable of conceptualising a research design without human direction and cannot be accountable for the integrity, originality, and validity of the published work. The author(s) must describe the content created or modified as well as appropriately cite the name and version of the AI tool used; any additional works drawn on by the AI tool should also be appropriately cited and referenced. Standard tools that are used to improve spelling and grammar are not included within the parameters of this guidance. The Editor and Publisher reserve the right to determine whether the use of an AI tool is permissible. 
• If your article involves human participants, you must ensure you have considered whether or not you require ethical approval for your research, and include this information as part of your submission. Find out more about informed consent .

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• Copywriting any part of an article using a generative AI tool/LLM would not be permissible, including the generation of the abstract or the literature review, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.  
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Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the  COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website .

We have also developed our  research and publishing ethics guidelines . If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.

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• Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. That means it should not have been published before in its current, or similar, form. Exceptions to this rule are outlined in our  pre-print and conference paper policies .  If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission. Please note, the journal editor may use  Crossref Similarity Check  to check on the originality of submissions received. This service compares submissions against a database of 49 million works from 800 scholarly publishers.
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If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the  APC (article processing charge) . This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a  Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence , which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

Alternatively, if you would like to, or are required to, publish open access but your funding doesn’t cover the cost of the APC, you can choose the green open access, or self-archiving, route. As soon as your article is published, you can make the author accepted manuscript (the version accepted for publication) openly available, free from payment and embargo periods.

You can find out more about our open access routes, our APCs and waivers and read our FAQs on our open research page. 

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We are a signatory of the  Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines , a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

• Cite and fully reference all data, program code, and other methods in your article.
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• Any acknowledgments or author biographies should be uploaded as separate files.
• Carry out a final check to ensure that no author names appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes in figures or captions.

You will find a helpful submission checklist on the website  Think.Check.Submit .

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Thank you to the 2022 Reviewers

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2022 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

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This wide-ranging interdisciplinary journal looks at the social, ethical, economic and political implications of the internet. Recent issues have focused on online and mobile gaming, the sharing economy, and the dark side of social media.

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Internet Research is an international, refereed journal that aims to describe, assess and foster understanding of the role of wide-area, multi-purpose computer networks such as the Internet.

The Internet continues to gather influence and momentum, and it becomes increasingly important to be aware of the potential applications of this powerful resource throughout professional, political, personal and academic life. We therefore strongly encourage research that develops theoretical insights and understanding on topics and issues addressing the potential social, ethical, economic and political implications which arise from mass public access to information resources. 

Coverage includes but is not limited to:

• Societal and ethical issues (e.g., internet addiction, cyberbullying, online fraud, spreading of rumours, invasion of privacy, infringement of intellectual property rights, and social inclusion/exclusion)
• Economic implications (e.g., electronic commerce, mobile commerce, and social commerce)
• Managerial and organisational issues (e.g., Internet use practices, management policies and governance mechanisms)
• Political implications (e.g., civic engagement, collective action, Internet-related policy research)  

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Designing Internet research assignments: building a framework for instructor collaboration

Internet knowledge is increasing steadily among instructors in the academic world. As courses incorporate more instructional technology, traditional undergraduate research assignments are adapting to reflect the changing world of information and information access. New library assignments reflect this shift as well, with term papers and research projects asking students to use Web sites as an information resource, in addition to the standard literature of periodicals and monographs. But the many pitfalls the library profession has learned in its own metamorphosis during the past decade are often repeated in these newer course assignments. The authors in this paper present a framework for librarians to interact with instructors to incorporate Internet resources into traditional term paper and research assignments. They suggest a framework for creating sample assignments librarians can take to campus instructional units, to show the teaching community at large what the library profession has learned from first-hand experience.

Introduction

Internet information resources are fast seeping into the common consciousness of academia, taking their place alongside traditional academic resources in core research assignments. Instructors at all course levels incorporate the Internet through such techniques as posting course syllabi and readings on the Web, using interactive course design packages such as WebCT and FirstClass, and using communication tools like chat software and Web bulletin boards. The eagerness with which many instructors approach integrating Web research tools and technology into their courses provides a significant opportunity for collaboration with librarians. While many instructors are new to Internet searching and evaluation techniques, the library profession has already devoted significant time in investigating the pitfalls of Internet searching, and the nature of information found on the Web.

Librarians' expertise in the world of information can only go so far, however: "it is the writing faculty who actually provide the incentive (assignments) for students to use the skills of gathering, evaluating, and integrating information into their writing." ( Gauss & King, 1998 ) When students have a definite task at hand, the relevance of library instruction becomes readily apparent. Often, however, librarians only find out about assignments once students have started to arrive at the Reference desk with questions. The goal of this paper is to provide a framework for librarians to interact with instructors, and prepare for three common types of research assignments which necessitate the incorporation of Internet research and evaluation skills.

We will first summarize some of the familiar pitfalls of Internet searching, and show how they relate to our three types of assignments. Next, we will describe some of the key points to communicate to both instructors and students about each type of assignment. Finally, we will provide sample assignments, as tools for building collaborative efforts between course instructors and the library. The goal of these assignments is to show students and instructors alike some basic tips for effectively exploring the Internet and evaluating Web sites.

The Big Picture

The use of Internet sites as sources for research is just a small part of the greater information literacy model. Often, we find that students and even faculty are facing this whole new ideology of information without the appropriate tools to discern facts from fictions. Without publishers and editors as filters, Web information can be served up quickly and often with an apparently validating beauty, with tabloids appearing on equal ground with encyclopedias. "Don't believe everything you read" has never rung truer. Though we will not attempt to tackle solutions for the wide-spread need for information literacy, it is hoped that this framework for creating guides and assignments for college-level library and term paper assignments will serve as an introduction for students and faculty alike to some of these concepts. The explanations and examples included in this paper can be used as either pieces or modules of a broader library instruction programme, or as stand-alone assignments designed around particular classes or curricula.

Methodology

Library literature includes much on the problems of using the Internet for academic research ( Cornell, 1999 ; Janes, 1999 ) and the fallibility of current search engine technology ( Notess, 2000 ), as well as the importance of building strong librarian/instructor relationships ( Kotter, 1999 ; Stebelman, 1999 ). Based on the issues addressed in the literature, as well as our own experiences with real library Internet-based assignments, our goal is to examine these practical problems, and suggest solutions by way of actual hands-on assignments that librarians and instructors can either use immediately, or easily modify to suit their own particular needs.

Our approach to designing these assignments centered on defining appropriate goals - for both librarians, instructors, and students - for teaching Internet research skills. For librarians, the goals are three-fold: increase patron knowledge of how to retrieve and interpret information from Web sites, build a bridge to the teaching faculty to make them aware of how the library can help raise the level of their classes' critical thinking skills, and encourage participation on their part in developing Information Literacy.

For instructors the goal we had in mind was to devise assignments that covered basic Internet research skills, yet provided flexibility in terms of the classroom assignments they might need to teach these skills. Lastly, for students the assignments needed to be easy to understand, and immediately relevant to term papers or other projects that their instructors were regularly assigning.

Common Internet Pitfalls

The basic concerns with using "The Internet" as a research tool are well known, and fall roughly into two categories: defects and inconsistencies in the searching tools, and the complexity of interpreting and evaluating results. Well-constructed assignments will also address the universal concern that "students and teachers need to recognize the current limitations of information found on the Internet." ( Schrock, 1999 ) The first step towards building good Internet related assignments is to recognize relevant pitfalls in searching and evaluation.

Pitfalls of Searching

• Students do not know where to start. The first step to finding a web page is deciding how to search the web itself. Students often do not know the difference between a directory (like Yahoo), a search engine (like Infoseek), or a meta-search engine (like Dogpile).
• Search engines do not search the whole web. Once students have found a search tool they like, they often do not realize that it only covers a small portion of the whole Web, which may be different from other search tools or directories. Many studies have been done on the percentage of the web covered by individual search engines and group search engines, and most show that less than 50% of the web is covered by all of these tools put together. (e.g., Feldman, 1999 )
• Users do not know how (or care how) to use an individual search engine's full searching syntax. This problem is also common to OPAC and article database searching patterns, where students either do not use Boolean operators, or do not understand their proper use. A study of over 18,000 Excite users performing over 50,000 searches showed that Boolean Operators were used in only 8% of search statements, and +/- operators in only 7%. ( Jansen et al. , 1998 )
• Search engines return irrelevant and multitudinous results. Especially for multi-keyword searches, the different ways search tools rank results often means that the most scholarly or assignment-appropriate hits will not be displayed first. Jansen's study also showed that 80% of users only looked at the first two pages of results. ( Jansen et al. , 1998 )
• Spam. Many tricky or innovative (depending on your perspective) Webmasters have discovered ways to spam search engines, loading their pages with keywords in META tags or elsewhere so that their pages are returned for searches totally irrelevant to the actual content of the site.

Pitfalls of Evaluation

• Authority . Many pages do not have an author listed, or if one is listed, there are no credentials or affiliations given to indicate whether the person is an expert, a journalist, or just an ordinary person with a casual interest in the Enlightenment.
• Depth . Internet sites often only provide an overview of a subject, without the expanse of research found in academic journal articles or books.
• Bias . Many sites are often constructed with a specific agenda, and may not attempt to present an objective assessment of their subject.
• Currency . Students often assume that because information is on the computer, it is the most current information available. For research topics where currency is required, it is important to be aware of when a site was mounted, and whether it has been updated since.
• Sources . While some sites list references and have citations just like scholarly books and articles, most provide information without mentioning its origin.
• Stability . Web sites seem to disappear almost as fast as they appear.
• Look and Feel . Grammar and spelling errors, little ease of navigation, broken links, etc. all contribute to the probable lack of dependability of the site.
• Audience . Often, Web pages will be targeted at a specific constituency that might affect the writer's bias, the level of depth with which the topic is pursued, etc. Sites utilized as sources for academic papers should be written at the appropriate level of scholarship required of all other sources for the class and assignments.

Defining the Types of Assignments

By taking stock of Internet-related assignments that we regularly encounter in our library and the ones we have located from other institutions, we have grouped the assignments into three types. The Type I assignment involves basic Web searching skills. The Type II usually handles retrieval of information from pre-selected Internet sites. The Type III assignment is the one that we are all moving towards and hoping for: a complete integration of electronic information (including Web sources) into the standard writing assignment.

These three often reflect the various levels of instructor Internet knowledge, and/or a difference in educational goals. Also, because student levels of technology and information literacy vary between schools, libraries may see more of the introductory Type I and II, than Type III assignments. In the past year, we have seen significant increase in the Net-awareness of our incoming classes, usually reflecting their increased access to technology in the high school setting. Because of this, we expect to see many more of the integrated Type III assignments in the near future.

Type I - Searching for Sites

Type I assignments are usually designed to introduce students to searching on the Internet. They often ask students to use the Web, find a site on a topic, and report back on how they found it. These assignments focus on web-searching skills, and tend toward an attitude of welcoming the Web as a free source of information - perhaps advocating the idea of flea-market shopping: "It's all there, you just have to find it!" These assignments may include introduction to a few search engines and directories - though often there is not much distinction made between the two. With inexperienced classes, it is important to provide specific guidelines or worksheets to illustrate good search strategies, rather than just turning students loose and hoping for the best. We shall discuss how to encourage instructors along these lines in the next section.

Type II - Searching Sites for Information

For Type II assignments , faculty will often prepare a course-related list of Web sites for their students to use to answer questions, or they may instruct them to search a specific one for information - i.e., "Visit the www.irs.gov and find information on the new education tax credits for families."

This second assignment goes a little further in depth. The instructor is aware of some of the difficulties of finding good information on the Internet, and limits the students to certain sites, often resulting in the equivalent of a "library scavenger hunt" with these pages. Though this type of assignment can be good for introducing students to the concepts of site evaluation and what academic Web sites should look like, often it is little more than a lesson in navigating a page and sifting through information for answers, much as one would do with a traditional journal article handed out in class.

Type III - Researching and Incorporating Internet Information

This assignment addresses what Gauss and King call "all three stages of true information literacy: gathering, evaluating, and integrating information." ( Gauss & King, 1998 ) Students are asked to first search for sources for their topic, often as part of a traditional term paper assignment, and then (often) evaluate the sources that they find. In the list of allowed sources, electronic information and Web sites are permitted. This instructor realizes the value of electronic information, perhaps even uses e-journals in their own publications, and so desires to allow and encourage his or her students to do the same. In the best cases, this is a good assignment, and something that we as forward-looking librarians would want to encourage. However, this is perhaps the most difficult one for the students, with the pitfalls of both searching and evaluation to be concerned about.

Developing Communication with Instructors

If an instructor comes to you with one of these assignment types, and some of the before mentioned pitfalls are evident, how best can you guide them to surer footing? Some of the answers regarding collaboration with instructors are the same regardless of whether we are working with an Internet related piece or another traditional library assignment. Here we suggest common types of questions to ask instructors, and possible solutions for improvement of their Internet-related assignments.

Type I Assignment Guides

For the individual giving an assignment like Type I, find out the state of their students knowledge of the technology. Do they have a purpose in encouraging a "free-grazing" type of approach to the Web? If they are just introducing the technology, assist them in preparing a hand-out to point out the basic differences between search engines and directories. You also might give them some statistics regarding the percentage of the Web that is covered by any given search engine (see Search Engine Watch ) You also can attempt to get them to include a short evaluation form in their assignment. (See Examples of Type I assignments .) This will encourage preliminary critical thinking in their students' relationship with these Internet materials.

Ask the instructor if s/he plans to introduce the students to the library's electronic resources that are not open to the general public - i.e., the article databases, or electronic journals. Do not cloud the assignment too much by expecting that the instructor will deal in-depth with either of these areas of evaluation or electronic resources. This is an entry-level assignment and one that many of our college freshmen would have no trouble with. However, the evaluation portion can get them thinking along relevant lines in advance of their need for electronic sources for a paper or project.

Type II Assignment Guides

For the second type of assignment, the instructor has done some independent research to prepare the material for their class. Again, make sure you know what the instructor wants to accomplish. Here you might suggest that he or she adds some questions to their "scavenger hunt" that are more than simple regurgitation of information.

If the sites they are limiting their students to for the assignment are well known government or education sites, suggest some other non-official sites to use for comparative exercises. This assignment is also very useful for comparing free and fee Internet resources, such as article databases to which libraries subscribe. Encourage the instructor to have his or her students locate a piece of information that looks questionable, or identify a discrepancy in information between two sites.

Type III Assignment Guides

The Type III assignment presents the most challenges. Here, we often find the instructor has either limited the students too stringently, or has given no guidance and assumed the ability and knowledge of their students includes all areas of site appropriateness and evaluation.

Take a look at the instructor's guidelines for the paper. Has he or she provided samples of acceptable sources? Are they limiting the students to on-line scholarly journals? Government and education sites? This is a fairly quick way to weed out disreputable sites, but it does not hit all of them, and it limits the students from using other sources that might be very appropriate. Ultimately, it is up to the instructor to decide what they will and will not accept for valid sources in a paper or project. Careful diplomacy may be needed at times to make a point, or to suggest a source that is out of the range of allowed information types.

For example, one assignment we have seen allows the students to use Internet sources for their papers as long as they have also been published in traditional print form. This kind of restriction avoids a basic analysis and evaluation of Internet resources. Although this is usually a safe strategy from the point of view of the dependability of sources, the instructor unknowingly robs students of a wealth of information that is only published on the Web - electronic journal, education, government, or otherwise. Come to them with some examples of helpful sites in their subject area. If you are successful in getting them to allow original Internet sources, then give them a simple evaluation packet to pass on to their students, such as the Term Paper Worksheet included in our sample assignments. Encourage them to edit it as they see fit, emphasizing what they find useful.

For the term paper assignment with no limits regarding Internet resources, it is important to encourage the instructor to at least have a discussion with students about the different types of information that they can access on the Web. Ask the instructor what types of Internet sources they will accept for the paper. Your library might provide a suggested handout or two, or perhaps a Web site that you have prepared with examples of scholarly journals your school pays for, free journals on the Web and educational, government and non-profit organization sites. Also include some personal sites that may be of interest - but point out the possible lack of trustworthiness. If you have the time, personalizing it to the subject area of the class will be the most helpful. Depending on the number of classes that you handle per year, even preparing a separate set of examples for the sciences and humanities will be valuable.

Lastly, make sure that both the instructor and the students understand the difference in citation format for Internet resources. Many still cite electronic copies of traditionally printed journals as if they were citing the paper journal itself. Others do the same with on-line journals. Make it easy for them by giving them the sites for the MLA and APA specifications.

Damage Control

Often librarians do not have the opportunity to catch a "bad" Internet assignment before a student walks in with it in the middle of the semester. This results in another special function of librarians - damage control experts! The best way to meet these challenges is by some careful preparation. Here are some simple steps to aid you in your task.

1. Be prepared.

In the same way that you will be prepared to discuss assignments with instructors before the semester begins, prepare for the surprise assignments. Create a general web search engine overview page for the Type I assignment. Have evaluation handouts printed out for assignment Types II and III. Mount a Web site for the Type III assignment suggesting ways to access scholarly material on the Web.

Additionally, prepare a more in-depth Internet Research Web-based tutorial to which you can refer any students. For example, this University of Illinois site includes basic a basic introduction, and then goes into more advanced material, suggesting search strategies and covering evaluation and citation in detail. As with anything on the subject of the Internet, the page can become dated rather quickly, so frequent updating is essential. You will know best how to meet the needs of your student population - being prepared for the one assignment type that you see the most will save a lot of time down the road

2. Recognize Assignment Types:

As with most assignments encountered at the Reference Desk, a proper line of questioning is the best starting point for analyzing assignments that may involve Internet resources. Perhaps an Internet related assignment will be very obvious - for Type I or II, this will most likely be the case. But paper assignments requiring Web sites can be more difficult to recognize. Often it will not be readily apparent whether the student will be allowed to use Internet resources in their work. Even if they are at the Reference desk to find a traditional source, be sure to ask to see a copy of their assignment. If the assignment utilizes or welcomes the Internet sources, check to see if the student has been given any evaluation or selection direction from their instructor. Once you decide if it is a Type I, II or III (or a mixture) you will know what sorts of handouts and assistance are most appropriate to give the patron.

3. Provide Patron Assistance:

Chances are, the patrons will be at your Reference desk looking for help on another part of the assignment. As you assist them with finding the pertinent resources, particularly with term papers, be prepared to offer assistance for the Internet portion of their research. Make sure to communicate the value of electronic resources that the library subscribes to, emphasizing that only your school affiliates are permitted to use them. Show them your library's Web site evaluation sheet and discuss some of the pitfalls that we have mentioned in this article. Refer them to the helps that are appropriate for their type of assignment. After you have assisted them in finding good quality, reputable sources, encourage them to refer their fellow students to the Reference desk for help with the Internet resources. Even if you are unable to speak to the whole class, the assistance that you give the students that come into the library will go a long way. Remember: satisfied patrons are our best publicity!

4. Make Instructor Contact:

If it is early in the time-line of the assignment, attempt to contact the instructor. See if you can visit the class or suggest resources to them as a group. This response is the same as one you would use for any unwieldy library related assignment that shows up at your door. If it is late in the semester, find out who the instructor is and contact them prior to the following semester with handouts, web helps, and general suggestions for improving the resource gathering experience of their students.

5. Make Staff Contact:

As with any unexpected library assignment, communicate with other staff. Make sure that no one is left to redo the work that you have just done by letting others know what type of assignment you have encountered, and what the needs are for the students that will be coming in to your library. Let other librarians know what "damage control" you have already taken, so that when they meet up with the same assignment, they are prepared to do the same.

The use of Internet resources in the academic environment is only going to grow, as developments like Internet-2 , Next Generation Internet , and higher speed access for both homes and libraries make information dissemination faster and easier (see Johnson, 2000 ; McLoughlin, 1999 ; Preston, 1999 ; Sheehan 1999 ). Anticipation and preparation are the key elements for any collaborative efforts between librarians and course instructors. Hopefully these suggestions will enable you to prepare your own assignments (and addendum to instructors' assignments) with relative ease. With effective and relevant hands-on Internet assignments in hand, a library can have a package to present to departments and instructors to complement their own instruction missions.

• Connell, Tschera Harkness and Tipple, Jennifer E. (1999) "Testing the accuracy of information on the World Wide Web using the AltaVista search engine." Reference and User Services Quarterly, Summer, 38(4), 360-8.
• Feldman, Susan. (1999) "New Study of Web Search Engine Coverage Published." Information Today , September , 16(8), 29.
• Gauss, Nancy Venditti and King, William E. (1998) "Integrating Information Literacy into Freshman Composition: Beginning a Long and Beautiful Relationship." Colorado Libraries, Winter, 24(4), 17-20.
• Janes, Joseph and McClure, Charles R. (1999) "The Web as a reference tool: comparisons with traditional sources." Public Libraries, Jan/Feb, 38(1), 30-3+.
• Jansen, Bernard J., Amanda Spink, Judy Bateman, and Tefko Saracevic. (1998) "Real Life Information Retrieval: a Study of User Queries on the Web." SIGIR Forum , 32(1), 5-17.
• Johnson, Dave. (2000) "Broadband in Your Future: Home Networks Meet High-Speed Pipes." Home Office Computing, March , 18(3), 43.
• Kotter, Wade R. (1999) "Bridging the great divide: improving relations between librarians and classroom faculty." The Journal of Academic Librarianship, July, 25(4), 294-303.
• McLoughlin, Glenn J. (1999) "Next Generation Internet and Related Initiatives." Journal of Academic Librarianship, May, 25(3), 226-229.
• Notess, Greg R. (2000) "The never-ending quest: search engine relevance." Online, May/June, 24(3), 35-40.
• Preston, Cecilia M. (1999) "Internet 2 and the Next Generation Internet: a Realistic Assessment." Searcher, January, 7(1), 66-70.
• Schrock, Kathleen. (1999) "Producing Information Consumers: Critical Evaluation and Critical Thinking." Book Report , January/February, 17(4), 47-48.
• Sheehan, Mark. (1999) "FASTER, FASTER! Broadband Access to the Internet." Online , July/August, 23(4), 18-20+.
• Stebelman, Scott, Jack A. Siggins, and David J. Nutty. (1999) "Improving library relations with the faculty and university administrators: the role of the faculty outreach librarian." College and Research Libraries , March, 60(2), 121-30.

Additional reading

• Babione, Alexandra (2000) Evaluating a Web Site Available at: http://www.siue.edu/WRITE/lib3.htm [Accessed 11 May 2000]
• Courtouis, Martin P. and Berry, Michael W. (1999) "Results-Ranking in Web Search Engines." Online, May/June, 23(3), 39-40+.
• Harris, Robert. (1997) Evaluating Internet Research Sources Available at:http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm [Accessed 11 May 2000]
• Higgins, Carla and Cedar Face, Mary Jane. (1998) "Integrating Information Literacy Skills." Reference Services Review, Fall/Winter, 26(3/4), 17-32.
• Junion-Metz, Gail. (1998) "The Art of Evaluation." School Library Journal, May, 44(5), 57.
• Mosley, Pixey Anne. (1998) "Creating a Library Assignment Workshop for University Faculty" Journal of Academic Librarianship, January , 24(1), 33-41.
• Notess, Greg R. (1996) "Rising Relevance in Search Engines." Online, May/June, 23(3), 84-86.
• Repman, Judi and Carlson, Randal D. (1999) "Surviving the Storm: Using Metasearch Engines Effectively." Computers in Libraries, May, 19(5), 50-55.
• Smalley, Topsey N. (1998) "Partnering with Faculty to Interweave Internet Instruction into college coursework (at Cabrillo College)." Reference Services Review , Summer, 26(2), 19-27.
• Steenbock Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999) Creating Effective Library Assignments Available at: http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/Steenbock/bipage/libassig.htm [Accessed 11 May 2000]
• Wills, Deborah. (1997) "Internet Tutorials for Faculty; Meeting Academic Needs" RQ, Spring, 36, 360-367.
• Young, Rosemary and Harmony, Stephen A. (1999) Working with Faculty to Design Undergraduate Information Literacy Programs. New York: Neal-Schuman.

Appendix - Example Assignments

The operating principle in the following assignments is that introductions to the Internet environment need simple, clear instructions, not an in-depth "library speak" analysis of information skills. With this in mind, the assignments presented below use a "bare bones" approach, providing students with basic instruction for getting started with searching and evaluating Internet resources, without overwhelming them with the accumulated knowledge of the field of librarianship.

Type I Assignment (A)

"Introduction to Internet Searching"

Goal - To learn how to use various search tools to research a topic, and discern the differences in the results they return.

Step 1 - Choose Your Topic

Choose a current events related topic to search for. Possible topics include cloning, gun control, satanic cults, Serbia, alternative medicine, etc. Write your topic here: ______________________________________________________

Step 2 - Searching

Using what you wrote in Step 1 as your search terms, try your search in three different search tools - a directory ( Yahoo ), a search engine ( Google ), and a meta-search engine ( Metacrawler ). Find two sites that look appropriate to you from each tool and write down their URLs (the address written in the "Location" bar near the top of your browser) and a brief description.

Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com

Site 1  _________________________________________

Site 2  _________________________________________

Google - http://www.google.com

Metacrawler- http://www.metacrawler.com

Step 3 - Comparison

Did you find the same site in more than one search tool? (List Here): _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

How many pages of results did you look through for each site? ___________

Which tool was the easiest to use? Why? _______________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________

Which, in your opinion, gave the best results? Why?________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________

Type I Assignment (B)

"Difference in Searching Tools"

Goal: To understand the differences in electronic research tools and the types of material they retrieve.

In order to best undertake your research in the future, it is important to understand what types of electronic resources you have access to and what they can do for you.

There are two basic types of search tools on the Web: the Search Engine and the Web Directory. There are also Electronic Databases that you have access to as a University student (in other words, the general public can get to the first two tools, but not this last one.) Some of these databases will link you to the full text of a journal article while others will only give you information about the author and title of the article.

Using the list of these three types of resources, choose one from each. As you browse the site, try to answer the following questions (hint: try some searches in each tool to get a feel for how they work, then visit their help or general information sections to find out behind the scenes information.): (Instructor: insert three lists of the tools you prefer them to choose from)

1. What is one difference between Search Engines and a Web Directories?

2. Is there a reason why I would choose to use one over the other?

3. When might it be helpful for me to use an Electronic Database as a search tool?

4. How could I get something that I had written into a Search Engine?

5. A Web directory?

6. An Electronic Database?

7. What does this tell me about the reputability of the information in these tools?

8. In your opinion, is it easy to find good information for a research paper using these tools? Which one would you use first?

Extra Credit

Find out from one of the librarians how much it costs the University a year to subscribe to the Electronic database that you used!

Type II Assignment (A)

"The Internet Assignment"

Goal: To understand the basic principles for evaluating Web sites and determining their appropriateness for academic research, and their relation to traditional print resources.

Step 1 - Choose a topic related to the history of France/Gaul in the time of the Roman Empire. Write your topic here: ___________________________________

Step 2 - Research your site using the Internet Public Library and a full-text library database, SearchBank (linked off of the library's home page). Choose one site from the Internet Public Library and one article from SearchBank and answer the following questions about each of them:

• Who is the work's author? Where is the author listed? What credentials are given for the author?
• When was the work written?
• Are there references or citations in the work? Give examples, if possible.
• Is there a bias to the author's writing?
• Which work did you like better? Why?

Type II Assignment (B)

Page comparisons.

Goal: To compare assignment site with other sites on the Web.

Now that you have finished working on the assignment using the pages that your instructor prepared for you ahead of time, use a Search Engine to find more Web sites on your topic.

1. Use a Search Engine or Directory and locate three Web sites that discuss your subject area.

List them here:__________________________________                _______________________________________                _______________________________________

2. What kind of sites did you find? (i.e. .edu, .com, etc.)

3. Do any of the sites address the same issues that your assignment sites did?

4. Do they agree on the information?

5. Make a case to your instructor for including or not including one of your new sites in their assignment next time around. Use the following list of considerations as appropriate.

Web Site Evaluation Suggestions

A. Author - Who wrote the page? Can you tell? Is it easy to see if they are affiliated with a larger institution? Does this make him/her qualified to write on the subject? Is there contact information for the author (e-mail as well as regular mailing address)?

B. Publisher - In the print world, the publisher's name can be an indication of the quality of the information provided. Most people would be more willing to believe information in a book published by a university press than information found in a supermarket tabloid. In the Web world, the web server is the equivalent to a publisher. The web server's domain can help in assessing the reliability of the information. Here are a few of them: .edu an educational or research institution .com a commercial enterprise, including companies, newspapers, commercial Internet Service Providers .gov a governmental body .mil a military body .org a not-for-profit organization

C. Intended Audience - Is it apparent who the page was created for? For students? For scientists? For consumers? How might this affect the level and/or reliability of the information?

D. Background Sources - Does the author cite any other material? Do they give full references for it? Would you have any way of checking to see if the things that they cite are indeed real articles or books?

E. Currency - When was this page put up on the Web? Has it been updated since? Is the information current enough for your needs on this topic?

F. Accuracy - Are there any grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors? If there are, there may be problems with the dependability of the content of the page as well.

Type III Assignment

"term paper worksheet".

Purpose - Use this worksheet to help search for and evaluate Internet sites for your term paper research assignment.

Topic - Write your topic here:

______________________________________________________________

Searching - You can use subject links from your class homepage, as well as the search tools listed on the library's Searching The Internet page. Write down all of the different phrases or search terms you use here.

Evaluation - For each Web page that you decide to use for your term paper, write down the following information about it:

• Title and URL (http:// etc.)
• Author, and author's credentials
• Date material was written
• Brief description of site's content
• A few sentence evaluation of the site's quality. Address the depth of coverage, any bias you can detect, and the audience the site was written for.

Paper hint: For your own sake, due to the rapid turnover of information on the Internet, you may want to print out and keep a copy of the Web information that you cite in your paper. Even good information can disappear due to problems with servers or movement from one server to another.

How to cite this paper:

Ward, David and Reisinger, Sarah (2000)   "Designing Internet research assignments: building a framework for instructor collaboration".  Information Research, 6 (1) Available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/6-1/paper86.html

© the authors, 2000. Updated: 8th September 2000

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Understanding and Using the Library and the Internet for Research

Defining “The Library” and “The Internet:” An Introduction

You might think the answers to the questions “what is a library?” and “what is the Internet?” are pretty obvious. But actually, it is easy to get them confused, and there are a number of research resources that are a bit of both:  library materials available over the Internet or Internet resources available in the library.  

Understanding the differences between the library and the Internet and knowing where your research comes from is crucial in the process of research writing because research that is available from libraries (either in print of electronic form) is generally considered more reliable and credible than research available only over the Internet .  Most of the publications in libraries (particularly in academic libraries) have gone through some sort of review process.  They have been read and examined by editors, other writers, critics, experts in the field, and librarians.  

In contrast, anyone with appropriate access to the Internet can put up a Web page about almost anything without anyone else being involved in the process:  no editors, other writers, critics, experts, or anyone else review the credibility or reliability of the evidence.

However, the line between what counts as library research and what counts as Internet research is becoming blurred.  Plenty of reliable and credible Internet-based research resources are available: online academic and popular journals, Web-based versions of online newspapers, the homepages of experts in a particular field, and so forth.  

Let’s begin with the basics of understanding the differences between libraries and the Internet.  

Libraries are buildings that house and catalog books, magazines, journals, microfilm, maps, government documents, and other resources.  It would be surprising if you attended a community college, college, or university that did not have a library, and it would be equally surprising if your school’s library wasn’t a prominent and important building on campus.  

As you might expect, libraries at community colleges, colleges, and universities tend to specialize in scholarly materials, while public libraries tend to specialize in non-scholarly materials.  You are more likely to find People magazine or the latest best-selling novels in a public library and a journal like College English and scholarly books in a college library.  

Many universities have different libraries based on distinctions like who tends to use them (“graduate” or “undergraduate” libraries) or based on specific subject matter collected within that particular library (education, social work, law, or medicine).  Almost all college and university libraries also have collections of “special items,” which include items like rare books, maps, and government documents.  

While we tend to see the library as a “place,” most people see the Internet as something less physically tangible (though still somehow a “place”).  Basically, the Internet is the international network of computers that makes things like email, the World Wide Web, blogs, and online chat possible.  In the early 1970s, the beginnings of the Internet (then known as “ARPANET”) consisted of about a half-dozen computers located at research universities in the United States.  Today, the Internet is made up of tens of millions of computers in almost every part of the world.  The World Wide Web appeared in the mid-1990s and has dramatically changed the Internet.  The Web and the Web-reading software called “browsers” (Internet Explorer and Netscape, for example) have made it possible for users to view or “surf” a rich mix of Web pages with text, graphics, animations, and video.

Almost all universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States provide students and faculty with access to the Internet so they can use email and the World Wide Web, or even so they can publish Web pages.  Millions of people both in and out of school have access to the Internet through “Internet Service Providers,” which are companies both large and small that provide customers access to the ‘net for a monthly fee.

An enormous variety of information, text, and media are available to almost anyone via the Internet:  discussion groups, books available for download or for online reading, journal and magazine articles, music and video clips, virtual “rooms” for live “chats.”  

In the simplest sense, the differences between libraries and the Internet is clear:  buildings, books, magazines, and other physical materials, versus computers everywhere connected via networks, the World Wide Web, and other electronic, digitized, or “virtual” materials.  

However, in practice, these differences are not always so clear.

First, almost all university, college, and community college libraries provide patrons access to the Internet on their campuses .  Being able to access almost anything that is available on the Internet at computers in your library has the effect of blurring the border between library and non-library resources.  And just because you happened to find your research on a Web page while you were physically in the library obviously doesn’t make your Web-based research as credible as the materials housed within the library.

Second, many libraries use the Internet or the World Wide Web to provide access to electronic databases, some of which even contain “full text” versions of print publications.  This will be covered in more detail in the next section of this chapter, “Finding Research in the Library: An Overview;”  however, generally speaking, the research from these resources (even though it looks  a lot like what you might find on a variety of Internet-based Web pages) is considered as reliable and credible as more traditional print sources.

Third, most libraries allow for patrons to search their collections via the Internet.  With an adequate Internet connection, you don’t have to actually go to the library to use the library.  

The point is that while some obvious differences still exist between research you find in the library versus research you find on the Internet, there are many interesting similarities and points where the library and the Internet are actually one in the same.  

• Libraries Somewhere In-between Internet
• Traditional books
• Traditional academic journals and popular magazines
• Microfilm and microfiche documents
• Government documents
• Rare books and materials
• Electronically reproduced books
• Digitized articles from journals or magazines found in a library database
• Database search tools
•  Email between friends
• Personal homepages
• Internet Search Engines
• Web versions of printed newspapers
• Web-based academic journals or popular “magazines”
• Web pages for groups or organizations

Researching in the Library

The best source for information about how to find things in your library will come directly from the librarians who can answer your questions. But here is an overview of the way most academic libraries are organized and some guidelines for finding materials in the library.

On most campuses, the main library is a very prominent building, although some schools have several smaller libraries focused on particular subjects housed within other academic buildings.  Almost all libraries have a circulation desk , where patrons can check out items.  Most libraries also have an information or reference desk that is staffed with reference librarians to answer your questions about using reference materials, about the databases available for research, and other questions about finding materials in the library.  Libraries usually have a place where you can make photocopies for a small cost and they frequently have computer labs available to patrons for word processing or connecting to the Internet.

Many libraries still have a centralized area with computer terminals that are connected to the library’s computerized databases, though increasingly, these terminals are located throughout the building instead of in one specific area.  (Very few libraries still actually have card catalogs, and when they do, these catalogs are usually for specialized and small collections of materials.)  You will want to get familiar with your library’s database software because it will  be your key resource in finding just about anything in the building.

Libraries tend to have particular reading rooms or places where they keep current newspapers and periodicals, and where they keep bound periodicals, which are previous editions of journals and magazines bound together by volume or year and kept on the shelf like books.  Many libraries also have specialized areas where they keep government documents, rare books and manuscripts, maps, video tapes, and so forth.

How do you find any of these things in the library?  Here are some guidelines for finding books, journals, magazines, and newspapers.

Books 

You will need to use the library’s computerized catalog to find books the library owns.  Most library database systems allow you to conduct similar types of searches for books.  Typically, you can search by:

Author or editor.  Usually, this is a “last name first” search, as in “Krause, Steven D.”  If you are looking for the name of a writer who contributed a chapter to a collection of essays, try using a “key word” search instead.

Title. Most library databases will allow you to search by typing in the complete title or part of the title.

Key word.   This is different from the other types of searches in that it is a search that will find whatever words or phrases you type in.  

Whatever you type into a key word search is what you’re going to get back.  For example, if you typed in “commercial fishing” into a key word search, you are likely to get results about the commercial fishing industry, but also about “commercials” (perhaps books about advertising) and about “fishing” (perhaps “how to” books on fly fishing, or a reference to the short story collection Trout Fishing in America).  

Most library computer databases will allow you to do more advanced key word searches that will find phrases, parts of words, entries before or after a certain date, and so forth.  You can also increase the quality of your results by doing more keyword searches with synonyms of the word or words you originally have in mind.  For example, if you do a keyword search for “commercial fishing,” you might also want to try searching for “fish farming,” “fisheries,” or “fishing industry.”

Library of Congress Subject.  Chances are, your university, college, or community college library arranges their books according to the same system used by the U.S. Library of Congress.  (The other common system, the Dewey Decimal System, is sometimes the organizational system used at public libraries and high school libraries.)  The Library of Congress system has a long but specific list of subjects that is used to categorize every item.  For example, here are some Library of Congress subjects that might be of interest to someone doing research on the ethical practices of the pharmaceutical industry:       •    Pharmaceutical ethics.     •    Pharmaceutical ethics, United States.     •    Pharmaceutical industry.     •    Pharmaceutical industry, Corrupt practices, United States.   Each one of these categories is actually a Library of Congress subject that is used to categorize books and materials.  In other words, when a new book on pharmaceuticals comes into the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., a librarian categorizes it according to previously determined subject categories and assigns the book a number based on that category.  These “official” categories and the related Library of Congress Call Numbers (more on that in a moment) are the way that libraries that use the Library of Congress system keep track of their books.     Call Number.  Most academic library database systems will allow you to search for a book with a particular call number.  However, this feature is probably only useful to you if you are trying to find out if your library has a specific book you want for your research.   When you are first searching for books on a research idea or topic at your library, you should begin with key word searches instead of author, title, or subject searches.  However, once you find a book that you think will be useful in your research, you will want to note the different authors and subjects the book fits into and search those same categories.   Here’s an example of a book entry from a library computer database with the most important parts of the entry labeled:

The “Subjects” information might be particularly helpful for you to find other books and materials on your topic.  For example, if you did a subject search for “Drugs- - Side effects,” you would find this book plus other related books that might be useful in your research.

In most university libraries, to retrieve this book, you need to find it on one of the book shelves, or, as they are often known, the “stacks.”  This can be an intimidating process, especially if you aren’t used to the large scale of many college and university libraries.  But actually, finding a book on a shelf is no more complicated than finding a street address.  

The Library of Congress Call Number— in this example, RM 302.5 .C64 2001– is essentially the “address” of that book within the library.  To get to it, you will first want to find out where your library keeps the books.  This might be very obvious in many libraries, and not at all obvious in others.  When in doubt, check with a librarian.  

The Library of Congress Call Number system works alphabetically and then numerically, so to find the book in our example, you need to find the shelf (or shelves) where the library keeps books that begin with the call letters “RM.” Again, this will be very obvious in many libraries, and less obvious in others.  At smaller academic libraries, finding the location of the “RM” books might be quite easy.  But at some large academic libraries, you might need to find out what floor or even what building houses books that begin with the call letters “RM.”

If you were looking for the book in our example (or any other with a call number that began with “RM”), you can expect it to be somewhere between where they keep books that begin with the call letters “RL” and “RN.”  Once you find where the “RM”s are, you’ll need to find the next number, 302.5.  Again, this will be on the shelf numerically, somewhere between books with a call number that begins with “RM 302.4” and “RM 302.6.”  By the time you get to this point, you are getting close.  Then you’ll want to locate the “.C64” part, which will be between “.C63” and “.C65, “ then the next “.D7”, and then finally the 2001.

If you go to the shelf and are not able to locate the book, there are three possible explanations:  either the book is actually checked out, you have made a mistake in looking the book up, or the library has made a mistake in cataloging or shelving the book.  It’s very easy to make a mistake and to look for a book in the wrong place, so first double-check yourself.  However, libraries do make mistakes either by mis-shelving an item or by not recording that it has been checked out.  If you are sure you’re right and you think the library has made a mistake, ask a librarian for help.

One last tip:  when you find the book you are looking for, take a moment to scan the other books on the shelf near it.  Under the Library of Congress system, books about similar subjects tend to be shelved near each other. You can often find extremely interesting and useful books by looking around on the shelf like this.

Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers  

Libraries group journals, magazines, and newspapers into a category called “periodicals,” which, as the name implies, are items in a series that are published “periodically.”  Periodicals include academic periodicals that are perhaps published only a few times a year, quarterly and monthly journals, or weekly popular magazines.  Newspapers are also considered periodicals.

Your key resource for finding articles in periodic materials for your research project will be some combination of the many different indexes that are available.  There are hundreds of different indexing tools, so be sure to ask the librarians at your library about what resources are available to you.

Many indexes are quite broad in their scope— The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and the online resources ArticleFirst and WilsonSelect are common examples—while others are quite specific, like T he Modern Language Association Bibliography (which covers fields like English, Composition and Rhetoric, and Culture Studies, not to mention studies in other languages) and ABI/INFORM (which indexes materials that have to do with business and management).  

It is crucial that you examine different indexes as you conduct your research:  different indexes will lead you to different articles that are relevant for your research idea or topic.

While indexes frequently overlap with each other, using different indexes will give you a wider variety of results.  Some library computer systems make this easy to do by allowing you to search multiple indexes at the same time.  However, not all libraries have this capability and not all indexes will allow for these kinds of searches.

Most periodical indexes have gone the way of the card catalog and are now available electronically.  How these electronic databases work varies, but typically patrons can search by keyword or author, and sometimes by subject (though “subject” in these online databases isn’t necessarily as strict as the “subject” used in the Library of Congress system).  A few indexes are still only available in “paper” form and these tend to be kept in library reference areas.

As I’ve mentioned previously, there are too many differences between library databases to provide too many details about how to use them in this chapter.  You may have already noticed this in your own experiences with databases in your library.  

Some of these differences can be rather confusing.  For example, a “subject search” for a book in a database that uses the Library of Congress cataloging system is not at all the same as a “subject search” with a periodical database like WilsonSelect.

This is the search screen of the “FirstSearch” database system.  While this particular example is of the MLA database, all of the databases supported by FirstSearch use a similar search screen.  However, different database systems will have different search screens with different options and commands.

Fortunately, there are two common features with just about any library search software tool that will aid you in your research:

• Author searches , which almost always works the same in different databases; and
• Keyword searches.  Keyword searches usually allow for different Boolean search functions.  In some databases, you need to indicate that you are searching for a phrase.  This is often done with putting quotes around a phrase:  “space shuttle” will find just that phrase; without quotes, it will find all occurrences of the keywords space and shuttle.  Some keyword searches also allow a “not” function.  For example, shuttle NOT space would exclude keyword references to the space shuttle.  Boolean searches also usually allow for “and/or” searches:  “Hillary and/or Bill Clinton” would return information about Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and information that was about both Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Indexes typically provide the key information a reader needs to make some judgment about a periodical article and the information about where to actually find the article:  the title of the publication, the title of the article, the name of the author, the date of publication, and the page numbers where the article appears.  Sometimes, indexes also provide abstracts, which are brief summaries of the article that can also let readers know if it is something they are interested in reading.  

Here is an example of a typical entry from a periodical index resource; specifically, this example is a portion of an entry from the online database Wilson Select Plus:

To find the article, you first have to determine if your library has the particular periodical.  This is a key step because just because an item is listed in an index you have available to you in your library doesn’t mean that your library subscribes to that particular periodical. If you know it is an article that is critical to your research and it is in a periodical your library doesn’t carry, you might want to discuss your options with a librarian.  You still might be able to get access to the article, but you will probably have to wait several days or even weeks to get it, and your library might charge you a fee.

The process of how to find out if your library subscribes to a particular periodical varies from library to library.  At many libraries, you can learn whether or not a particular periodical is available by doing a “title” search of the library’s main electronic catalog.  At other libraries, you have to conduct a search with a different electronic database.

You will also want to figure out whether or not the article you are looking for appears in a more current issue of the periodical.  Most libraries keep the current magazines, journals, and newspapers in a reading room of some sort that is separate from where they keep older issues of periodicals.  What counts as “current” depends on the periodical and your particular library’s practices.  For daily newspapers, libraries might only make a few weeks of the current editions available, while they might consider all of a year’s worth of a journal that is only published three or four times a year as current.

If your library does carry the particular periodical publication where the article appears, your next step is to figure out how  the library carries the item.  Unlike books, libraries store periodical materials in several different ways.  Ask your librarian how you can find out how your library stores particular periodicals, though this information is usually provided to you when you find out if your library carries the periodical in the first place.

Bound periodicals. Most libraries have shelves where they keep bound periodicals, which are groups of individual issues of a periodical that are bound together into book form.  Individual issues of a magazine or journal (usually a year’s worth) are made into one large book with the title of the periodical and the volume or year of editions of the periodical printed in bold letters on the spine of the book.

Microfilm/microfiche. Libraries also store periodicals by converting them to either microfilm or microfiche because it takes much less room to store these materials.  Newspapers are almost always stored in one of these two formats or online.  Microfilms are rolls of film where a black-and-white duplicate of the periodical publication appears, page for page as it appeared in the original.  Microfiche are small sheets of film with black-and-white duplications of the original.  To read these materials, library patrons must use special machinery that projects the images of the periodical pages onto a screen.  Check with a librarian in your library about how to read and make copies of articles that are stored on microfilm or microfiche.

Electronic periodicals. Most college and university libraries also make periodicals available electronically through a particular database.  These articles are often available as just text, which means any illustrations, charts, or photographs that might have accompanied the article as it was originally published won’t be included.  However, some online databases are beginning to provide articles in a format called “Portable Document File” (PDF), which electronically reproduces the article as it originally appeared in the periodical.  

The example of an entry from a periodical database, “International concern for the sustainability of the world's fisheries,” is an example of one where the full text of the article is available online through the library’s database.  This example also demonstrates how the differences between “the library” and “the Internet” can be confusing.  Periodical articles available online, but originally published in a more traditional journal, magazine, or newspaper, are considered “library” and not “Internet” evidence.  

For example, I was able to read the article, which appeared in The Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy , even though my library doesn’t subscribe to the paper version of this journal, because I was able to read it electronically with the WilsonSelect database. But even though I was only able to read an electronic version of this article delivered to me via a library database accessed through the World Wide Web, I still consider this article as a “periodical” or “library” source.  

Photocopy or print out your articles.  Most academic libraries won’t let you check out periodicals.  This means you either have to read and take your notes on the article while in the library, you have to make a photocopy of the article, or, if it is available electronically, you have to print it out.  It might cost you a dollar or two and take a few minutes at a photocopier or a printer, but it will be worth it because you’ll be able to return to the article later on when you’re actually doing your writing.

Write down all the citation information before you leave the library.  When you start using the evidence you find in journals, magazines, and newspapers to support your points in your research writing projects, you will need to give your evidence credit.

The key pieces of information to note about your evidence before you leave the library include:

•  the type of periodical (a journal, a magazine, or a newspaper)
• the title of the publication
• the author or authors of the article
• the title of the article
• the date of the publication
• the page numbers of the article

Recording all of this information does take a little time, but it is much easier to record that information when you first find the evidence than it is to try to figure it out later on.  

Other Library Materials

Chances are, the bulk of your library research will involve books and periodicals. But libraries have many other types of materials that you might find useful for your research projects as well.  Here are some examples and brief explanations of these materials.

Government Documents.  Most college and university libraries in this country collect materials published by the United States federal government.  Given the fact that the U.S. government releases more publications than any other organization in the world, the variety of materials commonly called “government documents” is quite broad.  They include transcripts of congressional hearings and committee meetings; reports from almost every government office, agency and bureau; and pamphlets, newsletters, and periodic publications from various government sponsored institutes and associations.  If your research project is about any issue involving an existing or proposed federal law, a government reform or policy, a foreign policy, or an issue on which the U.S. Congress held hearings about, chances are the federal government has published something about it.

Check with your librarian about the government documents available and how to search them.  Most of the materials published by the U.S. government can be researched using the same databases you use to search for periodicals and books.   Interlibrary Loan.  Most college and university libraries provide their patrons ways to borrow materials from other libraries.  The nature of this service, usually called interlibrary loan, varies considerably.  Many community college, college, and university libraries in the U.S. have formed partnerships with other libraries in their geographic areas to make interlibrary loan of books and even periodicals quite easy and convenient.  On the other hand, many other libraries treat each interlibrary request as a special case, which means it frequently isn’t as easy or as quick.

Theses and dissertations.  If your college or university has graduate programs, your library probably has a collection of the theses or dissertations written by these graduate students.  These documents are usually shelved in a special place in the library,  though at most libraries, you would use the same database you used to find books to find a thesis or a dissertation.

Rare books and other special collections.  Many college and university libraries have collections of unusual and often valuable materials that they hold as part of a special collection.  Most of these special collections consist of materials that can be loosely classified as rare books: books, manuscripts, and other publications that are valuable because of their age, their uniqueness, the fame of the author, and so forth.  Your research project probably won’t require you to use these unusual collections, but rare book and other special collection portions of the library can be fun to visit.

Researching on the Internet

The great advantage of the Internet is it is a fast and convenient way to get information on almost anything. It has revolutionized how all academics conduct research and practice writing.  However, while the Internet is a tremendous research resource, you are still more likely to find detailed, accurate, and more credible information in the library than on the Web .  Books and journals are increasingly becoming available online, but most are still only available in libraries.  This is particularly true of academic publications.  You also have a much better chance of finding credible and accurate information in the library than on the Internet.

It is easy to imagine a time when most academic journals and even academic books will be available only electronically.  But for the time-being, you should view the library and the Internet as tools that work together and that play off of each other in the process of research.  Library research will give you ideas for searches to conduct on the Internet, and Internet research will often lead you back to the more traditional print materials housed in your library

Electronic mail (“email”) is the basic tool that allows you to send messages to other people who have access to the Internet, regardless of where they physically might be.  Email is extremely popular because it’s easy, quick, and cheap—free, as long as you aren’t paying for Internet access.  Most email programs allow you to attach other documents like word processed documents, photos, or clips of music to your messages as well.   For the purposes of research writing, email can be a useful tool in several different ways.  

You can use email to communicate with your teacher and classmates about your research projects —asking questions, exchanging drafts of essays, and so forth.  Many teachers use email to provide comments and feedback on student work, to facilitate peer review and collaboration, or to make announcements.   Depending on the subject of your research project, you can use email to conduct interviews or surveys .  Of course, the credibility of an email interview (like more traditional phone or “face to face” interviews) is based entirely on the credibility of whom you interview and the extent to which you can trust that the person you think you are communicating with via email really is that person.  But since email is a format that has international reach and is convenient to use, you may find experts who would be unlikely to commit to a phone or “face to face” interview who might be willing to answer a few questions via email.

You can join an electronic mailing list, or listserv, to learn more about your topic and to post questions and observations. With the use of various email software, an emailing list works by sending email messages to a group of people known as “subscribers.”  Email lists are usually organized around a certain topic or issue of interest: movies, writing, biology, politics, or current events. Before posting a question or quoting messages from the mailing list, be sure to review that lists’ guidelines for posting.

Many different sorts of groups and organizations maintain mailing lists that you will be able to find most easily by finding Web-based information about that group through a Web search.

A Word about Netiquette

Netiquette is simply the concept of courtesy and politeness when working on the Internet.  The common sense “golden rule” of every day life—“do onto others as you would want them to do to you”—is the main rule to keep in mind online as well.  

But there are two reasons why practicing good netiquette in discussion forums like email, newsgroups, and chat rooms is more difficult than practicing good etiquette in real life.  First, many people new to the Internet and its discussion forums aren’t aware that there are differences between how one behaves online versus how to behave in real life.  Folks new to the Internet in general or to a specific online community in particular (sometimes referred to as newbies ) often are inadvertently rude or inconsiderate to others.  It is a bit like traveling to a different country:  if you are unfamiliar with the language and customs, it is easy to unintentionally do or not do something that is considered wrong or rude in that culture.  

Second, the Internet is a volatile and potentially combative discussion space where people can find themselves offending or being offended by others quickly.  The main reason for this is the Internet lacks the visual cues of “face to face” communication or the oral cues of a phone conversation.  We convey a lot of information with the tone of our voice, our facial expression, or hand gestures.  A simple question like “Are you serious?” can take on many different meanings depending on how you emphasize the words, whether or not you are smiling or frowning, whether or not you say it in a laughing tone or a loud and angry tone, or whether or not you are raising your hand or pointing a finger at the speaker.  

The lack of visual or oral cues is also a problem with writing, of course, but online writing tends to be much more like speaking than more traditional forms of writing because it is usually briefer and much quicker in transmission.  It’s difficult to imagine a heated argument that turns into name calling happening between two people writing letters back and forth, but it is not at all difficult to imagine (or experience!) an argument that arose out of some sort of miscommunication with the use of email messages that travel from writers to readers in mere seconds.

This phenomenon of the Internet making it possible for tempers to rise quickly and for innocent conversations to lead to angry arguments even has a name:  flaming. An ongoing and particularly angry argument that takes place in a newsgroup or emailing list forum is called a “ flame war .”  Flames (like conventional “fighting words”) often are the result of intentional rudeness, but they are also the result of simple miscommunications.   Here are some basic guidelines for practicing good netiquette: 

• Use “common sense courtesy.” Always remember that real people are on the other side of the email or newsgroup message you are responding to or asking about. As such, remember to try and treat people as you would want them to treat you.
• Don’t type in all capital letters. “All caps” is considered shouting on the Internet. Unless you mean to shout something, don’t do this.
• Look for, ask for, and read discussion group FAQs . Many discussion groups have a “Frequently Asked Questions” document for their members.  Before posting to an Internet group, try to read this document to get an idea about what is or isn’t discussed in the forum.
• Read some of the messages before posting to your electronic group. Make sure you have a sense of the tone and type of conversation that takes place in the forum  before posting a message of your own.
• Do not send advertisements, chain letters, or personal messages to a discussion group.
• Ask permission to quote from others on the list.  If someone writes something in a newsgroup or an emailing list discussion forum you think might be useful to quote in your research project, send a private email to the author of the post and ask for permission.  Along these lines, do not post copyrighted material to the Internet without getting permission from the holder of the copyright to do so.
• Make sure your email messages and other discussion forum posts have subject s. Keep the subject line brief and to the point, but be sure to include it.  If your message is part of an ongoing conversation, make sure your subject is the same as the other subject lines in the conversation.

Sidebar:  Be on the look out for new technologies!   One of the challenges I face in offering advice on how to use the Internet for your research is that the tools available on the Internet keep changing at an extremely rapid rate.  New and exciting technologies are emerging all the time, and many of them become popular in an amazingly short period of time.  Conversely, older Internet tools (Telnet, Gopher, newsgroups, etc.) are more fitting in a history of the Internet textbook than this one.   Here's just a partial list of emerging technologies you might be using for Internet research in the near future (if you're not using them already):

Blogs .  A blog (or "web log") is a web-based publication of articles, usually dated and published with the most current entries first.  Many blogs are very similar to a personal journal or diary, though other blogs are maintained collaboratively and by academic or professional writers.  Two of the most popular services are Blogger <http://www.blogger.com> and Xanga <http://www.xanga/com>.

Podcasting .  A "podcast" is a way of publishing sound files and making them available for others to listen to over the Internet.  Despite its name, you don't actually have to have an iPod to listen to a podcast, just a computer that can play MP3 sound files.  Similar to blogs, podcasts range from individual broadcasts about virtually anything on their minds to news organizations producing professional shows.  See iPodder.org <http://www.ipodder.org> to get started.

Instant Messaging.   My experience has been that most of my students are more familiar with IM than most of my fellow faculty members.  Instant messaging allows users to chat with each other in real time.  Most cell phones support IM-ing, too, called text messaging (?).  Two of the most popular IM software tools are America Online's Instant Messenger <http://www.aim.com> and Yahoo! Messenger <http://messenger.yahoo.com>

Peer-to-Peer file sharing.  "Peer-to-peer" sharing is a technology that allows users on a network to share files with each other.  Usually, this is associated with music sharing, and it has been controversial because of the possibility of illegally copying music files.  

Scholarly Publishing online.  There are currently significant differences between the materials available on the Internet and in an academic library.  Obviously, libraries have books and the Internet doesn’t.  But that might be changing sooner than you might think.  For example, Google is working with several academic libraries around the world to scan their books into their database.  (See <http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/print_library.html>).   More and more periodicals are making their articles available electronically, both via “full text” databases like WilsonSelect .

The World Wide Web

Chances are, the World Wide Web will be your most valuable Internet research tool.  While you can go to literally billions of different “pages” or sites on the Web that might be useful for your research, finding them can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.  This is one of the major drawbacks of the World Wide Web.  Unlike the library, where the materials are strictly organized, cataloged, and cared for, the Web is  more of a jumble of files that can be difficult to find or that are missing altogether.  

Fortunately, you can turn to several resources to aid in your World Wide Web research:  search engines, meta-search engines, and Web directories.

Search engines are software-driven Web sites that allow users to search by entering in a word, a phrase, or even another Web site address. Search engines are “for profit” enterprises which come and go in the fast-paced world of the Internet.

By far, the most popular search engine currently is Google . There are other search engines of course, notably AltaVista, and Teoma.  But Google is so popular it has become synonymous for most users for “search engine” and is even used as a verb, as in “Where was George Washington born?  I guess I’d better google that.”

Most search engines look deceivingly simple: enter in a few words into the window, hit return, and you’re provided thousands of hits.  However, it is somewhat more complicated than that.  For one thing, search engines make money by advertising and listing those sponsors first-- Google and other search engines note that these are “Sponsored Links.”  For another, search engine searches are conducted by machines.  Unlike a library catalog, which is created by people, search engine databases are created and searched through by powerful software that constantly scans the ever-growing World Wide Web for sites to include in its database.  Software can catalog materials faster than people, but it cannot prioritize or sort the material as precisely as people.  As a result, a search engine search will frequently return tens of thousands of matches, most of which have little relevance to you.   But to get the most out of a search engine search, you have to “search smart.”  Typing in a word or a phrase into any search engine will return results, but you have a much better chance of getting better results if you take the time conduct a good search engine search.

All of the major search engines provide information about conducting advanced searches,  which you should read for at least two reasons.  First, the advanced search tips or help documents explain the specific rules for conducting more detailed searches with that particular search engine.  Different search engines are similar, but not identical.  Some search engines will allow a search for a word root or truncation—in other words, if you type in a word with an asterisk in some search engines (“bank*” for example), you will do a search for other forms of the word (banks, banker, banking, etc.).  Some search engines don’t allow for this feature.       Second, many search engines have features that you wouldn’t know about unless you examined the advanced search or help documents. If you click on the "Advanced Search" option on the Google homepage, you are taken to this page that offers a variety of ways to refine your search.  For example you can search for an exact phrase, for "at least one word" in a phrase, and for pages that do not contain a particular phrase.

Each search engine compiles its data a bit differently, which means that you won’t get identical results from all search engines.  Just as you should use different indexing tools when doing library periodical research, using different search engines is a good idea.

For example, instead of using only the term “Drug advertising” in your search, try using “pharmaceutical advertising,” “prescription drug promotions,” “television and prescription drugs,” and so forth.  

This is extremely important because there is no systematic way to categorize and catalog information similar to the way it is done in libraries.  As a result, there is no such thing as a “subject” search on a search engine, certainly not in the way  you can search subjects with the Library of Congress system.  Some Web sites might refer to drunk driving as “drunk driving,” while other Web sites might refer to drunk driving as “driving while intoxicated.”

If you do a search for “drug advertising” with a search engine, you will get thousands of matches.  Most search engines organize the results so that the pages that are most likely to be useful in your search will appear first.  However, it is definitely worthwhile to page through several pages of results.  Search engines like Google support basic Boolean search commands (and, and/or, not, etc.), and a lot of other even more sophisticated commands.  For example, Google allows you to search for synonyms for a term by typing “~” in front of it.  For example, the search “~corporal punishment” also returns information about web sites that use the synonym “spanking.”

Metasearch Engines are similar to search engines, except they are software-driven Web sites that search other search engines.  The difference is that when you do a search with a search engine like Google, you are searching only through Google’s database; when you use a metasearch engine, you are searching through Google’s database along with other search engine databases.  Simply put, metasearch engines allow you to search through many different databases at the same time.   Metasearch engines might seem to have an obvious advantage over regular search engines, but in practice, this is not necessarily the case.  For one thing, metasearch engines don’t account for the different rules of different search engines very well—in other words, they will apply the same “rules” for a search to all of the search engines they are searching, regardless of how those rules might apply.  For another thing, different search engines have different rules as to what results they rank as most important.  Again, this is something that most metasearch engines don’t account for very well in their results.   In other words, right now, metasearch engines don’t usually work as well as using several different search engines independently.  When I conduct search engine research on the World Wide Web, I prefer to visit several different search engines than one metasearch engine.   If you do decide to use metasearches, keep in mind that the “tips” provided for search engines apply to these devices as well.  To do a “smart search” with a metasearch engine, be sure to read the “advanced search,” “search tips,” or “help” document, be sure to use different synonyms for the key words you are using to search, and be sure to look past the first page of results.

Web Directories

Web Directories look like search engines, and many of them include a search engine component.  But Web directories are different from search engines because they are collections of data about Web sites that are categorized by people and not computer programs.  The most famous web directory is Yahoo! <http://www.yahoo.com>, which was started in 1994 by two graduate students at Stanford, David Filo and Jerry Yang.  But there are many other Web directory sites, including the following:       • About <http://about.com>     • The WWW Virtual Library <http://vlib.org/>     • Librarian’s Index to the Internet <http://lii.org/>   In a sense, Web directories are more like library databases:  they are organized by people into logical categories, and the organizers of Web directories make some choices as to what they will and won’t include in their directories and about how they will categorize different items.  However, each search engine makes up its own system for categorizing data; there is no “standardized” system of subjects like there is with the Library of Congress system. This means that while Web directories are “more organized” than what you might find with a search engine, they are probably “less organized” than what you might find in the library with a book or periodical database.

Web directory searches will often return higher quality Web sites because what is and isn’t included in these directories is decided by people and not computer software.  Further, some of these Web directories, like the “Librarian’s Index to the Internet,” are quite a bit more selective and specialized.  Conversely, Web directories don’t usually give you the “quantity” of information that you are likely to receive from search engines or metasearch engines.

In general, the best advice for working with Web directories is very similar to the best advice for working with search engines:  be sure to read the instructions on conducting advance searches, use more than one Web directory, and use synonyms for your key terms.  Use search engines, metasearch engines, and Web directories in conjunction with each other:  the “computer software” based searches you do with search and metasearch engines can help you refine the searches you conduct with the help of Web directories.  

• Do use synonyms in your keyword searches (for example, “drugs” and “pharmaceuticals”).
• Do use multiple search engines and directories.
• Do read the “advanced search” documents.  
• Do your searches over a period of time.
• Do remember that because anyone can create a Web site, you need to evaluate the credibility of web sources very carefully.
• Don’t stop at just search engines; use directory searches, too.
• Don’t forget there is no organized
• Don’t stop at the first page of search results; look through more than the first few hits.

This material comes from The Process of Research Writing , by Steven D. Krause, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. You are free to use, adapt, and/or share this material as long as you properly attribute. Please keep this information on materials you use, adapt, and/or share. 

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• Research Skills

How to Teach Online Research Skills to Students in 5 Steps (Free Posters)

Please note, this post was updated in 2020 and I no longer update this website.

How often does this scenario play out in your classroom?

You want your students to go online and do some research for some sort of project, essay, story or presentation. Time ticks away, students are busy searching and clicking, but are they finding the useful and accurate information they need for their project?

We’re very fortunate that many classrooms are now well equipped with devices and the internet, so accessing the wealth of information online should be easier than ever, however, there are many obstacles.

Students (and teachers) need to navigate:

• What search terms to put into Google or other search engines
• What search results to click on and read through (while avoiding inappropriate or irrelevant sites or advertisements)
• How to determine what information is credible, relevant and student friendly 
• How to process, synthesize, evaluate , and present the information
• How to compare a range of sources to evaluate their reliability and relevancy
• How to cite sources correctly

Phew! No wonder things often don’t turn out as expected when you tell your students to just “google” their topic. On top of these difficulties some students face other obstacles including: low literacy skills, limited internet access, language barriers, learning difficulties and disabilities.

All of the skills involved in online research can be said to come under the term of information literacy, which tends to fall under a broader umbrella term of digital literacy.

Being literate in this way is an essential life skill.

This post offers tips and suggestions on how to approach this big topic. You’ll learn a 5 step method to break down the research process into manageable chunks in the classroom. Scroll down to find a handy poster for your classroom too.

How to Teach Information Literacy and Online Research Skills

The topic of researching and filtering information can be broken down in so many ways but I believe the best approach involves:

• Starting young and building on skills
• Embedding explicit teaching and mini-lessons regularly (check out my 50 mini-lesson ideas here !)
• Providing lots of opportunity for practice and feedback
• Teachers seeking to improve their own skills — these free courses from Google might help
• Working with your librarian if you have one

💡 While teaching research skills is something that should be worked on throughout the year, I also like the idea of starting the year off strongly with a “Research Day” which is something 7th grade teacher Dan Gallagher wrote about . Dan and his colleagues had their students spend a day rotating around different activities to learn more about researching online. Something to think about!

Google or a Kid-friendly Search Engine?

If you teach young students you might be wondering what the best starting place is.

I’ve only ever used Google with students but I know many teachers like to start with search engines designed for children. If you’ve tried these search engines, I’d love you to add your thoughts in a comment.

💡 If you’re not using a kid-friendly search engine, definitely make sure SafeSearch is activated on Google or Bing. It’s not foolproof but it helps.

Two search engines designed for children that look particularly useful include:

These sites are powered by Google SafeSearch with some extra filtering/moderating.

KidzSearch contains additional features like videos and image sections to browse. While not necessarily a bad thing, I prefer the simple interface of Kiddle for beginners.

Read more about child-friendly search engines

This article from Naked Security provides a helpful overview of using child-friendly search engines like Kiddle.

To summarise their findings, search-engines like Kiddle can be useful but are not perfect.

For younger children who need to be online but are far too young to be left to their own devices, and for parents and educators that want little ones to easily avoid age-inappropriate content, these search engines are quite a handy tool. For older children, however, the results in these search engines may be too restrictive to be useful, and will likely only frustrate children to use other means.

Remember, these sorts of tools are not a replacement for education and supervision.

Maybe start with no search engine?

Another possible starting point for researching with young students is avoiding a search engine altogether.

Students could head straight to a site they’ve used before (or choose from a small number of teacher suggested sites). There’s a lot to be learned just from finding, filtering, and using information found on various websites.

Five Steps to Teaching Students How to Research Online and Filter Information

This five-step model might be a useful starting point for your students to consider every time they embark on some research.

Let’s break down each step. You can find a summary poster at the end.

Students first need to take a moment to consider what information they’re actually looking for in their searches.

It can be a worthwhile exercise to add this extra step in between giving a student a task (or choice of tasks) and sending them off to research.

You could have a class discussion or small group conferences on brainstorming keywords , considering synonyms or alternative phrases , generating questions etc. Mindmapping might help too.

2016 research by Morrison showed that 80% of students rarely or never made a list of possible search words. This may be a fairly easy habit to start with.

Time spent defining the task can lead to a more effective and streamlined research process.

It sounds simple but students need to know that the quality of the search terms they put in the Google search box will determine the quality of their results.

There are a LOT of tips and tricks for Googling but I think it’s best to have students first master the basics of doing a proper Google search.

I recommend consolidating these basics:

• Type in some simple search terms using only the important keywords
• If the initial results aren’t what you want, alter the search terms and get more specific  (get clues from the initial search results e.g. you might see synonyms that would work or get ideas from the “People Also Ask” section)
• Use quotation marks if you want your keywords in an exact order, e.g. “raining cats and dogs”
• use your best guess with spelling (Google will often understand)
• don’t worry about punctuation
• understand that everyone’s results will be different , even if they use the same search terms (depending on browser history, location etc.)

📌 Get a free PDF of this poster here. 

Links to learn more about Google searches

There’s lots you can learn about Google searches.

I highly recommend you take a look at  20 Instant Google Searches your Students Need to Know by Eric Curts to learn about “instant searches”.

Med Kharbach has also shared a simple visual with 12 search tips which would be really handy once students master the basics too.

The Google Search Education website is an amazing resource with lessons for beginner/intermediate/advanced plus slideshows and videos. It’s also home to the  A Google A Day classroom challenges. The questions help older students learn about choosing keywords, deconstructing questions, and altering keywords.

Useful videos about Google searches

How search works.

This easy to understand video  from Code.org to explains more about how search works.

How Does Google Know Everything About Me?

You might like to share this video with older students that explains how Google knows what you’re typing or thinking. Despite this algorithm, Google can’t necessarily know what you’re looking for if you’re not clear with your search terms.

What about when the answer comes up in Google instantly?

If you’ve been using Google for a while, you know they are tweaking the search formula so that more and more, an answer will show up within the Google search result itself. You won’t even need to click through to any websites.

For example, here I’ve asked when the Titanic sunk. I don’t need to go to any websites to find out. The answer is right there in front of me.

While instant searches and featured snippets are great and mean you can “get an answer” without leaving Google, students often don’t have the background knowledge to know if a result is incorrect or not. So double checking is always a good idea.

As students get older, they’ll be able to know when they can trust an answer and when double checking is needed.

Type in a subject like cats and you’ll be presented with information about the animals, sports teams, the musical along with a lot of advertising. There are a lot of topics where some background knowledge helps. And that can only be developed with time and age.

Entering quality search terms is one thing but knowing what to click on is another.

You might like to encourage students to look beyond the first few results. Let students know that Google’s PageRank algorithm is complex (as per the video above), and many websites use Search Engine Optimisation to improve the visibility of their pages in search results. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most useful or relevant sites for you.

As pointed out in this article by Scientific American ,

Skilled searchers know that the ranking of results from a search engine is not a statement about objective truth, but about the best matching of the search query, term frequency, and the connectedness of web pages. Whether or not those results answer the searchers’ questions is still up for them to determine.

Point out the anatomy of a Google search result and ensure students know what all the components mean. This could be as part of a whole class discussion, or students could create their own annotations.

An important habit to get into is looking at the green URL and specifically the domain . Use some intuition to decide whether it seems reliable. Does the URL look like a well-known site? Is it a forum or opinion site? Is it an educational or government institution? Domains that include .gov or .edu might be more reliable sources.

When looking through possible results, you may want to teach students to open sites in new tabs, leaving their search results in a tab for easy access later (e.g. right-click on the title and click “Open link in new tab” or press Control/Command and click the link).

Searchers are often not skilled at identifying advertising within search results. A famous 2016 Stanford University study revealed that 82% of middle-schoolers couldn’t distinguish between an ad labelled “sponsored content” and a real news story.

Time spent identifying advertising within search results could help students become much more savvy searchers. Looking for the words “ad” and “sponsored” is a great place to start.

4) Evaluate

Once you click on a link and land on a site, how do you know if it offers the information you need?

Students need to know how to search for the specific information they’re after on a website. Teach students how to look for the search box on a webpage or use Control F (Command F on Mac) to bring up a search box that can scan the page.

Ensure students understand that you cannot believe everything you read . This might involve checking multiple sources. You might set up class guidelines that ask students to cross check their information on two or three different sites before assuming it’s accurate.

I’ve written a post all about teaching students how to evaluate websites . It includes this flowchart which you’re welcome to download and use in your classroom.

So your students navigated the obstacles of searching and finding information on quality websites. They’ve found what they need! Hooray.

Many students will instinctively want to copy and paste the information they find for their own work.

We need to inform students about plagiarism  and copyright infringement while giving them the skills they need to avoid this.

• Students need to know that plagiarism is taking someone’s work and presenting it as your own. You could have a class discussion about the ethics and legalities of this.
• Students also need to be assured that they can use information from other sources and they should. They just need to say who wrote it, where it was from and so on.

All students can benefit from learning about plagiarism, copyright, how to write information in their own words, and how to acknowledge the source. However, the formality of this process will depend on your students’ age and your curriculum guidelines.

Give students lots of practice writing information in their own words. Younger students can benefit from simply putting stories or recounts in their own words. Older students could investigate the difference between paraphrasing and summarising .

There are some free online tools that summarise information for you. These aren’t perfect and aren’t a replacement from learning the skill but they could be handy for students to try out and evaluate. For example, students could try writing their own summary and then comparing it to a computer summary. I like the tool SMMRY as you can enter text or a URL of an article. Eric Curts shares a list of 7 summary tools in this blog post .

Students also need a lot of practice using quotation marks and citing sources .

The internet can offer a confusing web of information at times. Students need to be shown how to look for the primary source of information. For example, if they find information on Wikipedia, they need to cite from the bibliography at the bottom of the Wikipedia article, not Wikipedia itself.

There are many ways you can teach citation:

• I like Kathy Schrock’s PDF document which demonstrates how you can progressively teach citation from grades 1 to 6 (and beyond). It gives some clear examples that you could adapt for your own classroom use.

Staying organised!

You might also like to set up a system for students to organise their information while they’re searching. There are many apps and online tools to curate, annotate, and bookmark information, however, you could just set up a simple system like a Google Doc or Spreadsheet.

The format and function is simple and clear. This means students don’t have to put much thought into using and designing their collections. Instead, they can focus on the important curation process.

Bring These Ideas to Life With Mini-Lessons!

We know how important it is for students to have solid research skills. But how can you fit teaching research skills into a jam-packed curriculum? The answer may be … mini-lessons !

Whether you teach primary or secondary students, I’ve compiled 50 ideas for mini-lessons.

Try one a day or one a week and by the end of the school year, you might just be amazed at how independent your students are becoming with researching.

Become an Internet Search Master with This Google Slides Presentation

In early 2019, I was contacted by Noah King who is a teacher in Northern California.

Noah was teaching his students about my 5 step process outlined in this post and put together a Google Slides Presentation with elaboration and examples.

You’re welcome to use and adapt the Google Slides Presentation yourself. Find out exactly how to do this in this post.

The Presentation was designed for students around 10-11 years old but I think it could easily be adapted for different age groups.

Recap: How To Do Online Research

Despite many students being confident users of technology, they need to be taught how to find information online that’s relevant, factual, student-friendly, and safe.

Keep these six steps in mind whenever you need to do some online research:

• Clarify : What information are you looking for? Consider keywords, questions, synonyms, alternative phrases etc.
• Search : What are the best words you can type into the search engine to get the highest quality results?
• Delve : What search results should you click on and explore further?
• Evaluate : Once you click on a link and land on a site, how do you know if it offers the information you need?
• Cite : How can you write information in your own words (paraphrase or summarise), use direct quotes, and cite sources?
• Staying organised : How can you keep the valuable information you find online organised as you go through the research process?

Don’t forget to ask for help!

Lastly, remember to get help when you need it. If you’re lucky enough to have a teacher-librarian at your school, use them! They’re a wonderful resource.

If not, consult with other staff members, librarians at your local library, or members of your professional learning network. There are lots of people out there who are willing and able to help with research. You just need to ask!

Being able to research effectively is an essential skill for everyone . It’s only becoming more important as our world becomes increasingly information-saturated. Therefore, it’s definitely worth investing some classroom time in this topic.

Developing research skills doesn’t necessarily require a large chunk of time either. Integration is key and remember to fit in your mini-lessons . Model your own searches explicitly and talk out loud as you look things up.

When you’re modelling your research, go to some weak or fake websites and ask students to justify whether they think the site would be useful and reliable. Eric Curts has an excellent article where he shares four fake sites to help teach students about website evaluation. This would be a great place to start!

Introduce students to librarians ; they are a wonderful resource and often underutilised. It pays for students to know how they can collaborate with librarians for personalised help.

Finally, consider investing a little time in brushing up on research skills yourself . Everyone thinks they can “google” but many don’t realise they could do it even better (myself included!).

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14 Replies to “How to Teach Online Research Skills to Students in 5 Steps (Free Posters)”

Kathleen, I like your point about opening up sites in new tabs. You might be interested in Mike Caulfield’s ‘four moves’ .

What a fabulous resource, Aaron. Thanks so much for sharing. This is definitely one that others should check out too. Even if teachers don’t use it with students (or are teaching young students), it could be a great source of learning for educators too.

This is great information and I found the safe search sites you provided a benefit for my children. I searched for other safe search sites and you may want to know about them. http://www.kids-search.com and http://www.safesearch.tips .

Hi Alice, great finds! Thanks so much for sharing. I like the simple interface. It’s probably a good thing there are ads at the top of the listing too. It’s an important skill for students to learn how to distinguish these. 🙂

Great website! Really useful info 🙂

I really appreciate this blog post! Teaching digital literacy can be a struggle. This topic is great for teachers, like me, who need guidance in effectively scaffolding for scholars who to use the internet to gain information.

So glad to hear it was helpful, Shasta! Good luck teaching digital literacy!

Why teachers stopped investing in themselves! Thanks a lot for the article, but this is the question I’m asking myself after all teachers referring to google as if it has everything you need ! Why it has to come from you and not the whole education system! Why it’s an option? As you said smaller children don’t need search engine in the first place! I totally agree, and I’m soo disappointed how schooling system is careless toward digital harms , the very least it’s waste of the time of my child and the most being exposed to all rubbish on the websites. I’m really disappointed that most teachers are not thinking taking care of their reputation when it comes to digital learning. Ok using you tube at school as material it’s ok , but why can’t you pay little extra to avoid adverts while teaching your children! Saving paper created mountains of electronic-toxic waste all over the world! What a degradation of education.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Shohida. I disagree that all schooling systems are careless towards ‘digital harms’, however, I do feel like more digital citizenship education is always important!

Hi Kathleen, I love your How to Evaluate Websites Flow Chart! I was wondering if I could have permission to have it translated into Spanish. I would like to add it to a Digital Research Toolkit that I have created for students.

Thank you! Kristen

Hi Kristen, You’re welcome to translate it! Please just leave the original attribution to my site on there. 🙂 Thanks so much for asking. I really hope it’s useful to your students! Kathleen

[…] matter how old your child is, there are many ways for them to do research into their question. For very young children, you’ll need to do the online research work. Take your time with […]

[…] digs deep into how teachers can guide students through responsible research practices on her blog (2019). She suggests a 5 step model for elementary students on how to do online […]

Writing lesson plans on the fly outside of my usual knowledge base (COVID taken down so many teachers!) and this info is precisely what I needed! Thanks!!!

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Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class - The Sociology of Group Conflict and Change

Student resources, internet research projects, modern slavery.

Americans today might look at slavery as a distant relic of history, remote and bizarre. The idea that a person could be owned by another person, defined as a piece of property, and bought and sold like livestock probably seems alien to people who live in a culture devoted to individual happiness and personal well-being. Yet, as you saw in the “Applying Concepts” activity in this chapter, this ancient institution can still be found around the world, on every continent, in societies at every level of development, and in the United States.

In this project, you will use sources of information readily available on the Internet to gather facts and estimate the volume and scope of modern slavery. You will also collect some case studies or personal examples of slavery, analyze the nature of the practice today, compare it to American slavery, and find out what is being done to combat the practice. This project will also provide an opportunity to review some of the important points and ideas presented in this chapter.

To begin, consider the list of questions below. Next, visit the websites listed here and search for answers to the questions. Also, search the Internet on your own for additional sources that may help you develop an understanding of modern slavery. ( NOTE: Your instructor may have additional or different instructions for gathering information. )

As you search the Internet, remember that you will need to practice a healthy skepticism about the information, ideas, and arguments that you find—including the information on the websites listed here. Of course, you should always be careful and critical when doing research, but, as you know, the Internet includes unregulated sites that present incomplete, deeply biased, or false information, and an extra note of caution is justified. Also, recognize at the outset that many of the facts you gather (e.g., the number of people currently enslaved) will be approximations and, in some cases, mere guesswork.

Questions for Research and Discussion

What is the scope and volume of modern slavery? Note any important difference with the estimates provided in the “Applying Concepts” activity in this chapter develop the best answers possible to these questions:

How many people are enslaved?

What is the composition of the enslaved population in terms of gender, age, race, and nationality?

Where in the world are modern slaves most numerous?

For the slave population that is transported across national lines, what are the major sending and receiving nations?

What are the experiences of modern slaves?

Describe the mechanisms and practices by which slave status is enforced. What is the role of debt bondage? How often are coercion and violence used? How do these practices vary across different types of slavery (e.g., sex trafficking versus involuntary labor)?

Find at least three to five case studies of people who have been victimized by modern slavery.

Sociologically, what do these people have in common? That is, what important social characteristics (age, gender, social class, race, and ethnicity) do they share?

What are the dynamics and causes of modern slavery?

American slavery was shaped by the level of development and labor-intensive subsistence technology of the colonial era. Can you find ways in which similar factors shape modern slavery?

Can you apply elements of the Noel hypothesis to modern slavery? Does ethnocentrism, prejudice, or sexism play a role? How? What resources and abilities do modern slaves have that make them the objects of competition? What role does power play in shaping and maintaining these practices?

How do labor markets operate in modern slavery? Do the “Laws of Supply and Demand” operate in these markets? How?

What roles do modern slaves play in the job market? What economic niches are being filled? Who profits? Who loses? Describe the minority-dominant group situations you find in your search for facts.

What are some of the enforcement efforts designed to stop slavery? What human rights are being violated?

Find at least three national and international programs aimed at stopping modern slavery and describe what they are doing.

What specific human rights are at stake here? Is slavery illegal? Where? By what authority?

Websites for this Project

The Home Page of “ Free the Slaves” includes information, resources for teachers, and a description of the organization’s efforts to combat modern slavery. 

Home Page for the International Justice Mission , a Christian advocacy and activist group dedicated to combating slavery . 

U.S. Department of State’s annual “Trafficking in Persons” report. The report can be downloaded in pdf format. 

The International Labour Organization (an agency of the UN). Their annual report on involuntary labor can be downloaded in pdf format.  

Optional Discussion:  Bring your findings to class and discuss with classmates. Focus your discussion on comparing and contrasting modern slavery and colonial American slavery, especially the roles of ethnocentrism and power, subsistence technology, demand and supply, human rights, and enforcement efforts. ( Your instructor may have more specific or different instructions . )

• COMM 19 Internet Research Assignment
• Find Books & eBooks
• Find Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers
• Web Searches

Internet Research

Research assignment/or al presentation.

1) From the list below, choose a Company you would like to research.  Sign up for a topic via your High School instructor.   You can also submit a Company not on the list that you would like for me to approval.  If you choose that option, email me the name of the company and describe why you would like to research it.

2) Give a 3 to 5-minute presentation summarizing their founding owners, location, products, current status and leaders (CEO/President), on one of the following Computer/Internet companies.   Due on 5/8 in our final class face to face meeting

You must use at least five sources (2 books or scholarly journals and 3 other sources which could be magazines, newspapers, or .edu, .gov, or responsible .coms not Wikipedia.org).  You must turn in a typed written sheet with the research you discovered and a properly formatted MLA Works Cited sheet.  

1) Amazon 2) America Online - History 3) Today 4) Apple - History 5) Today 6) Craigslist - History 7) Today 8) Dell 9) Ebay 10) Facebook 11) Gateway 12) Google 13) Hewlett-Packard - History 14) Today 15) History of Netscape 16) History of Sun Microsystems 17) History of Youtube 18) IBM - History 19) Today 20) Myspace 21) Microsoft - History 22) Today 23) The History of the Internet 24) Yahoo - History 25) Today

Additional Handouts

Oral presentation checklist.

Oral Presentation Outline

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6 facts about americans and tiktok.

62% of U.S. adults under 30 say they use TikTok, compared with 39% of those ages 30 to 49, 24% of those 50 to 64, and 10% of those 65 and older.

Many Americans think generative AI programs should credit the sources they rely on

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Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in the U.S.

64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public electric vehicle charging station, and those who live closest to chargers view EVs more positively.

When Online Content Disappears

A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible.

A quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education

High school teachers are more likely than elementary and middle school teachers to hold negative views about AI tools in education.

Teens and Video Games Today

85% of U.S. teens say they play video games. They see both positive and negative sides, from making friends to harassment and sleep loss.

Americans’ Views of Technology Companies

Most Americans are wary of social media’s role in politics and its overall impact on the country, and these concerns are ticking up among Democrats. Still, Republicans stand out on several measures, with a majority believing major technology companies are biased toward liberals.

22% of Americans say they interact with artificial intelligence almost constantly or several times a day. 27% say they do this about once a day or several times a week.

About one-in-five U.S. adults have used ChatGPT to learn something new (17%) or for entertainment (17%).

Across eight countries surveyed in Latin America, Africa and South Asia, a median of 73% of adults say they use WhatsApp and 62% say they use Facebook.

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About half of Americans (48%) say they took part in organized, competitive sports in high school or college.

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Social media fact sheet, digital knowledge quiz, video: how do americans define online harassment.

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Internet history timeline: ARPANET to the World Wide Web

The internet history timeline shows how today's vast network evolved from the initial concept

• Internet timeline

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Bibliography.

In internet history, credit for the initial concept that developed into the World Wide Web is typically given to Leonard Kleinrock. In 1961, he wrote about ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet, in a paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets." 

According to the journal Management and Business Review (MBR), Kleinrock, along with other innovators such as J.C.R. Licklider, the first director of the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO), provided the backbone for the ubiquitous stream of emails, media, Facebook postings and tweets that are now shared online every day.

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

Latency: Definition, measurement and testing

What is cyberwarfare?

The precursor to the internet was jumpstarted in the early days of the history of computers , in 1969 with the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), according to the journal American Scientist . ARPA-funded researchers developed many of the protocols used for internet communication today. This timeline offers a brief history of the internet’s evolution:

Internet timeline: 1960s

1965: Two computers at MIT Lincoln Lab communicate with one another using packet-switching technology.

1968: Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) unveils the final version of the Interface Message Processor (IMP) specifications. BBN wins ARPANET contract.

1969: On Oct. 29, UCLA’s Network Measurement Center, Stanford Research Institute (SRI), University of California-Santa Barbara and University of Utah install nodes. The first message is "LO," which was an attempt by student Charles Kline to "LOGIN" to the SRI computer from the university. However, the message was unable to be completed because the SRI system crashed.

1970–1980

1972: BBN’s Ray Tomlinson introduces network email. The Internet Working Group (INWG) forms to address need for establishing standard protocols.

1973: Global networking becomes a reality as the University College of London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway) connect to ARPANET. The term internet is born.

1974: The first Internet Service Provider (ISP) is born with the introduction of a commercial version of ARPANET, known as Telenet.

1974: Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn (the duo said by many to be the Fathers of the Internet) publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the design of TCP .

1976: Queen Elizabeth II hits the “send button” on her first email.

1979: USENET forms to host news and discussion groups.

1980–1990

1981: The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided a grant to establish the Computer Science Network (CSNET) to provide networking services to university computer scientists.

1982: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, emerge as the protocol for ARPANET. This results in the fledgling definition of the internet as connected TCP/IP internets. TCP/IP remains the standard protocol for the internet.

1983: The Domain Name System (DNS) establishes the familiar .edu, .gov, .com, .mil, .org, .net, and .int system for naming websites. This is easier to remember than the previous designation for websites, such as 123.456.789.10.

1984: William Gibson, author of "Neuromancer," is the first to use the term "cyberspace."

1985: Symbolics.com, the website for Symbolics Computer Corp. in Massachusetts, becomes the first registered domain.

1986: The National Science Foundation’s NSFNET goes online to connected supercomputer centers at 56,000 bits per second — the speed of a typical dial-up computer modem. Over time the network speeds up and regional research and education networks, supported in part by NSF, are connected to the NSFNET backbone — effectively expanding the Internet throughout the United States. The NSFNET was essentially a network of networks that connected academic users along with the ARPANET.

1987: The number of hosts on the internet exceeds 20,000. Cisco ships its first router.

1989: World.std.com becomes the first commercial provider of dial-up access to the internet.

1990–2000

1990: Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, develops HyperText Markup Language (HTML). This technology continues to have a large impact on how we navigate and view the internet today.

1991: CERN introduces the World Wide Web to the public.

1992: The first audio and video are distributed over the internet. The phrase "surfing the internet" is popularized.

1993: The number of websites reaches 600 and the White House and United Nations go online. Marc Andreesen develops the Mosaic Web browser at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. The number of computers connected to NSFNET grows from 2,000 in 1985 to more than 2 million in 1993. The National Science Foundation leads an effort to outline a new internet architecture that would support the burgeoning commercial use of the network.

1994: Netscape Communications is born. Microsoft creates a Web browser for Windows 95.

1994: Yahoo! is created by Jerry Yang and David Filo, two electrical engineering graduate students at Stanford University. The site was originally called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web." The company was later incorporated in March 1995.

1995: Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy begin to provide internet access. Amazon.com, Craigslist and eBay go live. The original NSFNET backbone is decommissioned as the internet’s transformation to a commercial enterprise is largely completed.

1995: The first online dating site, Match.com, launches.

1996: The browser war, primarily between the two major players Microsoft and Netscape, heats up. CNET buys tv.com for $15,000.

1996: A 3D animation dubbed " The Dancing Baby " becomes one of the first viral videos.

1997: Netflix is founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as a company that sends users DVDs by mail.

1997: PC makers can remove or hide Microsoft’s internet software on new versions of Windows 95, thanks to a settlement with the Justice Department. Netscape announces that its browser will be free.

1998: The Google search engine is born, changing the way users engage with the internet.

1998: The Internet Protocol version 6 introduced, to allow for future growth of Internet Addresses. The current most widely used protocol is version 4. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses allowing for 4.3 billion unique addresses; IPv6, with 128-bit addresses, will allow 3.4 x 1038 unique addresses, or 340 trillion trillion trillion.

1999: AOL buys Netscape. Peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a reality as Napster arrives on the Internet, much to the displeasure of the music industry.

2000–2010

2000: The dot-com bubble bursts. Websites such as Yahoo! and eBay are hit by a large-scale denial of service attack, highlighting the vulnerability of the Internet. AOL merges with Time Warner

2001: A federal judge shuts down Napster, ruling that it must find a way to stop users from sharing copyrighted material before it can go back online.

2003: The SQL Slammer worm spread worldwide in just 10 minutes. Myspace, Skype and the Safari Web browser debut.

2003: The blog publishing platform WordPress is launched.

2004: Facebook goes online and the era of social networking begins. Mozilla unveils the Mozilla Firefox browser.

2005: YouTube.com launches. The social news site Reddit is also founded. 

2006: AOL changes its business model, offering most services for free and relying on advertising to generate revenue. The Internet Governance Forum meets for the first time.

2006: Twitter launches. The company's founder, Jack Dorsey, sends out the very first tweet: "just setting up my twttr."

2009: The internet marks its 40th anniversary.

2010–2020

2010: Facebook reaches 400 million active users.

2010: The social media sites Pinterest and Instagram are launched.

2011: Twitter and Facebook play a large role in the Middle East revolts.

2012: President Barack Obama's administration announces its opposition to major parts of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, which would have enacted broad new rules requiring internet service providers to police copyrighted content. The successful push to stop the bill, involving technology companies such as Google and nonprofit organizations including Wikipedia and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is considered a victory for sites such as YouTube that depend on user-generated content, as well as "fair use" on the internet.

2013: Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, reveals that the NSA had in place a monitoring program capable of tapping the communications of thousands of people, including U.S. citizens.

2013: Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults report that they bank online, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

2015: Instagram, the photo-sharing site, reaches 400 million users, outpacing Twitter, which would go on to reach 316 million users by the middle of the same year.

2016: Google unveils Google Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant program, marking the entry of the internet giant into the "smart" computerized assistant marketplace. Google joins Amazon's Alexa, Siri from Apple, and Cortana from Microsoft.

2018: There is a significant rise in internet-enabled devices. An increase in the Internet of Things (IoT) sees around seven billion devices by the end of the year.  

2019: Fifth–generation ( 5G ) networks are launched, enabling speedier internet connection on some wireless devices. 

2020–2022

2021: By January 2021, there are 4.66 billion people connected to the internet. This is more than half of the global population. 

2022: Low–Earth orbit satellite internet is closer to reality. By early January 2022, SpaceX launches more than 1,900 Starlink  satellites overall. The constellation is now providing broadband service in select areas around the world. 

To find out more about the SpaceX satellite internet project, you can watch this video about the mission. Additionally, to read an interview with Leonard Kleinrock, visit the Communications of the ACM website .

• " Leonard Kleinrock Internet Pioneer ". Management and Business Review (2022). 
• " The Science of Computing: The ARPANET after Twenty Years ". American Scientist (1989). 
• " A brief history of the internet ". Association for Computing Machinery (AGM) (2009). 
• " Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification ". S. Deering, R. Hinden (1998). 
• " Distributed denial of service attacks ". IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (2000). 
• " Statistics and Social Network of YouTube Videos ". 2008 16th Interntional Workshop on Quality of Service (2008). 
• " Social Media and Crisis Communication ".  (Routledge, 2017). 

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Kim Ann Zimmermann is a contributor to Live Science and sister site Space.com, writing mainly evergreen reference articles that provide background on myriad scientific topics, from astronauts to climate, and from culture to medicine. Her work can also be found in Business News Daily and KM World. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Glassboro State College (now known as Rowan University) in New Jersey. 

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What is ARPANET?

The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first public packet -switched computer network . It was first used in 1969 and finally decommissioned in 1989. ARPANET's main use was for academic and research purposes.

Many of the protocols used by computer networks today were developed for ARPANET, and it is considered the forerunner of the modern internet .

Developments leading to ARPANET

ARPANET and the subsequent computer networks leading to the internet were not the product of a single individual or organization, nor were they formed at one time. Instead, the ideas and initial research work of many people over years of time was used to form the basis of ARPANET and to build it to become the forerunner of the internet.

In the 1960s, computers were large mainframe systems. They were very expensive and were only owned by large companies, universities and governments. Users would sit at dedicated terminals, such as teletype machines, and run programs on the connected mainframe. Connections between computers was done over dedicated links. These systems were highly centralized and fault-prone.

This was during the height of the Cold War. The U.S. military was interested in creating computer networks that could continue to function after having portions removed, such as in the case of a nuclear strike. Similarly, universities were looking to develop a network that could be fault-tolerant over unreliable connections and could be used to share data and computing resources between users at different locations.

In the early 1960s, Paul Baran, working for the U.S. think tank Rand Corporation, developed the concept of distributed adaptive message block switching. This would enable small groups of data to be sent along differing paths to the destination. This idea eventually became packet communication that underlies almost all data communication today. At that time, though, it was not implemented.

Joseph C.R. Licklider became the director of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) in 1962. He was a major proponent of human-computer interaction and using computers to help people make better decisions. His influence lead ARPA to develop its network and other innovations, such as graphical user interfaces.

In 1966, Robert (Bob) Taylor became the director of IPTO. He credits the idea of ARPANET to the fact that he had three different computer terminals connected to three mainframe computers in his office that he would need to move between. This led to the obvious question: Why can't one terminal be used for any computer?

History of ARPANET

Development of ARPANET began in 1966. Several standards were developed. Network Control Program (NCP) would handle communication between hosts and could support the first commands, Telnet and File Transfer Protocol (FTP). It would use packet-switching technology to communicate. Interface Message Processor was developed to pass messages between hosts. This can be considered the first packet gateway or router . Hardware Modems were designed and sent out to the participating organizations.

The first message sent over ARPANET happened on Oct. 29, 1969. Charley Kline, who was a student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), tried to log in to the mainframe at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He successfully typed in the characters L and O , but the computer crashed when he typed the G of the command LOGIN . They were able to overcome the initial crash, however, and had a successful connection that same day.

The first permanent connection between UCLA and SRI was put into place on Nov. 21, 1969. Two more universities joined ARPANET as founding members on Dec. 5, 1969. These were the University of California, Santa Barbara and University of Utah School of Computing.

ARPANET grew rapidly in the early 1970s. Many universities and government computers joined the network during this time. In 1975, ARPANET was declared operational and was used to develop further communications technology. In time, several computers in other countries were also added using satellite links.

Many packet-based networks quickly came into operation after ARPANET became popular. These various networks could not communicate with one another due to the requirements of standardized equipment in the existing networks. Therefore, TCP/IP was developed as a protocol to enable communication between different networks. It was first put into operation in 1977.

TCP/IP enabled an interconnected network of networks and is the foundational technology of the internet. On Jan. 1, 1983, TCP/IP replaced NCP as the underlying packet-switching technology of ARPANET.

Also, in 1983, ARPANET was divided into two networks between military and civilian use. The word internet was first used to describe the combination of these two networks.

The importance of ARPANET diminished as other networks became more dominant in the mid-1980s. The National Science Foundation Network replaced ARPANET as the backbone of the internet in 1986. Commercial and other network providers also began operating during this time.

ARPANET was shut down in 1989. It was finally decommissioned in 1990.

Legacy of ARPANET

ARPANET stands as a major changing point in the development of computer technology. Many underlying internet technologies were first developed on or for ARPANET. Telnet and FTP protocols were some of the first used on ARPANET, and they are still in use today. TCP/IP was developed on it. The first network email was sent in 1971 over ARPANET. It also hosted what is considered the first marketing spam email in 1978.

ARPANET also led to many other networking firsts. List servers , or listservs, became early social networks . Early voice communication protocols were developed on it. Password protection and data encryption were developed for use over ARPANET.

Continue Reading About ARPANET

• How the web was spun
• CW@50: The story of the internet, and how it changed the world
• What's the difference between internet and Ethernet?
• What is ARPA and what should a UK version look like?
• Arpanet: 50 years of internetworking

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McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2023

After a tumultuous 2022 for technology investment and talent, the first half of 2023 has seen a resurgence of enthusiasm about technology’s potential to catalyze progress in business and society. Generative AI deserves much of the credit for ushering in this revival, but it stands as just one of many advances on the horizon that could drive sustainable, inclusive growth and solve complex global challenges.

To help executives track the latest developments, the McKinsey Technology Council  has once again identified and interpreted the most significant technology trends unfolding today. While many trends are in the early stages of adoption and scale, executives can use this research to plan ahead by developing an understanding of potential use cases and pinpointing the critical skills needed as they hire or upskill talent to bring these opportunities to fruition.

Our analysis examines quantitative measures of interest, innovation, and investment to gauge the momentum of each trend. Recognizing the long-term nature and interdependence of these trends, we also delve into underlying technologies, uncertainties, and questions surrounding each trend. This year, we added an important new dimension for analysis—talent. We provide data on talent supply-and-demand dynamics for the roles of most relevance to each trend. (For more, please see the sidebar, “Research methodology.”)

New and notable

All of last year’s 14 trends remain on our list, though some experienced accelerating momentum and investment, while others saw a downshift. One new trend, generative AI, made a loud entrance and has already shown potential for transformative business impact.

Research methodology

To assess the development of each technology trend, our team collected data on five tangible measures of activity: search engine queries, news publications, patents, research publications, and investment. For each measure, we used a defined set of data sources to find occurrences of keywords associated with each of the 15 trends, screened those occurrences for valid mentions of activity, and indexed the resulting numbers of mentions on a 0–1 scoring scale that is relative to the trends studied. The innovation score combines the patents and research scores; the interest score combines the news and search scores. (While we recognize that an interest score can be inflated by deliberate efforts to stimulate news and search activity, we believe that each score fairly reflects the extent of discussion and debate about a given trend.) Investment measures the flows of funding from the capital markets into companies linked with the trend. Data sources for the scores include the following:

• Patents. Data on patent filings are sourced from Google Patents.
• Research. Data on research publications are sourced from the Lens (www.lens.org).
• News. Data on news publications are sourced from Factiva.
• Searches. Data on search engine queries are sourced from Google Trends.
• Investment. Data on private-market and public-market capital raises are sourced from PitchBook.
• Talent demand. Number of job postings is sourced from McKinsey’s proprietary Organizational Data Platform, which stores licensed, de-identified data on professional profiles and job postings. Data is drawn primarily from English-speaking countries.

In addition, we updated the selection and definition of trends from last year’s study to reflect the evolution of technology trends:

• The generative-AI trend was added since last year’s study.
• We adjusted the definitions of electrification and renewables (previously called future of clean energy) and climate technologies beyond electrification and renewables (previously called future of sustainable consumption).
• Data sources were updated. This year, we included only closed deals in PitchBook data, which revised downward the investment numbers for 2018–22. For future of space technologies investments, we used research from McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense Practice.

This new entrant represents the next frontier of AI. Building upon existing technologies such as applied AI and industrializing machine learning, generative AI has high potential and applicability across most industries. Interest in the topic (as gauged by news and internet searches) increased threefold from 2021 to 2022. As we recently wrote, generative AI and other foundational models  change the AI game by taking assistive technology to a new level, reducing application development time, and bringing powerful capabilities to nontechnical users. Generative AI is poised to add as much as $4.4 trillion in economic value from a combination of specific use cases and more diffuse uses—such as assisting with email drafts—that increase productivity. Still, while generative AI can unlock significant value, firms should not underestimate the economic significance and the growth potential that underlying AI technologies and industrializing machine learning can bring to various industries.

Investment in most tech trends tightened year over year, but the potential for future growth remains high, as further indicated by the recent rebound in tech valuations. Indeed, absolute investments remained strong in 2022, at more than $1 trillion combined, indicating great faith in the value potential of these trends. Trust architectures and digital identity grew the most out of last year’s 14 trends, increasing by nearly 50 percent as security, privacy, and resilience become increasingly critical across industries. Investment in other trends—such as applied AI, advanced connectivity, and cloud and edge computing—declined, but that is likely due, at least in part, to their maturity. More mature technologies can be more sensitive to short-term budget dynamics than more nascent technologies with longer investment time horizons, such as climate and mobility technologies. Also, as some technologies become more profitable, they can often scale further with lower marginal investment. Given that these technologies have applications in most industries, we have little doubt that mainstream adoption will continue to grow.

Organizations shouldn’t focus too heavily on the trends that are garnering the most attention. By focusing on only the most hyped trends, they may miss out on the significant value potential of other technologies and hinder the chance for purposeful capability building. Instead, companies seeking longer-term growth should focus on a portfolio-oriented investment across the tech trends most important to their business. Technologies such as cloud and edge computing and the future of bioengineering have shown steady increases in innovation and continue to have expanded use cases across industries. In fact, more than 400 edge use cases across various industries have been identified, and edge computing is projected to win double-digit growth globally over the next five years. Additionally, nascent technologies, such as quantum, continue to evolve and show significant potential for value creation. Our updated analysis for 2023 shows that the four industries likely to see the earliest economic impact from quantum computing—automotive, chemicals, financial services, and life sciences—stand to potentially gain up to $1.3 trillion in value by 2035. By carefully assessing the evolving landscape and considering a balanced approach, businesses can capitalize on both established and emerging technologies to propel innovation and achieve sustainable growth.

Tech talent dynamics

We can’t overstate the importance of talent as a key source in developing a competitive edge. A lack of talent is a top issue constraining growth. There’s a wide gap between the demand for people with the skills needed to capture value from the tech trends and available talent: our survey of 3.5 million job postings in these tech trends found that many of the skills in greatest demand have less than half as many qualified practitioners per posting as the global average. Companies should be on top of the talent market, ready to respond to notable shifts and to deliver a strong value proposition to the technologists they hope to hire and retain. For instance, recent layoffs in the tech sector may present a silver lining for other industries that have struggled to win the attention of attractive candidates and retain senior tech talent. In addition, some of these technologies will accelerate the pace of workforce transformation. In the coming decade, 20 to 30 percent of the time that workers spend on the job could be transformed by automation technologies, leading to significant shifts in the skills required to be successful. And companies should continue to look at how they can adjust roles or upskill individuals to meet their tailored job requirements. Job postings in fields related to tech trends grew at a very healthy 15 percent between 2021 and 2022, even though global job postings overall decreased by 13 percent. Applied AI and next-generation software development together posted nearly one million jobs between 2018 and 2022. Next-generation software development saw the most significant growth in number of jobs (exhibit).

Image description:

Small multiples of 15 slope charts show the number of job postings in different fields related to tech trends from 2021 to 2022. Overall growth of all fields combined was about 400,000 jobs, with applied AI having the most job postings in 2022 and experiencing a 6% increase from 2021. Next-generation software development had the second-highest number of job postings in 2022 and had 29% growth from 2021. Other categories shown, from most job postings to least in 2022, are as follows: cloud and edge computing, trust architecture and digital identity, future of mobility, electrification and renewables, climate tech beyond electrification and renewables, advanced connectivity, immersive-reality technologies, industrializing machine learning, Web3, future of bioengineering, future of space technologies, generative AI, and quantum technologies.

End of image description.

This bright outlook for practitioners in most fields highlights the challenge facing employers who are struggling to find enough talent to keep up with their demands. The shortage of qualified talent has been a persistent limiting factor in the growth of many high-tech fields, including AI, quantum technologies, space technologies, and electrification and renewables. The talent crunch is particularly pronounced for trends such as cloud computing and industrializing machine learning, which are required across most industries. It’s also a major challenge in areas that employ highly specialized professionals, such as the future of mobility and quantum computing (see interactive).

Michael Chui is a McKinsey Global Institute partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, where Mena Issler is an associate partner, Roger Roberts  is a partner, and Lareina Yee  is a senior partner.

The authors wish to thank the following McKinsey colleagues for their contributions to this research: Bharat Bahl, Soumya Banerjee, Arjita Bhan, Tanmay Bhatnagar, Jim Boehm, Andreas Breiter, Tom Brennan, Ryan Brukardt, Kevin Buehler, Zina Cole, Santiago Comella-Dorda, Brian Constantine, Daniela Cuneo, Wendy Cyffka, Chris Daehnick, Ian De Bode, Andrea Del Miglio, Jonathan DePrizio, Ivan Dyakonov, Torgyn Erland, Robin Giesbrecht, Carlo Giovine, Liz Grennan, Ferry Grijpink, Harsh Gupta, Martin Harrysson, David Harvey, Kersten Heineke, Matt Higginson, Alharith Hussin, Tore Johnston, Philipp Kampshoff, Hamza Khan, Nayur Khan, Naomi Kim, Jesse Klempner, Kelly Kochanski, Matej Macak, Stephanie Madner, Aishwarya Mohapatra, Timo Möller, Matt Mrozek, Evan Nazareth, Peter Noteboom, Anna Orthofer, Katherine Ottenbreit, Eric Parsonnet, Mark Patel, Bruce Philp, Fabian Queder, Robin Riedel, Tanya Rodchenko, Lucy Shenton, Henning Soller, Naveen Srikakulam, Shivam Srivastava, Bhargs Srivathsan, Erika Stanzl, Brooke Stokes, Malin Strandell-Jansson, Daniel Wallance, Allen Weinberg, Olivia White, Martin Wrulich, Perez Yeptho, Matija Zesko, Felix Ziegler, and Delphine Zurkiya.

They also wish to thank the external members of the McKinsey Technology Council.

This interactive was designed, developed, and edited by McKinsey Global Publishing’s Nayomi Chibana, Victor Cuevas, Richard Johnson, Stephanie Jones, Stephen Landau, LaShon Malone, Kanika Punwani, Katie Shearer, Rick Tetzeli, Sneha Vats, and Jessica Wang.

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Quantum computing funding remains strong, but talent gap raises concern

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Data Displays in Professional Promotion (Completed in 2023)

Previous research has found that healthcare professionals (HCPs) may not have the training necessary to interpret complicated statistical information and presentations. Prescription drug promotion directed at HCPs often includes data displays (also referred to as graphics, visuals, and visual aids). Examples include tables, charts, survival curves, forest plots, and waterfall plots. The objective of this project was to understand the characteristics of data displays in professional prescription drug promotion and how HCPs process and understand these data displays. First, we conducted a content analysis of data displays in print advertisements targeted at HCPs. About half of the data displays we found were survival curves, line graphs, or bar graphs with complex features. Most complex displays included a comparator drug, plain language restatement of the key finding, and disclosure statements with additional study details. Second, we conducted a literature review, which suggested that healthcare providers may not accurately interpret complex types of data displays.

More information

• Complexity of Data Displays in Prescription Drug Advertisements for Healthcare Providers
• Healthcare Providers’ Understanding of Data Displays of Clinical Trial Information: A Scoping Review of the Literature

Study of Oncology Indications in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertising(Completed 2023)

Oncology products are increasingly being promoted to consumers via DTC television advertising. Oncology indications are often complicated and supported by different clinical endpoints such as overall survival, overall response rate, and progression-free survival that are referenced in the DTC TV ads. The first objective of this project was to determine whether disclosing information about the nature of the endpoints that support the indications for oncology products helps consumers understand the drug's efficacy. First, we conducted a literature review which supported the need for research on this topic. Second, we conducted focus groups with cancer survivors and general population participants and found that people can misinterpret oncology endpoints. Third, we conducted two studies with US adults and found that disclosures could help reduce the extent to which people misinterpret oncology endpoints.

Because of the length of some indications, sponsors sometimes convey some of the indication in superimposed text rather than in the audio in the TV ads. The second objective is to test whether consumers adequately comprehend indication statements when portions of the indication are presented only in the superimposed text of television ads while other information is conveyed in the audio. More information on this topic is pending peer review.

• Patients’ Understanding of Oncology Clinical Endpoints: A Literature Review
• Patients’ Understanding of Oncology Clinical Endpoints: Environmental Scan and Focus Groups
• Patient Understanding of Oncology Clinical Trial Endpoints in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertising

Assessment of Terms and Phrases Commonly Used in Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2023)

Prescription drug promotional materials often contain terms and phrases that can have varied interpretations or connotations. Examples include use of “prevent” versus “help prevent” (with help serving as a qualifier) regarding an unfavorable disease outcome, and descriptors such as a few, some, many, the majority , and most . Little is known about the meanings members of the general population or health care providers assign to these terms and phrases. In response, a two-part study was designed to investigate what these terms and phrases mean to these populations, including what they imply about prescription drug efficacy and risk. First, through virtual semi-structured interviews, impressions were gathered from 30 general population consumers and 30 primary care physicians on approximately 30 terms and phrases. Next, a nationally representative survey involving 1,069 general population consumers and 1,080 primary care physicians gathered insights on the same set of terms and phrases. As sample findings, use of prevent tended to suggest a guarantee of efficacy, while using the phrase help prevent instead partially mitigated this issue. Regarding the descriptors a few, some, many, the majority , and most , there was wide variation in terms of how many people out of 100 these were thought to refer to, indicating these terms and phrases mean different things to different people. These and other findings from the research offer important implications for the promotion of prescription drug products in terms of ensuring the studied terms and phrases are interpreted as intended, and that such interpretations adequately reflect the safety and efficacy of the products being promoted.

• Assessment of Terms and Phrases Commonly Used in Prescription Drug Promotion

Character-Space-Limited Online Prescription Drug Communications (Completed in 2022)

Prescription drug regulations require a fair balance of the content and prominence of risk and benefit information in prescription drug product claim promotion. The rise of Internet communications that have character space limitations, such as sponsored link promotion and microblog messaging, has led to questions about how to use these communications for prescription drug promotion while complying with the fair balance requirements. In 2014, FDA released draft guidance, “Guidance for Industry Internet/Social Media Platforms with Character Space Limitations — Presenting Risk and Benefit Information for Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices” which states:

Regardless of character space constraints that may be present on certain Internet/social media platforms, if a firm chooses to make a product benefit claim, the firm should also incorporate risk information within the same character-space-limited communication. The firm should also provide a mechanism to allow direct access to a more complete discussion of the risks associated with its product.

This project was designed to address the question of whether substantive risk information in the character-space-limited (CSL) communications is effective in communicating risks when benefit claims are made, or whether a link to the risk information is sufficient. Within each study, we manipulated whether or not substantive risk information appears in the character-space-limited communication. In four studies, participants viewed the study search page once without prompting to pay attention to the CSL communication and a second time with prompting. Few participants clicked the link in the CSL communication the first time they saw it. Participants were more likely to recognize the substantial risk after the first viewing if the substantial risk was included in the CSL communication. The findings from the second viewing, when participants’ attention was focused on the CSL communication, add a caveat: if people are explicitly looking for information about the drug by reading the CSL communication, they may be less likely to click a link for further risk information if there is a substantial risk in the CSL communication. These results provide a first look at the tradeoffs for consumer understanding of drug risks and benefits when drugs are promoted in CSL communications.

More Information

Character-Space-Limited Online Prescription Drug Communications: Four Experimental Studies

Risk Information Amount and Location in Direct-to-Consumer Print Ads (Completed in 2022)

To fulfill the regulatory requirements for fair balance and the brief summary, sponsors have typically included risk information about the product in DTC print ads both in the main part of the ad where the product claims appear, and in a separate brief summary page. The section of the main ad where the risks appear is often referred to as the "Important Safety Information" (ISI). Including risks in both the ISI and the brief summary may have advantages. However, a potential downside to including the same warnings in both the ISI and again in the brief summary is reduced attention by recipients over time. We tested two levels of the ISI (short versus long) and the presence of the Brief Summary (absent versus present) in two different medical conditions (overactive bladder and rheumatoid arthritis). Participants spent more time viewing ads with a long ISI or a brief summary and in some instances, recalled more risks. The combination of a long ISI and a brief summary did not increase or decrease attention to or retention of risk information. Results suggest a long ISI and a brief summary may perform similar functions.

Attention to Risk Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Print ads: An Eye-Tracking Study

Interactive Advertising Literature Review (Completed in 2022)

Interactive advertising encourages consumers to interact with the ad instead of passively viewing the ad. We conducted a scoping systematic literature review to summarize the research related to consumer engagement with interactive advertising and its impact on recall and understanding of product claims and risk disclosures. We found that consumers engage with interactive advertisements, but the evidence is mixed as to whether interactive advertising increases consumer engagement, recall, awareness, and comprehension.

The Impact of Interactive Advertising on Consumer Engagement, Recall, and Understanding: A Scoping Systematic Review for Informing Regulatory Science

Physician Interviews on FDA-Approved Labeling (Completed in 2021)

FDA-approved labeling, or prescribing information, is an FDA-approved summary of the information needed to use a prescription drug safely and effectively. The labeling is written for healthcare practitioners. There are two types: Physician Labeling Rule (PLR) format (newer labeling format) and “non-PLR” format labeling (older labeling format). FDA’s Drug Labeling Coordinating Committee identified several topics related to the newer labeling format that would benefit from input from physicians. These topics include the resources physicians use to find information about prescription drugs; physicians’ interpretation of specific language in labeling; and presenting information on risks, drug interactions, and overdosage in labeling. The purpose of these interviews was to conduct qualitative research focusing on physicians’ use of, preferences for, and understanding of FDA-approved labeling. The findings suggest that of the content and formatting items surveyed, physicians had the greatest preference for: (1) uniformly specifying the age group for which the drug is indicated in the INDICATIONS AND USAGE section, even for medical conditions that are highly associated with only one particular age group (e.g., adult patients), and (2) uniformly including administration information in relation to food (e.g., “with or without food”) in the DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION section for drugs with oral dosing. The findings also suggest that including a long list of interacting drug examples in the DRUG INTERACTIONS section may be misinterpreted to be a comprehensive list.

More information  

Physicians’ Use of and Preferences for FDA-Approved Prescribing Information

Animation in DTC Promotion (Completed in 2021)

Animation has been used in DTC prescription drug promotion to adults (for example, Digger the Dermatophyte in Lamisil ads, and Dot in Zoloft ads). A content analysis of DTC animation usage showed that animation was used in a variety of ways and resulted in higher recall for aspects of the ad. The current research involves the creation of professional quality DTC prescription drug television ads and the conduct of a two-part experimental study to examine issues of animation and personification in DTC advertising. The study found no effects of animation or rotoscoping on perceptions of drug risk or benefit, comprehension, or behavioral intentions. Animated advertisements, however, resulted in more negative attitudes than live-action or rotoscoped advertisements. Future research should explore whether animated advertisements are recalled better over time or have any lagged effects on perceptions.

• Effects of Animation and Rotoscoping In Direct-to-Consumer Rx TV Advertising

Utilization of Adequate Provision in Prescription Drug Broadcast Ads among Low to Non-Internet Users (Completed in 2021)

To fulfill a key regulation pertaining to prescription drug broadcast advertising, a common practice is to present the major risks along with “adequate provision” referencing several sources where audiences can obtain the full product labeling. In recent years, questions have arisen about the unique value of the various sources of adequate provision and even whether sponsor webpages alone may sufficiently convey product labeling information. Cognizant of the sizable offline population, the present research investigates questions of access, ability, likelihood, willingness, and preference among a nationally representative sample of low- and non-Internet users who may wish to access the product labeling.

As a few key takeaways from the research:

• Findings favor the toll-free number as most accessible and most aligned with what the offline population reports capability and willingness to utilize.
• reported being most likely to use the toll-free number amongst other sources of adequate provision, and
• in the specific case of calling the toll-free number, reported a preference for having printed materials mailed to them.
• Utilization of Adequate Provision in Prescription Drug Broadcast Ads among Low- and Non-Internet Users

Disclosures of Descriptive Presentations in Professional Oncology Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2021)

Under the Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act and implementing regulations, promotional labeling and advertising about prescription drugs are required to be truthful, non-misleading, and to reveal facts material to the presentations made about the product being promoted. As a part of the ongoing evaluation of FDA’s regulations in this area, FDA plans to study the impact of disclosures as they relate to presentations of preliminary or descriptive scientific and clinical data in promotional labeling and advertising. The use of disclosures is one method of communicating information to healthcare professionals about scientific and clinical data, the limitations of that data, and practical utility of that information for use in treatment. These disclosures may influence prescriber comprehension and how and what treatment they prescribe for their patients. These impacts may vary based on the technical nature and content of the language used in the disclosure and the level of clinical training the healthcare professional possesses. Results provide initial evidence that in some contexts disclosures can improve understanding of the clinical utility of certain information about a drug and the limitations of results presented in a data display. Disclosures can also temper perceptions of how much evidence is presented that supports a conclusion that the drug is an appropriate treatment. In terms of the language used in the disclosure of data limitations, physicians in all three experiments strongly preferred the nontechnical disclosures.

• Physician Interpretation of Data of Uncertain Clinical Utility in Oncology Prescription Drug Promotion  

Healthcare Professional Interviews: Risk Processing for Newly Promoted Prescription Drugs (Completed in 2021)

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are often incredibly busy. This hectic schedule may restrict the ability or willingness of HCPs to process new information, including risk information included in promotional materials for new prescription drug products.   Through 20 semi-structured interviews, this research sought insights regarding how primary care physicians, specialists, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners process risk information for newly promoted prescription drug products, including consideration for the impact of typical time constraints. These interviews also included an assessment of attention to risk information in a mock promotional piece using eye-tracking technology.   Participants reported that they receive new promotional drug material, ranging from several times a week to several times a month. Typically, the material they see comes from medical journals, conferences, or pharmaceutical company representatives that visit their hospitals or offices. Regarding the amount of time they reported reviewing the material, participants’ responses varied. There was a general consensus that the amount of time spent reviewing the materials depended on the relevance of the drug. Some participants reported that if they are interested in the drug (e.g., if it related to their patient population or a patient had exhausted all other available drug options in the same class with little or no positive outcomes), they might spend 5 to 10 minutes reviewing the material in depth. Alternatively, some reported that if the new drug resembles another drug they are familiar with (e.g., is in the same drug class), they might review it for less time because they are already acquainted with the class. Others reported that regardless of their level of interest, they will spend no more than one or 2 minutes reviewing the material (with some reporting 30 seconds or less).  

• OMB generic information collection control number: 0910-0695

Healthcare Professional Survey of Professional Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2021)

In 2002 and 2013, FDA surveyed healthcare professionals (HCPs) about their attitudes toward DTC advertising and its role in their relationships with their patients. The 2013 survey included multiple types of HCPs: primary care physicians and specialists, as well as nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Whereas the focus of both previous FDA surveys was on DTC advertising and promotion, the current study was designed to address issues related to professional prescription drug promotion. The goal was to query a representative sample of HCPs about their opinions of promotional materials and procedures targeted at HCPs, clinical trial design and knowledge, and FDA approval status. We also took this opportunity to ask HCPs briefly about their knowledge of abuse-deterrent formulations for opioid products. We conducted a nationally representative survey of approximately 1,240 physicians (primary care and specialists), nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, drawn from WebMD’s subscriber network. The survey provides insights about how professionally targeted prescription drug promotion might influence health care professionals’ decision-making processes and practices and how information may be communicated more accurately.

• What influences healthcare providers’ prescribing decisions? Results from a national survey.
• Opioid education and prescribing practices : Results from a national survey of healthcare providers.

Superimposed Text in DTC Promotion (Completed in 2021)

Research in the late 1980s and 1990s examined the size of superimposed text (supers) in general print and television advertising. They found that larger text size generally resulted in greater comprehension of the information featured in the super. These studies also examined other factors such as the type of super, the complexity of the super, and the number of supers per ad. All of these studies occurred before the advent of common DTC television advertising and other promotion based on new technologies. A more recent study examined the role of supers in DTC television ads in terms of dual modality, looking at the content of the supers but not format issues. The current study applied and extended earlier findings to DTC promotion.  Moreover, because new technologies have emerged since the publication of these studies, we examined whether findings from television screens are generalizable when viewed on a tablet, where many people now view their media. Finally, we examined the contrast between the super text and the background on which it is located to determine whether that has a measurable effect on recall of the information in the super and the overall message of the ad. Results showed that larger supers were more noticeable and memorable than smaller supers, high-contrast supers were less noticeable, and tablet users had more favorable views of the advertisement.

• Superimposed text size and contrast effects in DTC TV advertising . Which presentation format is best for Rx drug messaging to consumers?

Consumer and Healthcare Professional Identification of and Responses to Deceptive Prescription Drug Advertising (Completed in 2021)

Prescription drug promotion sometimes includes false or misleading (collectively, deceptive) claims, images, or other presentations; for instance, representations that a drug is more effective or less risky than is demonstrated by evidence. A number of empirical studies have examined the occurrence and influence of deceptive promotion, both in regard to prescription drugs and other products. No research to our knowledge, however, has investigated the ability of consumers and healthcare providers (HCPs) to independently identify and discount deceptive prescription drug promotion. The ability of consumers and HCPs to identify deceptive prescription drug promotion has important public health implications. If unable to identify deceptive promotion, consumers may ask their HCPs to prescribe specific drugs that they would not otherwise request. Likewise, HCPs who are unable to identify deceptive promotion may prescribe specific drugs that they would not otherwise prescribe. On the other hand, if consumers and HCPs are able to identify deceptive promotion, they may appropriately discount or disregard such information in their medication decisions, and perhaps even report deceptive advertising to appropriate government regulators who can take corrective action. This project examined the ability of consumers and HCPs to identify deceptive prescription drug promotion, and the influence of such promotion on their attitudes and intentions toward the promoted drug.

• In line with expectations from FDA's Bad Ad program, primary care physicians demonstrated capability to detect and report deceptive (i.e., false and/or misleading) prescription drug promotion.
• Consumers also demonstrated capability to detect and report deceptive prescription drug promotion, although their capabilities tended to be lower than those for physicians.
• Both physicians and consumers were more likely to detect deceptive content in a promotional piece when such deception was either frequent in number or explicit; or in other words, more blatant.
• Only 3.6% of consumers and 6.6% of physicians in Study 1 reported awareness of FDA's Bad Ad program. Similarly, only 3.5% of consumers and 8.1% of physicians in Study 2 reported awareness of FDA's Bad Ad program.
• 82.2% of consumers and 44.4% of physicians in Study 1 thought the Bad Ad program should be expanded to consumers. Similarly, 91.5% of consumers and 58.5% of physicians in Study 2 thought the Bad Ad program should be expanded to consumers.
• Misinformation and Mass Audiences
• Detecting and Reporting Deceptive Prescription Drug Promotion: Differences across Consumer and Physician Audiences and by Number and Type of Deceptive Claims and Tactics
• Experimental Evidence of Consumer and Physician Detection and Rejection of Misleading Prescription Drug Website Content
• An Empirical Procedure to Evaluate Misinformation Rejection and Deception in Mediated Communication Contexts

Assessing the Inclusion of Foil Items in a Scale to Measure Recognition of Health Messages (Completed in 2020)

The OPDP Research Team often measures participants’ recognition of the messages in prescription drug promotion. Little research exists to guide the construction of these recognition scales. In this study, we analyzed previously-collected data to provide insight into how to construct these recognition scales. The results suggest that creating a recognition scale by summing only the true items in a list of true and false items creates a more discriminant scale than summing both true and false items.

• Assessing the Inclusion of Foil Items in a Scale to Measure Recognition of Health Messages

Patients’ Understanding of Oncology Clinical Endpoints: Formative Research (Completed in 2020)

Oncology clinical trials use a variety of clinical endpoints, such as overall survival and progression-free survival. Patients’ understanding of the differences between clinical endpoints is important because misperceptions of treatment efficacy may affect treatment decisions. We first conducted a literature review to find and synthesize available empirical publications assessing patients’ understanding of common oncology clinical endpoints. We searched the literature for empirical research studies focused on (1) clinical endpoints, (2) oncology, and (3) patient understanding. Thirteen publications met the inclusion criteria. These few publications suggest that healthcare professionals and cancer patients generally do not discuss clinical endpoint concepts and that patients can be confused about the purpose of a treatment based on misperceptions about endpoints. 

Next, we conducted an environmental scan to find websites accessible by a general audience that defined three clinical endpoints: overall survival, progression-free survival, and response rate. We found several online resources defining each endpoint; however, many of the definitions we identified used technical language that may not be easily understood by patients and caregivers.

Finally, we conducted a series of eight focus groups across the US with cancer survivors (N = 36) and general population adults (N = 36). Few focus group participants were familiar with the technical terms for these endpoints (overall survival, progression-free survival, and response rate). When presented with the endpoint terms and definitions, participants had misconceptions about treatment efficacy. Specifically, they tended to expect that all endpoints were a variation on living longer. The results point to the need for more patient-friendly definitions of clinical endpoints developed with general public and cancer patients’ input.

Risk and Benefit Perception Scale Development (completed in 2020)

To gauge how product risks and benefits are communicated in promotional materials, OPDP’s research team uses measures designed to assess both recall/comprehension and perceptions of product risks and benefits. As OPDP’s research program has matured, the way in which we measure risk and benefit perception has evolved over time. This has resulted in perception measures that, while internally valid, tend to vary by study.

In a multi-phase study, we tested and identified 21 validated measures that represent 11 distinct risk/benefit constructs. The final measures demonstrated face validity, convergent validity, criterion-related validity, and scale reliability in both illness and general population samples, among patients with both symptomatic and asymptomatic health conditions, and in response to both television and print direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements. Researchers and practitioners can use these items to assess patient perceptions of prescription drug risk, benefit, and efficacy and to ensure greater future comparability between studies.

• Development and validation of prescription drug risk, efficacy, and benefit perception measures in the context of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising

Quantitative Information in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertisements (Completed in 2019)

A previous FDA study found that simple quantitative information could be conveyed in DTC television ads in ways that increased consumer’s knowledge about the drug (see “Presentation of Quantitative Benefit Information in DTC Television and Print Advertisements for Prescription Drugs” below). However, this research only tested simple information (e.g., one clinical trial, comparison to placebo). Drug information can be much more complicated (e.g., complicated endpoints, multiple study arms). The studies in this project were designed to address the question of whether consumers can take more complicated information into account when assessing prescription drug information in television DTC ads. These studies build on previous research by (1) examining more complicated quantitative information, (2) examining quantitative information for both benefits and risks, and (3) examining how visuals designed to represent efficacy interact with quantitative information.

The first published article from this project suggests that there are tradeoffs to adding multiple quantitative benefit outcomes in DTC ads. However, presenting multiple quantitative risk categories helps consumers better understand a drug’s risks. Specifically, compared with an ad containing no quantitative information, presenting two benefit outcomes and multiple risk categories increased gist and verbatim recall and affected drug perceptions. Compared with presenting a single benefit outcome, presenting two benefit outcomes increased verbatim recall for the second outcome but decreased verbatim recall for the first outcome. Likewise, compared with presenting a single risk category, presenting multiple risk categories increased gist and verbatim recall for the multiple risk categories but decreased gist recall for a concept more closely associated with the single risk category. Adding multiple risk categories decreased risk perceptions even more than did the single risk category.

The second published article from this project suggests that exaggerating benefits visually can mislead viewers. In two studies, we found that participants who saw exaggerated images were more likely than those who saw no image or accurate images to overestimate efficacy. Presenting quantitative information increased participants’ gist and verbatim recall of drug efficacy, and in some cases, led participants to have more accurate perceptions of the drug’s efficacy even in the presence of exaggerated images.

• The Effect of Including Quantitative Information on Multiple Endpoints in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Advertisements
• Visual Images of Prescription Drug Benefits in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertisements

General Population Survey on Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2019)

FDA last surveyed patients about their attitudes toward DTC advertising in 2002 (Aikin, Swasy & Braman, 2004). Results from the 1999 and 2002 patient surveys on this topic indicate a number of areas for follow-up including 1) the percentage of patients who are likely to receive a prescription when they ask for a specific brand, 2) the influence of DTC ads in prompting further information search about the product or the medical condition, 3) patients’ perceptions about the amount of information about the products’ risks versus benefits, and 4) patients’ perceptions that the ads sometimes make the products seem better than they really are.

The purpose of this project is to conduct a follow-up survey to the FDA’s 1999 and 2002 patient surveys on attitudes toward direct-to-consumer promotion of prescription drugs and the impact of such promotion on the doctor-patient relationship. Specifically, we: 1) recruited a wider range of respondents, 2) weighted the data to obtain a nationally representative sample, and 3) asked a wider range of questions about DTC promotion, including questions about online DTC promotion.

The first published article from this survey evaluated US adults’ knowledge of FDA regulation of prescription drug approval and advertising. The results highlight gaps in consumer knowledge of FDA’s roles and responsibilities. For instance, few respondents understood FDA oversight of prescription drug advertising, with approximately half of respondents reporting that they did not know whether FDA approved these ads or components of the ads, and several mis-reporting that FDA approves these ads (31%) or components of the ads (22-41%).

The second published article from this survey explored how patients view the effects of DTC prescription drug advertising on patient-provider interactions. The results suggest that DTC advertising is driving some patients to discuss specific products with their healthcare providers, but that most patients do not believe advertising has a negative influence on the patient-provider interaction itself.

The third published article from this survey gathered updated insights on consumer experiences with and attitudes towards DTC promotion of prescription drugs. Results showed high exposure and indifferent attitudes to DTC promotion. Respondents reported DTC promotion has prompted action, particularly searches for more information, increased use of online resources, and some reported that they refused to take or stopped taking a prescription drug because they saw or heard about the drug’s side effects.

• Consumer Understanding of the Scope of FDA’s Prescription Drug Regulatory Oversight: A Nationally Representative Survey
• Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising and Patient-Provider Interactions
• Consumers’ Experience with and Attitudes toward Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Promotion: A Nationally Representative Survey

Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and the Patient-Prescriber Encounter: A Systematic Review (Completed in 2019)

We systematically reviewed the research on patients’ and prescribers’ perceptions of, and self-reported behaviors prompted by, exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs that occurs in the context of a clinical encounter. We identified 38 studies that met our criteria, 24 of which used patient-reported outcomes and 18 used prescriber-reported outcomes (four used both). Results suggested some potential benefits of exposure to DTCA, including patients’ enhanced information-seeking, increased patient requests for appropriate prescriptions (when addressing potential underuse) and patients’ perceptions of higher-quality interactions with prescribers. Most prescribers perceived a neutral influence on the quality of their clinical interactions with patients regarding DTCA. Harms included patients receiving prescriptions for drugs that were not appropriate for them or that the patients did not need, and the potential for DTCA to interfere with medication adherence in some populations, such as those with mental illness.

• Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs and the Patient–Prescriber Encounter: A Systematic Review

Market Claims in DTC Prescription Drug Print Ads (Completed in 2018)

Product attributes (“cues”) can be thought of as intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic cues are physical characteristics of the product (e.g., size, shape) whereas extrinsic cues are product-related but not part of the product (e.g., price and brand name). Research has found that both intrinsic and extrinsic cues can influence perceptions of product quality. Consumers may rely on product cues in the absence of explicit quality information. The objective quality of prescription drugs is not easily obtained from promotional claims in DTC ads; thus consumers may rely upon extrinsic cues to inform their decisions. Market claims such as “#1 Prescribed” and “New” may act as extrinsic cues about the product’s quality, independent of the product’s intrinsic characteristics. Prior research has found that market leadership claims can affect consumer beliefs about product efficacy, as well as their beliefs about doctors’ judgments about product efficacy. One limitation of these prior studies is the lack of quantitative information about product efficacy in the information provided to respondents. Efficacy information may moderate the effect of the extrinsic cue by providing insight into characteristics that would otherwise be unknown. Other research has shown that consumers are able to use information about efficacy to inform judgments about the product. This project examined 1) the effect of two market claims (New, #1 Prescribed) in the context of a DTC print ad with and without product efficacy information, and 2) the tradeoff between a market claim of #1 Prescribed and quantitative efficacy information. 

Results of the first part of the project (experimental study) suggest the market claim affects personal perceptions and perceptions of the ad’s message about drug benefits and perceptions about doctors’ opinions of the drug. Inclusion of quantitative information about product efficacy did not show a large influence on perceptions.

In the second part of the project (tradeoff analysis), results showed an advantage of “#1 Prescribed.” A drug without this claim needed at least 1.23% greater efficacy to be chosen over a drug with this claim.

• Market Claims and Efficacy Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Print Advertisements
• Consumer Tradeoff of Advertising Claim Versus Efficacy Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Ads

Impact of Ad Exposure Frequency on Perception and Mental Processing of Risk and Benefit Information in DTC Prescription Drug Ads (Completed in 2018)

Little is known about how repeated exposure to direct-to-consumer prescription drug promotion can impact consumers’ retention and perceptions of drug information. The study described here tested the effects of varied ad exposure frequency on these outcomes. In an in-person experiment, participants with seasonal allergies (n = 616) were randomized to view a mock prescription drug television ad either once, twice, or four times within 1 h of television programming, embedded with six commercial breaks. Respondents then answered a 20-min survey administered via computer. Those who viewed the ad more frequently were better able to recall both risk (X 2  = 20.93, p < .001) and benefit information (X 2  = 9.34, p = .009) and to recognize risk (F(2,597) = 11.89, p = .001) and benefit information (F(2,597) = 3.17, p = .043) than those who viewed the ad one time. Ad exposure frequency was not associated with perceptions about the magnitude or likelihood of risks or benefits. In general, risk information seemed to require more repetitions than benefit information to be accurately remembered. The recall was mediated by elaborate processing. Effects on memory were small; retention of both risks and benefits remained low overall even after four exposures.

• Taking Repeated Exposure into Account: An Experimental Study of Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Ad Effects

Hearing, Aging, and DTC Television Ads (Completed in 2018)

Because older adults use a disproportionate number of prescription drugs and watch more television than other age groups, their understanding of DTC television advertising is important to investigate. Age-related changes in hearing are nearly universal and may influence the understanding of speech and therefore the understanding of DTC television ads. This study explored how hearing and cognitive declines across the lifespan affect comprehension of DTC television ads in general and of the major statement of risks in particular. Results showed that cognitive changes and age were driving factors in the recall of risks in DTC television ads.  The study also showed that the speed of the spoken major statement and the complexity of the spoken major statement, but not the audio frequency of the voiceover, had negative effects on recall.

• Assessing Hearing and Cognition Challenges in Consumer Processing of Televised Risk Information: Validation of Self-reported Measures using Performance Indicators
• Aging and Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Ads: The Effects of Individual Differences and Risk Presentation

Content Analysis of Accelerated Approval Prescription Drug Direct-to-Consumer Websites (Completed in 2018)

We examined direct-to-consumer (DTC) websites for brand-name accelerated approval prescription drugs to determine whether and how accelerated approval is communicated to consumers. From the 34 brand-name prescription drugs under the Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval pathway presubmission requirement for promotional materials in December 2016, we identified a sample of 26 that had active DTC websites.  Two raters independently coded the websites for the presence, placement, content, and readability of an accelerated approval disclosure. Most (73%) of the websites contained an accelerated approval disclosure. Most of the disclosures (84%) included the basis for accelerated approval, whereas 68% stated that the clinical benefit of the product was unknown and 47% conveyed the need for additional research to confirm study findings. On average, the disclosures required at least a high school reading level and most conveyed the information in medical terms.

• Disclosing Accelerated Approval on Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Websites

Clinical Trial Data in Professional Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2018)

Several studies show that physicians are influenced by the way clinical trial results are reported. This may be a function of physicians’ knowledge about clinical trial design, or their experience with and skill in interpreting statistics. Surveys find that physicians believe knowledge of biostatistics is important but have less knowledge than is needed to understand all clinical trial results. However, little is known about physicians’ reactions to and understanding of clinical trial data presented in professional prescription drug promotion. We conducted 60-minute interviews with practicing physicians across the United States (50 primary care physicians and 22 endocrinologists). Physicians viewed prescription drug promotional materials that contained clinical trial data and answered follow-up questions. Physicians demonstrated low to moderate knowledge about clinical trial-related terms found in promotional prescription drug materials. Results from this qualitative analysis underscore a need to determine how clinical trial data in prescription drug promotional materials affect physicians' attitudes and decision making.

• Physician’s Understanding of Clinical Trial Data in Professional Prescription Drug Promotion

Major Statement Content Analysis (Completed in 2017)

This is a descriptive content analysis of major statements of risk information in DTC television ads. We examined characteristics of these risk presentations, including speed of presentation, complexity of the language, and the voice frequency of the statement. Major statements often presented numerous risks, usually in order of severity, with no quantitative information about the risks’ severity or prevalence. The major statements required a high school reading level, and many included long and complex sentences. The major statements were often accompanied by competing non-risk information in the visual images, presented with moderately fast-paced music, and read at a faster pace than benefit information. Overall, we discovered several ways in which the communication of risk information could be improved.

• Communicating Risk Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Ads: A Content Analysis

Disclosure Regarding Additional Risks in DTC Prescription Drug TV Ads (Completed in 2017)

Broadcast direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug ads that present product claims are required to also present the product’s major risks. Debate exists regarding how much information should be included in these major risk statements. Some argue that such statements expose people to unnecessary amounts of information, which may result in reduced consumer comprehension, minimization of important risk information and, potentially, therapeutic non-compliance due to fear of side effects. Others argue that they leave out important information. We examined the impact of the type of risk statement (unedited versus serious and actionable risks only) and a disclosure indicating that not all risks are presented on consumers’ ability to remember the important risks and benefits of a drug following exposure to a DTC television ad. Risk and benefit perceptions, ad-prompted actions, recognition of the disclosure statement, and evaluations of both the disclosure and risk statement were also examined. A web-based experiment was conducted in which US adults who self-reported as having depression (N = 500), insomnia (N = 500), or high cholesterol (N = 500) were randomly assigned to view one of four versions of the television ad, and then complete a questionnaire. The type of risk statement had a significant effect on risk recall and recognition, benefit recognition, perceived risk severity (depression condition only), and perceived benefit magnitude (high cholesterol condition only). Disclosure recognition (using bias-corrected scores) ranged from 63% to 70% across the three illness samples. The revised risk statement improved overall processing of the television ad, as evidenced by improved risk recall and recognition and improved benefit recognition. Further, the presence of the disclosure did not adversely affect consumers’ processing of drug risk and benefit information. Therefore, limiting the risks presented in DTC television ads and including a disclosure alerting consumers that not all risks are presented may be an effective strategy for communicating product risks.

• Serious and Actionable Risks, Plus Disclosure: Investigating an Alternative Approach for Presenting Risk Information in Prescription Drug Television Advertisements
• Individual- and Ad-Level Predictors of Perceptions of Serious and Actionable Risks in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug TV Advertising

Comparative Price Information in DTC and Professional Prescription Drug Advertisements (Completed in 2017)

By their very nature, medical and health decisions are comparative (e.g., treatment versus no treatment). For consumers, these decisions may include whether to use prescription drug products, over-the-counter products, or herbal supplements. Sponsors of prescription drug advertisements may decide to include truthful, non-misleading information about the price of their products in promotion. This may extend to price comparison information, wherein sponsors may include information about the price of a competing product, provided certain conditions are met. These advertisements may not, either directly or by implication, represent that the drug is safer or more effective than another drug unless substantiated by appropriate evidence. We investigated, through empirical research, the impact of price comparison information about the reference and comparator product and additional contextual information about the comparative safety and efficacy of the productson prescription drug product perceptions. This was investigated in DTC and healthcare-directed professional advertising for prescription drugs.

For the HCP-directed component of the study, we found that the majority of physicians accurately recognized the price claim (76%) but far fewer accurately recognized the associated context statement (44.9%). The context statement did not affect evaluations of the price-comparison claim importance or accuracy and did not have the intended effects on perceptions of uncertainty about drug interchangeability. Physicians may be affected by price-comparison claims in thinking that the drug has risks that are relatively less severe. Price-comparison claims also affected intentions to look for information about the drug.

Results for the DTC ad portion of the study indicated that when people remembered seeing the disclosure, they demonstrated uncertainty regarding risks, efficacy, and savings; however, most did not notice the disclosure, despite its prominent placement in the ad.

• Physician Response to Contextualized Price-Comparison Claims in Prescription Drug Advertising
• Consumer Reactions to Price Comparison and Disclosure Information in Prescription Drug Print Advertising

Prescribers’ Knowledge and Skills for Interpreting Research Results: A Systematic Review (Completed in 2017)

The objective of this review was to synthesize the research related to prescribers' critical appraisal knowledge and skills about understanding of statistical methods, biases in studies, and relevance and validity of evidence.  We screened 1204 abstracts, 72 full-text articles, and included 29 studies. Results indicated that physicians' extant knowledge and skills were in the low to middle of the possible score ranges and demonstrated modest increases in response to interventions. Physicians with formal education in epidemiology, biostatistics, and research design demonstrated higher levels of knowledge and skills. In hypothetical scenarios presenting equivalent effect sizes, the use of relative effect measures was associated with greater perceptions of medication effectiveness and intent to prescribe, compared with the use of absolute effect measures, but this evidence was limited by use of convenience samples and study designs that limit internal validity.  Critical appraisal knowledge and skills are limited among physicians. The effect measure used can influence perceptions of treatment effectiveness and intent to prescribe.

• Prescribers’ Knowledge and Skills for Interpreting Research Results: A Systematic Review

Web and Mobile Technology DTC Content Analyses (Completed in 2017)

This project included descriptive content analyses of two forms of online DTC prescription drug promotion. The first content analysis focused on whether and how branded prescription drug promotion delivered on mobile technology (phones, tablets) present drug benefit and risk information. We analyzed a sample of 51 mobile promotional communications and their associated linked landing pages. We assessed the content and format of the mobile communications and landing pages with regard to presentation of drug benefits and risks. These results indicate that, while risks and benefits are both represented in mobile communications and their associated landing pages, they are not equally prominent and accessible.

The second content analysis focused on whether and how cancer-related branded prescription drug websites present quantitative information about drug benefits and risks. We analyzed a sample of 65 active cancer-related prescription drug websites. We assessed the inclusion and presentation of quantitative information for two audiences (consumers and healthcare professionals) and two types of information (drug benefits and risks). We found that consumers and healthcare professionals have access to quantitative information about oncology drugs and, in particular, about the benefits of these drugs.

• Direct-to-Consumer Promotion of Prescription Drugs on Mobile Devices: A Content Analysis
• Quantitative Information on Oncology Prescription Drug Websites

Eye Tracking Study of Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisement Viewing (Completed in 2016)

Current FDA regulations require that a major statement of the risks of prescription drugs be included in at least the audio of DTC television ads.  FDA has introduced the idea of including the risk information in DTC television ads in superimposed text as well as in the audio (75 FR 15376, “Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisements; Presentation of the Major Statement in Television and Radio Advertisements in a Clear, Conspicuous, and Neutral Manner”).  In addition, the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA) required a study to determine if the statement “You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch , or call 1-800-FDA-1088” (the MedWatch statement) is appropriate for inclusion in DTC television ads.  These communications have been tested separately by FDA; however, they have not been examined together.  In addition, potentially distracting images and sounds during the major statement of risks in DTC television ads continue to be a topic of interest. Previous research has shown that factors such as multiple scene changes and music in advertising can be distracting.  However, the effects of this kind of distraction during the major statement of risks on consumers' perceptions and risk recall has not been tested in the presence of risk-reinforcing superimposed text.

This project used eye tracking technology to determine how these communications in DTC ads were perceived, as well as to measure the impact of distraction.  Eye tracking technology is an effective method to determine the extent to which consumers attend to risk information presented in DTC television ads. This technology allows researchers to unobtrusively detect and measure where, and for how long, a participant looks while viewing a television ad. We found that distracting elements during the major statement decreased attention to the superimposed risk text, which led to lower retention of the drug risk information. This suggests that even if the risk information is presented in audio and in superimposed text, distracting visuals should still be avoided.

• Attention to and Distraction from Risk Information in Prescription Drug Advertising: An Eye Tracking Study

Examination of Online DTC Drug Promotion (Completed in 2016)

This project was designed to test different ways of presenting prescription drug risk and benefit information on branded drug websites. One study explored the role of risk information placement and format. We found that the location of risk information on prescription drug websites affected consumers’ risk knowledge, suggesting that risk information is more effective when located on the homepage. We found no significant effects for including a signal to the risk information or for different formatting of the risk information (e.g., paragraphs versus bulleted lists).

In another study, we explored consumers’ understanding of drug information when a branded prescription drug website included a link to disease information. We found that consumers who saw a prescription drug website with a link to a disease information website confused drug benefits and disease information, even when disclosures explained that the disease information website was external. In an analysis of data across studies, we found that some consumers interpreted precautions on prescription drug websites as potential side effects.

Another study examined how videos on prescription drug websites, and the inclusion of risk information in those videos, influence consumer knowledge and perceptions. The results suggest that including risks in branded drug website videos may increase in-video risk retention at the expense of text-only risk retention. We also found that using an actor to communicate prescription drug risks on pharmaceutical websites does not appear to improve consumers’ understanding of prescription drug information.

We also conducted focus groups as part of this project. One issue explored in these focus groups was the role of online health communities in patient-provider discussions. Our analysis showed that individuals use online health communities to obtain more information about their health in addition to their communication with, and reliance on, their healthcare providers.

• Testimonials and Informational Videos on Branded Prescription Drug Websites
• Actors in Whitespace: Communicating Risk Information on Pharmaceutical Websites
• Placement and Format of Risk Information on Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Websites
• Are Disease Awareness Links on Prescription Drug Websites Misleading? A Randomized Study
• Consumer Confusion Between Prescription Drug Precautions and Side Effects
• Peer-generated Health Information: The Role of Online Communities in Patient and Caregiver Health Decisions
• Perceived Healthcare Provider Reactions to Patient and Caregiver Use of Online Health Communities

Effect of Promotional Offers on Consumer Perceptions of Product Risks and Benefits (Completed in 2016)

Research shows that consumers rate a product more favorably when they own it or are simply given a gift certificate or a coupon for that product or service. The inclusion of a coupon or other price incentive in the body of a DTC ad may affect consumers' perceptions of the risks and benefits of the prescription drug. For instance, consumers may assign more weight to benefit claims in cases where a coupon or other price incentive is embedded in the advertisement. For "simple" consumer products, coupons and free trial offers may enable the customer to test new products while minimizing his or her financial risk of testing the product. For products that consumers can readily test and ones where performance can be adequately verified, coupons and free trial offers provide both the consumer and manufacturer an efficient mechanism for matching consumers and products. For more complex products such as prescription drugs where supervision of a physician is required to evaluate both appropriateness and performance, coupons and free trial offers may send different signals.

This study examined what impact, if any, the presence of coupons in DTC advertisements have on consumers' recall and perceptions of product risks and benefits, and the overall impression of the product in DTC full-product and reminder advertisements. We found little effect of promotional offers. Adding benefit (risk) information to the ad increased consumers’ knowledge of the benefit (risk) information and their efficacy (risk) perceptions. In most cases, adding risk information to an ad with benefit information increased risk knowledge and perceptions without decreasing benefit knowledge or perceptions.

• Consumer Perceptions of Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drug Advertisements with Promotional Offers  

Prescription Drug Promotion from 2001-2014 (Completed in 2016)

The volume of prescription drug promotion over time is often measured by assessing changes in promotional spending. However, this method obscures the fact that some types of promotion are more expensive than others. Another way to measure the changes in prescription drug promotion over time is to assess the number of promotional pieces submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Form FDA 2253 collects information such as the date submitted and the type of material submitted. We analyzed data from Forms FDA 2253 received from 2001–2014. We examined the frequency of submissions by audience (consumer and healthcare professional) and type of promotional material. There was a noted increase in prescription drug promotion submissions across all media in the early 2000s. Although non-Internet promotion submissions have since plateaued, Internet promotion continued to increase. These results can help public health advocates and regulators focus attention and resources.

• Prescription Drug Promotion from 2001-2014: Data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Disease Information in Branded Promotional Material (Completed in 2015)

DTC prescription drug advertisements sometimes include information about the disease condition in addition to information about the advertised product. Although the intent of such information is to educate about the disease condition, in some cases consumers may mistakenly assume that the drug will address all of the potential consequences of the condition mentioned in the ad. We investigated the effects of adding disease information to DTC prescription drug print ads on consumer product perceptions and understanding.

We found that exposure to disease information as part of DTC prescription drug ads can promote the impression that the drug addresses consequences of the condition that are not part of the drug's indication.

• Disease Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Print Ads  

Communicating Composite Scores in DTC Advertising (Completed in 2015)

To market their products, manufacturers of prescription drugs must demonstrate efficacy and safety to FDA, typically in two adequate and well-controlled clinical trials. In some cases, product efficacy can be measured by a single endpoint, such as high blood pressure. In other cases, however, efficacy is measured by multiple endpoints or outcomes that are sometimes combined into an overall score called a composite score. For example, nasal congestion is measured by examining individual symptoms such as runny nose, itchiness, and sneezing. Each symptom is measured on its own. An overall score is computed from the individual symptom measurements and if the drug has a significantly better overall score than the comparison group (e.g., placebo), the drug may gain approval and be marketed for nasal congestion. The drug may be significantly better overall but not be significantly better on a particular aspect (e.g., runny nose), however. Scientists and medical professionals have had training to understand the difference between composite score endpoints and individual endpoints but the general public has not. Given the frequency of DTC advertising, it is important to determine whether consumers grasp composite scores as they are currently communicated and how best to communicate such scores to lay audiences in general. This study found that participants were not familiar with the concept of composite scores but that informing them about composite scores increased their understanding of them and influenced perceptions of the advertised products.

• Consumers’ Understanding of FDA Approval Requirements and Composite Scores in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Print Ads
• Communicating Efficacy Information Based on Composite Scores in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising

Do Prescription Drug Ads Tell Consumers Enough About Benefits and Side Effects? Results from the Health Information National Trends Survey, Fourth Administration. (Completed in 2015)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed data collected by the National Cancer Institute to determine whether average American consumers believe direct-to-consumer advertisements (DTCA) include enough information about the risks and benefits of prescription drugs.

In this survey, 52% of respondents reported that DTCA does not have enough information about risks and 46% of respondents reported that DTCA does not have enough information about benefits. When we looked at these two questions together, we found that a large group of respondents, 41%, reported that DTCA does not have enough information about both risks and benefits.

• Do Prescription Drug Ads Tell Consumers Enough About Benefits and Side Effects? Results From the Health Information National Trends Survey, Fourth Administration

Experimental Study of Format Variations in the Brief Summary of DTC Print Advertisements (Completed in 2015)

There have been calls to create a “drug facts box” for prescription drug ads similar to the one currently used for OTC drug labels. However, it is unclear which data—whether numeric, qualitative, or a combination of the two—best aids consumer understanding. The statement “50 out of 100 people reported less pain” is an example of numeric data whereas “more people had pain relief” is an example of qualitative data. For this study, we tested combinations of numeric and qualitative data to find out what information may be most useful in a drug facts box. Our study demonstrates that the majority of participants who viewed numeric data were able to accurately report it. When people were provided with absolute frequencies and percentages, they were able to use this numeric data to report benefit and risk information regardless of whether they also saw absolute differences or qualitative information. These findings suggest that a simpler drug facts box may be useful for people trying to make decisions about prescription drugs.

• Communicating Benefit and Risk Information in Direct-to-Consumer Print Advertisements: A Randomized Study

Examination of Corrective DTC Television Advertising (Completed in 2015)

FDA regulations require prescription drug ads to contain accurate information about the benefits and risks of the drug advertised. When this is not the case, corrective advertising can be used to dissipate or correct erroneous beliefs resulting from a false claim. In 2009, for example, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals produced and aired corrective advertising for Yaz, a birth control pill, following a warning from FDA regarding misleading claims. Despite these developments, there is little experimental evidence about the influences of DTC corrective ads on prescription drug consumers. The current project examined the influence of corrective messages in the realm of consumer-directed prescription drug advertising. Specifically, the project examined the following variables of interest: (1) exposure to corrective advertising, (2) visual similarity between the original and corrective ads, and (3) time delay between the original and corrective ads.  Regarding exposure to corrective advertising, we found that a corrective ad counteracted beliefs of an overstatement of efficacy claim, but was less successful in counteracting omission of risk. Corrective ad exposure also affected perceptions of, and intended behaviors toward, the drug. Examining the effect of similarity and time delay suggests corrective ad exposure can influence consumer perceptions of drug efficacy, risks, and benefits previously established by violative ads. Corrective ads also can weaken consumer intentions to consider and seek more information about a drug. However, ad similarity does not appear to affect consumer perceptions and preferences. The length of the delay between violative and corrective ad exposure has limited influence. Broadly, these results offer evidence in support of the contention that television advertising explicitly designed to correct viewer beliefs about the risks and benefits of a prescription drug can be successful, and while further research is needed, these findings suggest that corrective advertising appears to be a viable remedy to combat some forms of misinformation through advertising.

• Correction of Overstatement and Omission in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising
• Correction of Misleading Information in Prescription Drug Television Advertising: The Roles of Advertisement Similarity and Time Delay

Healthcare Professional Survey of Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2015)

FDA surveyed physicians about their attitudes toward DTC advertising and its role in their relationships with their patients in 2002. Almost 10 years later, FDA questioned physicians again, both to get an updated sense of physician attitudes and to extend the 2002 survey. Specifically, FDA (1) recruited a wider range of prescribers, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants; (2) weighted the data to obtain a representative sample of healthcare professionals; and (3) asked a wider range of questions, both about DTC and professional promotion of prescription drugs. The study also examined awareness of FDA’s Bad Ad program and healthcare professionals’ use of social media.

• Awareness of the Food and Drug Administration’s Bad Ad Program and Education Regarding Pharmaceutical Advertising
• Professional Online Community Membership and Participation among Healthcare Providers: An Extension to Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants

Toll-Free Statement for Reporting Side Effects in DTC Television Ads (Completed in 2015)

As part of the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), we examined the addition of a statement in DTC television ads directing individuals to a phone number and website to which they can report side effects. We investigated the role of placement, duration, and prominence in the understanding of the product risk and benefit information in the ad, and the comprehension of the toll-free statement itself. We found that presenting the statement in both text and audio resulted in better processing of the statement than text-only presentations. When the statement was shown in text alone, presenting it during the entire advertisement or after the statement of risks resulted in better processing than a placement before the risk information. The placement, duration, and prominence of the statement did not affect risk or benefit comprehension. Further, the FDAAA statement was more noticeable, clear, and more participants were able to recall and recognize its correct purpose. Comprehension of product risk and benefit information did not differ based on statement wording.

• An Empirical Examination of the FDAAA-Mandated “Toll-Free Statement” for Consumer Reporting of Side Effects in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertisements
• Who Said it Better? A Test of Wording Differences in the MedWatch “Toll-Free Statement” for Consumer Reporting of Side Effects in Direct-to-Consumer Television Advertisements

Spousal Influence on Consumer Understanding of, and Response to, DTC Prescription Drug Advertisements (Completed in 2015)

In 2013, OPDP developed research to provide fuller understanding about the social context in which DTC ads are often viewed. Some components of this research were completed, whereas others were withdrawn due to concerns about their practical utility. Completed portions of the research examined experiences related to chronic illness management and medication decision-making among asthma patients and partners of asthma patients. That research showed that partners were involved in a variety of roles in asthma management and medication decision-making. Discussion triggers included worsening of symptoms, doctor visits, and medication cost and insurance coverage. Most partners are moderately or actively involved in the patient experiences of managing asthma, and this involvement is generally beneficial to the patient.

Stimuli Development and Pretests for an Attentional Effects Study (Completed in 2014)

FDA’s proposed rule, "Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisements; Presentation of the Major Statement in Television and Radio Advertisements in a Clear, Conspicuous, and Neutral Manner" (75 FR 15376), proposes including the risk information in prescription drug television ads in both superimposed text and in the audio. In addition, FDAAA required a study to determine if the statement “You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch , or call 1-800-FDA-1088” (the MedWatch statement) is appropriate for inclusion in DTC television advertisements for prescription drug products.  These communications have been tested separately by FDA; however, they have not been examined together. In addition, questions continue to arise about the use of potentially distracting images during the major statement of risks in the television ads.  This project was designed to create and pretest stimuli that will include these additional elements (superimposed risk information and the MedWatch statement) and vary the degree of distraction during the major statement.  The stimuli created for this project is being used in an experimental study—described under “Eye Tracking Study of Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisement Viewing”—that will use eye-tracking methodology. 

Focus Groups to Investigate Specific Terminology in Prescription Drug Promotion (Completed in 2014)

Focus groups allow FDA to investigate areas of interest to OPDP and sharpen the focus of the research questions for later quantitative studies.  For this particular set of focus groups, we examined consumer and healthcare provider associations with the terms “natural” and “targeted,” and obtained reactions to prescription drug promotion that use these terms.  Both consumers and healthcare professionals were generally skeptical about claims using the term “natural,” in particular when the term was associated with prescription drug promotion.  They did not expect that prescription drugs, which must be approved by the FDA and are developed by pharmaceutical companies, would be pure and free of all additives. In the context of the particular ads and examples given, most consumers and healthcare providers thought that the use of the term “targeted” was appropriate for certain prescription drugs. Select differences between healthcare providers and consumers were also observed.  For example, providers seemed more willing than consumers to accept the use of the term “natural” for products with less than 100% natural ingredients.  While these results do not provide conclusions regarding the acceptability of these terms in advertising or promotional labeling for individual prescription drugs, they do provide valuable information about consumer and healthcare provider perceptions that will be useful for consideration in future research.

Examination of Comparative Claims (Completed in 2014)

Despite extensive research on comparative advertising of consumer products in general and a limited number of studies on how DTC ads could help consumers compare drugs, very little research has been conducted on comparative prescription drug advertisements. Currently, most DTC ad comparisons focus on drug attributes, such as differences in dosing or administration method. Because few head-to-head clinical trials have been conducted, very few DTC ads include efficacy-based comparisons. This study explored two types of drug comparisons in DTC print and television ads: (1) drug efficacy comparisons; and (2) other evidence-based comparisons: dosing, mechanism of action, and indication.

The first experiment showed that participants who viewed print (but not video) ads with named competitors had greater efficacy and lower risk perceptions than participants who viewed unnamed competitor and noncomparative ads. In the second experiment, named competitors in print ads resulted in higher risk perceptions than unnamed competitors. In video ads, participants who saw an indication comparison had greater benefit recall than participants who saw dosing or mechanism of action comparisons. In addition, visual depictions of the comparison decreased risk recall for video ads. Overall, the results suggest that comparative claims in DTC ads could mislead consumers about a drug’s efficacy and risk; therefore, caution should be used when presenting comparative claims in DTC ads. 

• Effects of Comparative Claims in Prescription Drug Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on Consumer Perceptions and Recall

Communication of Effectiveness Information in DTC Print Ads (Completed in 2014)

This project contained two studies. The first study involved the main advertising (display) page of DTC print ads. We examined whether adding placebo rate information and whether changing the framing of the information to include only the number who benefit (positive frame) versus the number who benefit and the number who do not benefit from the drug (mixed frame) helps consumers understand the risk information. Results showed that adding placebo rates to DTC ads may be useful for consumers, whereas the evidence does not support the use of mixed frames.

The second study explored how physicians use the approved label (prescribing information or PI), and specifically how they assess efficacy information in this document. We found that physicians review the sections in order, looking most frequently at “Warnings and Precautions” and “Dosage and Administration.” Viewing certain PI sections was associated with greater perceived risk, lower perceived benefits, and lower intention to prescribe. The results suggest that the content and format changes to the PI in 2006 are effective and that information in the PI is relevant to physician decision-making.

• Randomized Study of Placebo and Framing Information in Direct-to-Consumer Print Advertisements for Prescription Drugs
• Primary Care Physicians’ Use of FDA-Approved Prescription Drug Labels
• Important Safety Information or Important Risk Information? A Question of Framing in Prescription Drug Advertisements
• Presenting Quantitative Information About Placebo Rates to Patients

Patient Medication Information (Completed in 2013)

To make informed decisions about healthcare and to use their medications correctly, consumers need easy access to up-to-date and accurate information about the risks, benefits, and safe use of their prescription drugs. Consumers currently receive multiple pieces of paper with their prescription drugs from the pharmacy, containing information that is developed and distributed through various sources. Written prescription drug information is provided through a voluntary effort (Consumer Medication Information) as well as through FDA-mandated use of Medication Guides and Patient Package Inserts (PPI). We found that patients describe a wide range of experiences and varying degrees of satisfaction with information currently provided at the time medicines are received at the pharmacy. In some cases, the written documents are difficult to read and understand, duplicative and overlapping, and incomplete or contradictory. This project was designed to test different ways of presenting information about prescription drugs to patients who have obtained a prescription.  

• Preferences for Patient Medication Information: What Do Patients Want?
• Influence of Patient Medication Information Format on Comprehension and Application of Medication Information: A Randomized, Controlled Experiment

Presentation of Quantitative Benefit Information in DTC Television and Print Advertisements for Prescription Drugs (Completed in 2012)

We assessed whether quantitative information could be successfully added to television and print advertisements to maximize audience understanding of benefit information in the piece. We investigated the level of product efficacy (high or low), the statistical format of that information (frequency, percent, frequency plus percent, relative frequency, or frequency plus relative frequency), and ways in which that information can be expressed visually (pie chart, bar chart, table, or pictograph). In general, we found that providing quantitative benefit information in DTC ads increased participants’ ability to accurately report the benefits of the drug in quantitative terms. Further, adding visual aids, in particular bar charts and tables, increased participants’ ability to accurately report the drug’s benefits.

• Presenting Efficacy Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisements
• Visual presentations of Efficacy Data in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Print and Television Advertisements: A Randomized Study

Quantitative Summary of the Benefits and Risks of Prescription Drugs: A Literature Review (Completed in 2011)

A literature review was conducted in response to Section 3507 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The literature review focused on two questions: 

• What is the value of quantitative information or summaries about the risks and benefits of medical interventions for consumers, patients, and clinicians?
• How does presentation of quantitative information influence consumers’, patients’, and clinicians’ processing and understanding of the risks and benefits of medical interventions?

The review suggests that quantitative information about risks and benefits of medical interventions may have a positive effect on outcomes such as accurate knowledge. However, the review did not identify a specific presentation (for example, format or graph) that consistently led to better outcomes than other presentations. The review also addressed related issues, such as numeracy and health literacy.

• Communicating Quantitative Risks and Benefits in Promotional Prescription Drug Labeling or Print Advertising

Effect of Distraction on Information Processing in DTC Television Ads (Completed in 2011)

DTC television ads tend to attract much attention because they are so widely disseminated. Critics of DTC ads speculate that visual images of emotionally pleasant scenes during the presentation of risk information detract from the comprehension of that risk information. The current study investigated the role of visual and tonal distraction as well as the potential mitigating role superimposed text may play. Results demonstrated strong evidence that including risk-reinforcing superimposed text during the major statement increases comprehension of that risk information. Findings regarding visual and tonal distraction were less clear, partially due to manipulations that were not as strong as intended.

• Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Distraction on Consumer Understanding of Risk and Benefit Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Advertisements: Executive Summary
• Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Distraction on Consumer Understanding of Risk and Benefit Information in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Advertisements: Questions and Answers

As part of this study, the OPDP research team conducted a supplementary examination of the same issues using an alternate method. For more information about the supplementary study, please see: 

• A Supplementary Test of Distraction in DTC Advertising Using an Implicit Measure, The Affect Misattribution Procedure: Executive Summary
• A Supplementary Test of Distraction in Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Advertising Using an Implicit Measure, The Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP): Questions and Answers

Evaluation of Format and Content in the Brief Summary in Print Ads (Completed in 2011)

To improve understanding of how consumers use the brief summary and explore ways in which it might be improved, we conducted studies to address the following three questions:

• Does the risk information presented on the first page of the ad (the display page) influence the way that people read through and understand the information in the brief summary, and what topics do people think are important in the brief summary?
• Do additional details and context about side effects negatively affect the reading and understanding of other risk information in the brief summary?
• How do alternative formats compare with the commonly used format for the brief summary?

The results of these studies provide important insights into how consumers use information in the brief summary and ways in which the information could be improved. For instance, we found that the addition of a serious risk to the display page and the addition of frequency and duration information about side effects in the brief summary did not negatively affect the understanding of the risk information as a whole, including the most serious warnings and precautions. Thus, the addition of other types of context to the brief summary, such as numerical (quantitative) summaries, can be explored with less concern about overloading readers.

• Randomized Trial of Risk Information Formats in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertisements

Toll-Free Statement for Reporting Side Effects in Drug Labeling (Completed in 2008)

In 2006, the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act mandated that a statement be included on packaging for prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) products that gave consumers a contact number for FDA to report serious side effects. OPDP, in coordination with FDA’s Office of Regulatory Policy, conducted a study to determine the best wording for this statement. A series of focus groups with consumers was held which led to the selection of nine possible statements for quantitative testing. Experimental research was then conducted to evaluate these statements. Analyses showed that all statements were generally clear and understandable with the exception of one statement. Participants were able to distinguish between serious and minor side effects and reported that they would call their healthcare provider for medical emergencies rather than FDA. Overall, few individuals reported that they would call the FDA to report side effects.

• Toll-Free Number for Reporting Adverse Events on Labeling for Human Drug Products: Label Comprehension

Patient and Physician Attitudes and Behaviors Associated with DTC Promotion of Prescription Drugs (Completed in 2004)

To evaluate attitudes toward DTC broadcast ads and the impact these ads have on doctor-patient interactions, two surveys of consumers were undertaken in 1999 and 2002.  A survey of physicians was also conducted in 2002. Findings indicate that DTC advertising has both positive and negative effects, as reported from both the physician and patient perspective. DTC advertising has potential to increase awareness of conditions and treatments, motivate questions for the healthcare provider, and help patients ask better questions. However, DTC advertising may also lead physicians to feel pressured to prescribe particular drugs. These findings are important because any influence that DTC advertising has on the doctor-patient relationship may have broad implications for healthcare.  

• Patient and Physician Attitudes and Behaviors Associated With DTC Promotion of Prescription Drugs - Summary of FDA Survey Research Results

Visit  Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) Research