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1
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- Finding, Evaluating, and Using
- Web Information Resources
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2
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- Find current news and weather information on the Web.
- Obtain maps and city guides.
- Use online library resources.
- Find businesses and people on the Web.
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3
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- Find library and text resources on the Web and cite them properly when
you use them.
- Find graphics and multimedia resources on the Web.
- Learn how to cite Web resources.
- Learn how copyrights affect your use of resources you find on the Web.
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4
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- To help you find current news and information, many search engines and
directories include sections devoted to news items.
- Some, like Excite, let you personalize links to specify the kind of
information that appears on the page when you log in. You usually have to register with the
site in order to do this.
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5
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6
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7
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- Search engines can be useful tools for finding current news stories and
many will allow you to choose a date range when you enter a search
expression.
- HotBot’s Advanced
Search page
provides two
ways to
do this.
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8
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- The AltaVista search engine allows you to set an exact “between” date
range on its advanced Search page.
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9
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- Go to the Web site for a search engine or directory that allows
date-range restrictions. Pg 241,
(use fig 5-3 to 5-5)
- Formulate your search expression.
- Set the date-range restriction in the search tool.
- Run the search.
- Evaluate the search results. If
you do not find useful results, select an alternative search tool, and
then run the search again.
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10
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11
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- Most search engines and Web directories include links to broadcast
networks, wire services, and newspapers.
- A wire service is an organization that gathers and distributes news to
newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, and other organizations that pay a
fee to the wire service.
- All of the major U.S. broadcasters have Web sites that carry news
features. Broadcasters in other
countries also provide news reports on their Web pages.
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12
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- Major newspapers have Web sites that include current news and many other
features from their print editions.
- Many broadcast news, wire services, and newspaper Web sites include
search features that allow you to search the site for specific news
stories.
- The Internet Public Library – Online Newspapers site includes hyperlinks
to hundreds of international and domestic newspapers. (next slide)
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13
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14
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- Web news directories offer links to the Web sites of newspapers and
other media outlets.
- News search engines let you search the content of current news stories
in multiple publications and wire services.
- Weblogs (blogs) are Web sites that contain commentary on current events
written by individuals.
- Companies such as Northern Light and Moreover offer news search engines
to promote their subscription-based custom news services.
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15
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- A number of Web sites offer weather information and forecasts. (next
slide, Fig 5-9, 5-10)
- Finding a weather forecast: Open a weather information Web site in a Web
browser.
- Locate the weather report for the city or area in which you are
interested.
- Repeat the steps to find other weather information in different weather
information Web sites.
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16
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17
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- A number of Web sites provide maps and driving directions.
- Although the information provided by these sites is not perfect (new
roads and detours caused by current construction work are not included),
many people find them to be helpful travel aids.
- One of the most popular of these sites is MapQuest.
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18
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- Open a Web site that offers maps in your Web browser.
- Enter the location of the map you need to find.
- Zoom the map scale in or out to suit your requirements.
- Print or download the finished map. (don’t bother)
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20
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- Go to a city guide Web site in your Web browser. (Fig 5-13, next slide)
- Search the site for your destination city, region, or country.
- Explore the hyperlinks provided by the site for your destination.
- You can find a variety of useful information using city guide sites
including information about entertainment, restaurants and specific
attractions.
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22
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23
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- Some Web sites include listings of businesses and people, much like
print directories that you have probably used to find telephone numbers.
- These sites often include search engines that specialize in finding
information about people and businesses on the Web.
- The sites that store information about businesses only are often called yellow
pages directories.
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24
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- Navigate to a yellow pages directory in your Web browser. (at home)
- Enter information about the nature and geographic location of the
business that you want to find.
- Run the search.
- Examine and evaluate the results to determine whether you should revise
your search or try another search engine.
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25
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- Many Web sites let you search for individuals’ names, addresses, and
telephone numbers.
- White pages directories collect information from published telephone
directories and other publicly available information and index it by
last name.
- Some Web sites make unpublished and unlisted telephone numbers available
for public use.
- Response to concerns about privacy violations has led to most white
pages sites offering people a way to remove their listings.
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26
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- Open a white pages directory Web site in your Web browser. (at home)
- Enter your name and part of your address.
- Run the search, and then examine the search results.
- Consider repeating the search with various combinations of partial
address information or variants of the correct spelling of your name.
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27
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- Virtually anybody can create a Web page on almost any subject.
- Resources of this vast online library include text, graphics, and
multimedia files.
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- The Web has made existing libraries more accessible to more people.
- Library users should see many new and interesting research resources as
traditional libraries and online collections of works that have serious
research value begin to recognize each other as complementary.
- The LibrarySpot Web site is a collection of hyperlinks organized in the
same general way that a physical library might arrange its collections.
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- The U.S. Library of Congress Web site includes links to a huge array of
research resources, ranging from the Thomas legislative information site
to the Library of Congress archives.
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- The Web contains a number of text resources, including dictionaries,
thesauri, encyclopedias, glossaries, and other reference works.
- A computer interface allows you to enter a search term and saves you the
trouble of scanning several pages of text to find the correct entry.
- Many of the best resources offered on the Web require you to pay a
subscription fee.
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- Free reference works on the Web are good enough to provide acceptable
service for many users and are worth investigating.
- The Web includes grammar checkers, thesauri, rhyming dictionaries, and
language-translation pages.
- The Web also offers a number of full text copies of works that are no
longer protected by copyright.
- Two of the most well-known Web sites for full text storage are the
Project Gutenberg and Project Bartleby Web sites.
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33
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- The APA and MLA formats for Web page citations are similar to those of
print citations. They include:
- Name of the author or Web page creator (if known)
- Title of the Web site in italics
- Name of the site’s sponsoring organization (if any)
- Date the page was retrieved
- URL enclosed in chevron symbols (< >)
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34
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- Citation formats for electronic resources are still emerging so you
should check for updates to these styles before using them.
- H.W. cite the Online Companion page both ways.
- Always check to see if your instructor or editor has established
guidelines that are different from these.
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35
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- Web page with a title and an author:
- Hinman, L.M. Ethics Updates. University of San Diego. Retrieved 12 Feb. 2004 <http://ethics.sandiego.edu>.
- Web page with a title, but no author:
- Java News. Sun Microsystems, Inc. Retrieved 15 Feb. 2004 <http://java.sun.com/>.
- Web page with a title and no author:
- United States Postal Service home page. Retrieved 18 March 2004 <http://www.usps.com>.
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36
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- Formats for citations to books, journal articles, and other research
resources that are accessible on the Web are more complex than the
formats for Web pages.
- There is no clear standard specifying where or how to break long URLs at
the end of a print line.
- Both the APA and the MLA recommend that the URL be enclosed with chevron
symbols (< >); however, this is not universally accepted.
- Any method of citing Web pages faces one serious, yet unsolved
problem—moving and disappearing URLs.
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37
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- Intellectual property: a general term that includes all products of the
human mind.
- Products can be tangible or intangible.
- Intellectual property rights include the protections afforded to
individuals and companies by governments through governments’ granting
of copyrights and patents.
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38
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- Copyright: a right granted by a government to the author or creator of a
literary or artistic work, the tangible expression of an idea.
- Right is for the specific length of time provided in the copyright law.
- Gives the author or creator the exclusive right to print, publish, or
sell the work.
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- Creations that can be copyrighted include virtually all forms of
artistic or intellectual expression:
- Books
- Music
- Artworks
- Recordings (video and audio)
- Architectural drawings
- Choreographic works
- Product packaging
- Computer software
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40
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- Works created after 1977 are protected for the life of the author plus
70 years (in U.S.).
- Registration is no longer required in the U.S.
- A work that was created after 1977 is automatically copyrighted unless
the creator makes a specific statement on the work that it is not
copyrighted.
- Once the copyright has expired, the work is in the public domain, which
means you are free to copy the files without requesting permission from
the source.
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41
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- The idea contained in a product is not copyrightable.
- The expression of an idea is what creates a work that can be
copyrighted.
- A collection of facts can be copyrighted, but only if the collection is
arranged, coordinated, or selected in a way that causes the resulting
work to rise to the level of an original work. (e.g. yahoo directory--
no new info)
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42
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- When you use your Web browser to see a graphic image, listen to a sound,
or view a video clip, your Web browser downloads the multimedia element
from the Web server and stores it in a temporary file on your computer’s
hard drive.
- A new, intermediate level of ownership that did not exist before the
emergence of the Web is created during this process.
- Because computer files are even easier to copy than a picture in a book,
the potential for Web copyright violations is much greater.
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- The U.S. copyright law includes an exemption from infringement actions
for fair use of copyrighted works.
- The fair use of a copyrighted work includes copying it for use in
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
- The definition of fair use is broad and can be difficult to interpret.
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- Two considerations: how the copyrighted material was used and the amount
of copyrighted material that was used
- When you make fair use of a copyrighted work in your school assignments
or research, you should always be careful to provide a citation to the
original work. (Almost all of this course is not original work and is
not cited, but you must!)
- Failure to cite the source of material that you use (even though it is
in the public domain and not protected by copyright) is called plagiarism
and can be a serious violation of your school’s academic honesty policy.
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45
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- Free files often carry a restriction against selling or redistributing
them, even though you may be able to use them without cost on your own
personal Web page.
- You must carefully examine any site form which you download multimedia
files to determine what usage limitations apply.
- If you cannot find a clear statement of copyright terms or a statement
that the files are in the public domain, you should not use them on your
Web page or anywhere else.
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46
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- Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is an older format for images that
does a very good job of compressing small- or medium-sized files.
- Most GIF files you find on the Web have a .gif extension and can store
only up to 256 different colors.
- The GIF format is widely used on the Internet for images that have only
a few distinct colors, such as line drawings, cartoons, simple icons,
and screen objects.
- An animated GIF file combines several images into a single GIF file and
gives the appearance of cartoon-like animation.
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- Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is a newer file format that
stores more than 16 million colors than the GIF format.
- The JPEG format is particularly useful for photographs and
continuous-tone art (images that do not have sharp edges).
- Most JPEG files that you find on the Web have a .jpg file extension.
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- GIF and JPEG formats offer file compression, which is important on the
Web.
- Uncompressed graphics files containing images of significant size or
complexity are too large to transmit efficiently.
- JPEG file compression is lossy.
- A lossy compression procedure erases some elements of the graphic. The greater the level of compression,
the more graphic detail is lost.
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- Other file graphic image file formats on the Web include:
- Windows bitmap file format (.bmp)
- Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) (.tif)
- PC Paintbrush format (.pcx)
- Portable Network Graphics (or PNG) format (.png)
- Windows bitmap, TIFF, and PC Paintbrush formats are all uncompressed graphics
formats and Web page designers usually avoid them because they take too
long to download.
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- One of the best Web resources for the fine arts is the WebMuseum site,
which occasionally features special exhibitions.
- Many search engine and Web directory sites have improved their image
classification databases.
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- Many Web site designers include sound or video clips to enhance the
information on their pages.
- Sound and video files often require that you add software extensions to
your Web browser.
- Software extensions, or plug-ins, are usually available as free
downloads.
- Firms that offer media players as free downloads earn their profits by
selling encoding software to developers who want to include audio and
video files in that format on their Web sites.
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- A computer must be equipped with a sound card and either a speaker or
earphones to play an audio file.
- The Wave (WAV) format digitizes audio waveform information at a
user-specified sampling rate and can be played on any Windows computer
that supports sound.
- The size of WAV files limits their use on the Web to situations that
require only short, lower-quality audio information.
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- The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format is a standard
adopted by the music industry for controlling devices that create and
read musical information.
- The MIDI format digitally records information about each element of the
sound, including its pitch, length, and volume.
- It is easier to edit music recorded in the MIDI format because you can
manipulate the individual characteristics of the sound with precision.
- MIDI files are much smaller than WAV files and are often used on the
Web. They usually have a .midi
or .mid file extension.
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- The UNIX operating system’s audio file format is known as the AU format
because its file extension is normally .au.
- AU files are approximately the same size as WAV files that store the
same information.
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- Streaming transmission is a popular technique for transferring both
sound and video files.
- The Web server sends the first part of the file to the Web browser,
which begins playing the file.
While the browser is playing the file, the server is sending the
next segment of the file.
- Streaming transmission allows you to access very large audio or video
files in much less time than the download-then-play procedure requires.
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- RealNetworks, Inc., developed the RealAudio format for audio files and
the RealVideo format for video files.
- You must download and install one of the real file players from the
firm’s Web site to play these files.
- The file extension for this format is .ra or .ram.
- RealNetworks formats are compressed to further increase the efficiency
with which they can be transferred over the Internet.
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- Older video file formats are also available on the Web, including AVI
(Audio Video Interleaved) format and QuickTime format.
- The International Standards Organization’s Moving Picture Experts Group
(MPEG) has created a series of standards for compressed file formats.
- Recently, a number of Web sites have been created to sell digital music
in MP3 and other formats. These
sites have obtained the legal right to distribute the musical works they
offer for sale.
- Continuing developments in portable data storage technology and
increasing bandwidth should ensure that digital music grows for many
years.
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- Information can now be disseminated more rapidly than ever and in large
quantities, but with a low required investment.
- The subscription market required for a Web publication to be successful
can be very small or even nonexistent.
- E-zines, Web-based magazines, are appearing on the Web in increasing
numbers.
- E-zines can focus on very specialized, narrow interests and have become
popular places for publishing new fiction and poetry.
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- Current news stories, weather information, maps, and information about
travel destinations can be found on the Web by using specialized search
engines and Web directories.
- Online library resources and other research and reference resources are
available on the Web.
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60
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- You learned some facts about copyright protection, fair use, and
avoiding plagiarism in the use of text, images, and multimedia files
that you find on the Internet.
- Graphics and multimedia resources can be accessed on the Web.
- There are several image, sound, and video file formats common on the Web.
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Notes
