Computer and internet applications in medicine

1 - WWW.SlideShare.net/AhmedRefat ICT for MD Students, Zagazig University ,2018
‫االنترنت‬ ‫و‬ ‫الكمبيوتر‬ ‫تطبيقات‬
‫الطب‬ ‫في‬
Dr. Ahmed-Refat 2018
Free Copies
Uses of Computer and
Internet In Medicine
For MD Students
FOM-ZU

Uses of Computer and Internet In
Medicine
For MD Students, Part One FOM-ZU
Contents
Unit Page
1. UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD WIDE WEB-WWW 3
2. Anatomy of a URL 6
3. HOW TO FIND INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET 9
4. Google Scholar 22
5. Boolean Searching on the Internet 25
6. How to Develop a Search Strategy: Part I 28
7. How to develop a search strategy: Part II ( Application) 43
8. Medical / Health Informatics 52
9. Medical Apps and Mobile Resources 58
10.INFORMATION LITERACY 62
11.Online Information Seeking Behaviour and Models 64
12.Data –Information-Knowledge 70
13.Internet Ethical Issues: Copyright , Plagiarism and
Citation
78
14.Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW
Resources
93
15.Introduction to PubMed and MEDLINE 106
16.Internet and Evidence-Based Medicine 115
17.Using of Social Networks and Publishing Facilities to
Build Your Online Profile
129
18.Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms 132
Nov.2018
www.SlideShare.net/AhmedRefat
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Unit 1
UNDERSTANDING THE
WORLD WIDE WEB-WWW
The World Wide Web is a system of Internet servers that supports
hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single
interface. The World Wide Web is often abbreviated as the Web or
WWW. In addition to hypertext, the Web began to incorporate
graphics, video, and sound. The use of the Web has reached
global proportions and has become a defining aspect of human
culture in an amazingly short period of time.
Almost every protocol type available on the Internet is accessible
on the Web. Internet protocols are sets of rules that allow for
intermachine communication on the Internet. The following is a
sample of major protocols accessible on the Web:
E-mail (Simple Mail Transport Protocol or SMTP)
Distributes electronic messages and files to one or more
electronic mailboxes
Telnet (Telnet Protocol)
Facilitates login to a computer host to execute commands
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Transfers text or binary files between an FTP server and
client
Usenet (Network News Transfer Protocol or NNTP)
Distributes Usenet news articles derived from topical
discussions on newsgroups
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

Transmits hyptertext over networks. This is the protocol of
the Web.
Many other protocols are available on the Web. To name just one
example, the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows users to
place a telephone call over the Web.
The World Wide Web provides a single interface for accessing all
these protocols. This creates a convenient and user-friendly
environment. Once upon a time, it was necessary to be conversant
in these protocols within separate, command-level environments.
The Web gathers these protocols together into a single system.
Because of this feature, and because of the Web's ability to work
with multimedia and advanced programming languages, the Web
is by far the most popular component of the Internet.
HYPERTEXT AND LINKS: THE MOTION OF THE
WEB
The operation of the Web relies primarily on hypertext as its
means of information retrieval. HyperText is a document
containing words that connect to other documents. These words
are called links and are selectable by the user. A single hypertext
document can contain links to many documents. In the context of
the Web, words or graphics may serve as links to other
documents, images, video, and sound. Links may or may not
follow a logical path, as each connection is created by the author
of the source document. Overall, the Web contains a complex
virtual web of connections among a vast number of documents,
graphics, videos, and sounds.

Producing hypertext for the Web is accomplished by creating
documents with a language called HyperText Markup Language,
or HTML. With HTML, tags are placed within the text to
accomplish document formatting, visual features such as font size,
italics and bold, and the creation of hypertext links. Graphics may
also be incorporated into an HTML document.
PAGES ON THE WEB
The World Wide Web consists of files, called pages or Web pages,
containing information and links to resources throughout the
Internet.
Web pages can be created by user activity. For example, if you
visit a Web search engine and enter keywords on the topic of your
choice, a page will be created containing the results of your
search. In fact, a growing amount of information found on the Web
today is served from databases, creating temporary Web pages
"on the fly" in response to user queries.
Access to Web pages may be accomplished by:
1. Entering an Internet address and retrieving a page
directly
2. Browsing through pages and selecting links to move
from one page to another
3. Searching through subject directories linked to
organized collections of Web pages
4. Entering a search statement at a search engine to
retrieve pages on the topic of your choice

Unit 2
Anatomy of a URL
RETRIEVING DOCUMENTS ON THE WEB: THE
URL and DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. The URL specifies the
Internet address of a file stored on a host computer connected to
the Internet. Every file on the Internet, no matter what its access
protocol, has a unique URL. Web browsers use the URL to
retrieve the file from the host computer and the specific directory in
which it resides. This file is downloaded to the user's client
computer and displayed on the monitor connected to the machine.
URLs are translated into numeric addresses using the Domain
Name System (DNS). The DNS is a worldwide system of servers
that stores location pointers to Web sites. The numeric address,
called the IP (Internet Protocol) address, is actually the "real" URL.
Since numeric strings are difficult for humans to use, alphneumeric
addresses are employed by end users. Once the translation is
made by the DNS, the browser can contact the Web server and
ask for a specific file located on its site.

This is the format of the URL:
protocol://host/path/filename
For example, this is a URL on the Web site of the U.S. House of
Representatives:
http://www.house.gov/house/2004_House_Calendar.html
This URL is typical of addresses hosted in domains in the United
States.
Structure of this URL:
1. Protocol: http
2. Host computer name: www
3. Second-level domain name: house
4. Top-level domain name: gov
5. Directory name: house
6. File name: 2004_House_Calendar_html
Note how much information about the content of the file is present in
this well-constructed URL.
Several top-level domains (TLDs) are common in the United States:
comcommercial enterprise
edueducational institution
govU.S. government entity
milU.S. military entity
netnetwork access provder
orgusually nonprofit organizations
New domain names were approved in November 2000 by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): .biz,
.museum, .info, .pro (for professionals) .name (for individuals), .aero
(for the aerospace industry), and .coop (for cooperatives). ICANN
continues to investigate proposals for addding additional domain
names, for example, .mobi for sites designed for mobile devices, and
.jobs for the human resources community.

In addition, dozens of domain names have been assigned to identify
and locate files stored on host computers in countries around the
world. These are referred to as two-letter Internet country codes,
and have been standardized by the International Standards
Organization as ISO 3166. For example:
chSwitzerland
deGermany
jpJapan
ukUnited Kingdom
As the technology of the Web evolves, the resulting URLs can have a
variety of elaborate structures, for example,
http://spills.incidentnews.gov/incidentnews/FMPro?-
db=images&-
Format=maps.htm&SpillLink=8&Subject=Waterway%20Closure
%20Map&-SortField=EntryDate&-SortOrder=descend&-
SortField=EntryTime&-SortOrder=descend&-Token=8&-
Max=20&-Find
Another Example:
Deconstruct the Web address (URL) to find out the source of the
information (and the server on which it resides). What do the different
parts of a URL, divided by "/" symbols mean? URL addresses are
hierarchical. For example, the URL address:
"http://www.gmu.edu/facstaff/policy/administrative/60.html",
broken down into its components, is (from the lowest to highest):
 the file "University Policy #60"
- Responsible Use of Computing ("60.html"),
 is linked in a Web page called "University Administration
Policies" ("administrative").
 The "University Administration Policies" page
 is linked on a Web page called the "Faculty/Staff Information"
("facstaff"), which a link on MasonLink the GMU home page,
 which server is called: "www.gmu.edu."

Unit 3
HOW TO FIND
INFORMATION ON THE
INTERNET
There are a number of basic ways to access information on
the Internet:
1. Go directly to a site if you have the address
2. Browse
3. Explore a subject directory
4. Conduct a search using a Web search engine
5. Query a service devoted to digitized scholarly
materials or books
6. Explore the information stored in live databases on the
Web, known as the "deep Web"
7. Join an e-mail discussion group or Usenet newsgroup
8. Subscribe to RSS feeds
Each of these options is described below.
1. GO DIRECTLY TO A SITE IF YOU HAVE THE
ADDRESS
If you know the Internet address of a site you wish to visit, you can
use a Web browser to access that site. All you need to do is type
the URL in the appropriate location window.

2. BROWSE
Browsing home pages on the Web is a haphazard but interesting
way of finding desired material on the Internet. Because the
creator of a home page programs each link, you never know
where these links might lead. High quality starting pages will
contain high quality links.
3. EXPLORE A SUBJECT DIRECTORY
Definition: A subject directory is a service that offers a collection
of links to Internet resources submitted by site creators or
evaluators and organized into subject categories. Directory
services use selection criteria for choosing links to include, though
the selectivity varies among services. Most directories are
searchable.
Universities, libraries, companies, organizations, and even
volunteers have created subject directories to catalog portions of
the Internet. These directories are organized by subject and
consist of links to Internet resources relating to these subjects. The
major subject directories available on the Web tend to have
overlapping but different databases. Most directories provide a
search capability that allows you to query the database on your
topic of interest.
When to use directories? Directories are useful for general
topics, for topics that need exploring, for in-depth research, and for
browsing.

There are two basic types of directories: (1) academic /
professional directories often created and maintained by subject
experts to support the needs of researchers, and directories
featured on (2) commercial portals that satisfy the general public
and are competing for traffic. Be sure you use the directory that
appropriately meets your needs.
Example of an Academic Subject Directory
( University Library).
Health Sciences Library (hsl) of the ― UNIVERSITY of
NORTH CAROLINA‖ ( UNC.edu )
https://hsl.lib.unc.edu/
This directory contains subspecialized categories as follows:
 Find
 Research & Teaching
 Using the library
By going to ― Find‖ a drop out menu will pop up showing
the following sub directories:
 articles & Books
 Catalog (UNC-CH Libraries)
 Databases
 E-Journals
 E-Books
 Collections
 Subject Guides
 Special Collections
 Streaming Media
 Course Reserves

If you select any one of the above subdirectory( e.g E –
Journals) , you can access a comprehensive list of the
required items out of it you can locate a very specific one
that suite your need.
https://hsl.lib.unc.edu/ Go to
health
and
science
directory
https://hsl.lib.unc.edu/resources Select
resource
https://hsl.lib.unc.edu/resources/ejsearch Select
e-
journals
Select
browes
by
subject
Select Brose by Subject
Select Health & Biological Sciences

form this you can select-for example- "Public Health -
General" By Selecting Public Health , you can see results 1
through 50 of 524
Then you can identify basic information of ant journal , or
click a link to go directly to the selected journal web site .
4. USE A SEARCH ENGINE
Definition: A search engine is a searchable database of Internet
files collected by a computer program (called a wanderer, crawler,
robot, worm, spider). Indexing is created from the collected files,
e.g., title, full text, size, URL, etc. There is no selection criteria for
the collection of files, though evaluation can be applied to the
ranking of results.
A Search Engine is made up of 3 parts.
1. Computer program – called web crawler, web spider – this
searches web pages on the internet, collects the information
& takes it back to its index.
2. Index –Google then creates an Index from the information
that it’s crawlers have found.
3. Interface – What you see on your screen
Keep in mind that spiders are indiscriminate. Be aware that some
of the resources they collect may be outdated, inaccurate, or
incomplete. Others, of course, may come from responsible
sources and provide you with valuable information. Be sure to
evaluate all your search results carefully.
Before you begin searching – think about your search query
Search Tips
 Identify Keywords, variations in keywords , plurals
 Extra words – synonyms
 Related words (words located next to each other use ― ―
quotation marks)

 Searching for recent Information – consider using a ―date
range‖ search or a ―News‖
 search.
 Check spelling – different spelling (English vs American)
Examples of Search Engines:
 Google
 Yahoo Search
How Google displays search results
 Google Displays 10 results at a time
 Order of the words can effect the results- place more
relevant words first
 Google will search for phrases first
 Beware of Sponsored links (ad) when viewing your
results – these are websites that pay to appear on the
page.
 The order your results are displayed by is worked out
by algorithms/formulas developed by Google
Advanced Searching Tools
A search using Google for: critical care nursing will produce
millions of search results in Google, but by adding the extra
words ―education‖ and Egypt ‖ and searching for critical
care
Nursing critical care education in Egypt in Google will
produce less hits because ALL of the words have to be
found on the same webpage.
A. Phrase Searching

Search for words that appear next to each other by using a
―phrase search‖. Phrase searching uses ― ― quotation marks.
• ―critical care nursing‖
Phrase searching is good for searching for information
where words appear next to each other.
�―family nursing practitioner‖ Egypt
�―nursing curriculum‖ video
�"undergraduate education" nursing
B. Field Searching
When search engines index web pages they look at where
the words appear in a webpage and these different areas
can be searched by using various prefixes before a word or
phrase.
Use following prefixes can be used before your search term
when searching
 intitle:
 intext:
 site:
 allintitle:
 allintext:
 inurl:
B.1. Title Searching.
You can search in the title field of a webpage by using the
intitle: prefix
Examples

• intitle:‖evidence based practice‖
Note: When searching using the intitle: make sure there is
NO space between the ―full colon‖ and the word you are
searching for..
Refining your search
To further refine your title search you may want to add extra
words & phrases to your search query.
• intitle:‖evidence based practice‖ ―nursing‖ Egypt
Search all words in the title
Search all words in the title by using the allintitle: prefix
• allintitle: ―evidence based practice‖ ―nursing
education‖
B.2. Site or Domain Searching
Search within a website by using the site: prefix. Use the
prefix site: in combination with a web address, to search
within that website.
Examples
• site:www.lib.uci.edu nursing
• site:www.lib.uci.edu ―allied health‖
• site:www.lib.uci.edu ebm
• site:www.lib.uci.edu ―evidence-based practice‖
"nursing"
• site:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ‖evidence based practice‖
―nursing‖ Egypt

• site:medical.lib.uci.edu ―evidence based medicine‖
• site:medical.lib.uci.edu nursing
B.3. Search by website type
Search by type using the site: prefix
�―evidence based method‖ site:edu
Search above will search for websites that contain the
phrase ―evidence based method‖
BUT only Education websites.
�―evidence based method‖ site:gov
Search above will search for websites that contain the
phrase ―evidence based method‖
BUT only government websites
B.4. Search by country using the site: prefix
Many web addresses end in a country code. Google can
search within a country by specifying the country code in the
site: field
Examples:
• ―nursing education‖site:ca
• ―nursing education‖site:mx
• evidence-based medicine site:uk
• evidence-based medicine site:ca

To find the country codes do the following search in Google:
• ―country codes‖ ―domain name‖
Exclude a type of website using the –site: prefix.
• ―clinical practice guidelines‖ -site:com
This type of search will find websites with the phrase ―clinical
practice guidelines‖ but NOT any .com OR Commercial sites
Search in the URL field (similar to site: searching)
B.5. Search using the inurl: prefix
• inurl:medical
• inurl:ncbi
This type of search will search for your terms within the
whole web address of the
website not just the domain name part of the web address.
Good to use if you do not
know the exact web address.
B.6. Search for related websites
To find websites that are similar or ―related‖ to a website you
already know about, use the prefix related:
• related:www.gml.uci.edu
• related:medical.lib.uci.edu
• related:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
B.7. Web site information

To find information on a website such as type of website,
who links to your site,
websites that contain reference to your website, etc, use the
prefix info:
• info:www.lib.uci.edu
• info:medical.lib.uci.edu
• info:ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
5. EXPLORE THE DEEP WEB
Definition: The deep Web consists of information stored in
searchable databases mounted on the Web. Information stored in
these databases is accessible by user query. Search engine
spiders cannot or will not index this information. In other words,
this content is "invisible" to search engines. This is because
spiders cannot or will not enter into databases and extract content
from them as they can from static Web pages.
free and fee databases
Spiders can crawl information in static pages.
Spiders can crawl the surface layers of web pages with
databases, but spiders can NOTcrawl the information in
the databases.
A database is a collection of stored information. In terms
of research, there are two types of databases.
1. databases that are free and open to anyone
2. databases that are protected by passwords or
require a subscription

6. QUERY A SERVICE DEVOTED TO DIGITIZED
SCHOLARLY MATERIALS OR BOOKS
Dot-coms have become interested in offering free searches of the
world's literature as found in books and scholarly materials. Once
results are found, users can access the material based on its
copyright status. Material out of copyright are generally fully
available for viewing and printing, while only snippets of text or
abstracts are available for copyrighted works. In either case, these
services are opening up an enormous amount of the world's
printed material to be freely searched. The potential benefits to the
research process are only beginning to be understood.
Two notable sites for book searches are Amazon's A9 and Google
Book Search www.books.google.com . A9 has its "Search Inside
the Book" feature that offers a full text search as well as other
features including links to related works and a concordance of the
top 100 most common words. Google's service offers books
derived from publisher agreements and also from the collections of
notable libraries. Google's intention is to digitize all the books in
the world - we will see if this succeeds.
Scholarly material in the form of journal articles and other similar
works are also becoming available to be freely searched. Sites
include Google Scholar and Windows Live Academic
www.academic.live.com . Google Scholar enhances the research
process by allowing users to explore works that cite items listed in
your results. Users in academic institutions can often gain access
to the full text of these materials. Others can purchase materials of
interest.
Other services of these types are in the planning stages. They
have the potential to turn the Web into a truly significant medium
for research.

7. JOIN AN E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUP
Join any of the thousands of e-mail discussion groups. These
groups cover a wealth of topics. You can ask questions of the
experts and read the answers to questions that others ask.
Belonging to these groups is somewhat like receiving a daily
newspaper on topics that interest you. These groups provide a
good way of keeping up with what is being discussed on the
Internet about your subject area. Be careful to evaluate the
knowledge and opinions offered in any discussion forum.
E-mail discussion groups are managed by software programs.
There are three in common use: Listserv, Majordomo, and
Listproc. The commands for using these programs are similar. A
good Web-based directory to assist in locating e-mail discussion
groups is Tile.net.
8. READ BLOGS AND SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS
Blogs are a fast-growning phenomenon of the Web. These are
sites that present postings by one or more people, to which
readers can comment. While many blogs serve the purpose of
personal ruminations, others feature commentary and discussion
on current events, academic research and professional topics.
Good examples of academic-related blogs can be found on
George Mason University's History News Network. Technorati is
the premier search tool for locating blogs.
One of the newer communication technologies on the Web is RSS.
This variably stands for Rich Site Summary, Really Simple
Syndication, and so on. RSS allows people to place news and
other announcement-type items into a simple XML format that can
then be pushed to RSS readers and Web pages. Users can
subscribe to the RSS newsfeeds of their choice, and then have
access to the updated information as it comes in .

Unit 4
Google Scholar
Google Scholar Search
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for
scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across
many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers,
theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic
publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories,
universities and other scholarly organizations. Google
Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do,
weighing the full text of each article, the author, the
publication in which the article appears, and how often the
piece has been cited in other scholarly literature
Google Scholar is an Internet database that includes journal
articles, conference papers, theses, books, pre-prints, abstracts,
technical reports and other scholarly publications.
Material originates from publishers, professional societies, online
repositories, universities and other web sites. Patents can be
included in a search, or a search can be focused on legal
documents.
You can use Google Scholar to see who is citing an article you
wrote in order to get a sense of that article's impact. (Or as a
research aid, you can track the citations of any article of interest.)
Google Scholar, however, does not cover specific journal titles or
years. Content is gathered using web crawlers. Non-scholarly
sources can be included in the results. Thus it should only be used
only in conjunction with other methods.
A NEW FEATURE IN GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Citation metrics are available with subscribed tools such as
SCOPUS, Eigenfactor, Thomson ISI, etc. It requires
subscription to access those, and many of the new journals
have not been included in these databases. Google Scholar
crawls the web and identifies almost every scholarly article
available in suitable publishing formats in the web
Google Scholar Citations
Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors to keep
track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your
publications, graph citations over time, and compute several
citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it
may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for
your name, e.g., richard feynman.
Best of all, it's quick to set up and simple to maintain - even if you
have written hundreds of articles, and even if your name is shared
by several different scholars. You can add groups of related
articles, not just one article at a time; and your citation metrics are
computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new
citations to your work on the web. You can choose to have your
list of articles updated automatically or review the updates
yourself, or to manually update your articles at any time.
Using of Google Scholar to formulate different
citation Styles
Google scholar provides citations for articles from the search result
list (currently MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard or Vancouver). To
grab a citation click on the Cite link below a search result and
select from the available citation styles.

MLA Refat, Ahmed-Refat AG, et al. "Some Mobile Phone
Associated Health Problems among Mobile Phone
Workers at Zagazig City, Sharkia Governorate." Zagazig
Journal of Occupational Health and Safety 1.1 (2008).
APA Refat, A. R. A., El-Naggar, S., El-Laithy, N. S., & Aboel-
Kheer, M. (2008). Some Mobile Phone Associated Health
Problems among Mobile Phone Workers at Zagazig City,
Sharkia Governorate. Zagazig Journal of Occupational
Health and Safety, 1(1).
Chicago Refat, Ahmed-Refat AG, SafaaA El-Naggar, Naema S. El-
Laithy, and Mona Aboel-Kheer. "Some Mobile Phone
Associated Health Problems among Mobile Phone
Workers at Zagazig City, Sharkia Governorate." Zagazig
Journal of Occupational Health and Safety 1, no. 1 (2008).
Harvard Refat, A.R.A., El-Naggar, S., El-Laithy, N.S. and Aboel-
Kheer, M., 2008. Some Mobile Phone Associated Health
Problems among Mobile Phone Workers at Zagazig City,
Sharkia Governorate. Zagazig Journal of Occupational
Health and Safety, 1(1).
Vancouver Refat AR, El-Naggar S, El-Laithy NS, Aboel-Kheer M.
Some Mobile Phone Associated Health Problems among
Mobile Phone Workers at Zagazig City, Sharkia
Governorate. Zagazig Journal of Occupational Health and
Safety. 2008 Jun;1(1).

Unit 5
Boolean Searching on
the Internet
When you use an Internet search engine, the use of Boolean logic
may be manifested in three distinct ways:
1. Full Boolean logic with the use of the logical operators
2. Implied Boolean logic with keyword searching
3. Predetermined language in a user fill-in template
1. Full Boolean logic (logical operators )
Examples:
Query: I need information about cats.
Boolean logic: OR
Search: cats OR felines
Query: I'm interested in dyslexia in adults.
Boolean logic: AND
Search: dyslexia AND adults
Query: I'm interested in radiation, but not nuclear radiation.
Boolean logic: NOT
Search: radiation NOT nuclear
Query: I want to learn about cat behavior.

Boolean logic: OR, AND
Search: (cats OR felines) AND behavior
Note: Use of parentheses in this search is known as forcing the
order of processing. In this case, we surround the OR words with
parentheses so that the search engine will process the two related
terms first. Next, the search engine will combine this result with the
last part of the search that involves the second concept. Using this
method, we are assured that the semantically-related OR terms
are kept together as a logical unit.
2. Implied Boolean logic with keyword
searching
Implied Boolean logic refers to a search in which symbols are used
to represent Boolean logical operators. In this type of search on
the Internet, the absence of a symbol is also significant, as the
space between keywords defaults to either OR logic or AND logic.
Nowadays, most search engines default to AND.
Implied Boolean logic has become so common in Web searching
that it may be considered a de facto standard.
Examples:
Query: I need information about cats.
Boolean logic: OR
Search: [None]
It is extremely rare for a search engine to interpret the space
between keywords as the Boolean OR. Rather, the space between
keywords is interpreted as AND. To do an OR search, choose
either option #1 above (full Boolean logic) or option #3 below (user
fill-in template).

Query: I'm interested in dyslexia in adults.
Boolean logic: AND
Search: +dyslexia +adults
Query: I'm interested in radiation, but not nuclear radiation.
Boolean logic: NOT
Search: radiation -nuclear
Query: I want to learn about cat behavior.
Boolean logic: OR, AND
Search: [none]
Since this query involves an OR search, it cannot be done with
keyword searching. To conduct this type of search, choose either
option #1 above (full Boolean logic) or option #3 below (user fill-in
template).
3. Predetermined language in a user fill-in
template
Some search engines offer a search template which allows the
user to choose the Boolean operator from a menu. Usually the
logical operator is expressed with substitute language rather than
with the operator itself.

Unit 6
How to Develop a Search
Strategy:
Part I. Keywords and
Search Query
What Is A Search Strategy?
When you design a search strategy you are planning how you will
look for information. The more care and thought you put into your
search strategy, the more relevant your search results will be.
A well designed search strategy:
 saves you time in the long run
 allows you to search for information in many different
places
 helps you to find a larger amount of relevant
information
Different strategies work better for different people. There is no
need to follow every step in this tutorial. Try a few different
techniques to see what works best for you.
Listing Key Words
It is making a list of the words that will help you find the information
you need about your research topic. They are called "key words"
because they can "unlock" the doors that will lead you to

useful information.You will use them when searching through
books (using indexes) and through electronic sources (using
search screens in online reference sources or search tools such
as search engines or directories).
If you have good key words, you'll find the kind of information you
want faster. If you don't have good key words, you can waste a lot
of time not finding the information you need.
What are "good key words"?
Good key words are the important words or short phrases that
specifically describe your topic and closely related topics. They are
not long sentences.
The S.K.I.L.L Planning Strategy
When you need to find information, you should take time to plan
your search and develop a strategy. The SKILL Planning
Strategy, outlined below will assist you to do this.
Follow the SKILL Planning Strategy to plan your search:
Step 1 - Summarise your topic in one or two sentences;
Step 2 - Keywords and phrases need to be highlighted;
Step 3 - Identify synonyms, alternate terms, phrases and variant
spelling;
Step 4 - Link your keywords and phrases;
Step 5 - Locate your information.
STEP 1 - Summarise Your Topic
What specific information do you need?
Think about what specific information you need. It is helpful, at
this stage to summarise your research topic in one or two

sentences. For example, instead of saying you want to do an
assignment or paper on ―genetics‖ or ―the gold rushes‖ or ―eating
disorders‖, which are very broad topics, you could state your
specific information need as:
o 'I am interested in the scientific and ethical
issues of reproduction research, specifically
those related to human cloning'
or
o 'I want to investigate the effect of the gold
rushes on agriculture during the 1850s and
1860s.'
or
o 'I want to find information about urban planning
for sustainable environments.'
Questions to assist you with your summary:
Answers to the following questions will assist you to formulate your
research summary:
 What is the main idea of my research
topic?
 What specific ideas am I trying to
describe or prove?
 What coverageam I interested in:
international or a specific geographical
region?
 What types of information am I interested
in, eg. statistics, patents, journal articles or
conference proceedings?
 What is the currency of the information I
require: the last 5 years or further back to
the last 20 years or more.
When you have summarised your research topic, record it on the
SKILL Search Strategy Planner included at the end of this UseIt.
For example:

SKILL SEARCH STRATEGY PLANNER
STEP 1 - Summarise your topic below
I want to find information about urban planning and
sustainable environments.
STEP 2 - Keywords and Phrases should be
Highlighted
Identify and highlight the main keywords and phrases in your
summary. This will break down your sentences into keywords and
phrases (or ideas).
When you have identified your keywords and phrases, record
them on your SKILL Search Strategy Planner.
For example:
I want to find information on urban planning and sustainable
environments.
STEP 2 - Record The keywords and phrases
Phrase
urban planning
Keyword
sustainable
Keyword
environments
STEP 3: Identify Synonyms & Alternate
Keywords
Create a list of synonyms, alternate keywords and other phrases
(don’t forget words with variant spelling eg. paediatric or pediatric,
encyclopaedia or encyclopedia) that describe the keywords and
phrases you have highlighted.
These keywords and phrases will form the basic units of your
search strategy. As you progress through the search process, your
knowledge of the topic will increase and your list of keywords and

phrases will grow and/or be refined. Record your results in your
SKILL Search Strategy Planner.
For example:
STEP 3 - Record other synonyms & alternate keywords
and phrases
Keywords
from Step
2
urban
planning
sustainable environments planning
OR town ecolog* habitat* architect*
OR regional energy locale build*
OR city viable neighbourhood design*
Fig. 3: Example of Step 3: SKILL Search Strategy Planner
NOTE: The wildcard used in the example above is the * asterisk.
Some databases use " " inverted commas around words to
indicate a phrase search.
STEP 4: Link Keywords & Phrases Using
Connectors and Parentheses
Combine your keywords and phrases into a search strategy
Use the Connectors, OR, AND, NOT and Parentheses ( ) to
combine your keywords and phrases into sets and then your sets
into a strategy. If you find you have too many keywords, use the
additional ones to modify your search strategy after your initial
search.
NOTE: Connectors are sometimes referred to as Operators or
Boolean Operators or Boolean Connectors

Follow the steps below:
 Create sets by combining your synonyms
with the OR connector
 Enclose each set of synonyms with
parentheses ( )
 Combine the sets with either the AND or
the NOT connector
Record your results on your SKILL Search Strategy Planner.
For example:
STEP 4: Use the Connectors to combine
your keywords and phrases.
o Create sets by combining your
synonyms with the OR connector
o Enclose each set with parentheses
o Check the results for each set and
then combine the sets with the AND
connector.
Set 1 ("urban planning" ORtown OR regional
OR city )
Set 2 (sustainable OR ecolog* OR energy OR
viable)
Set 3 (environments OR habitat* OR locale OR
neighbourhood)
Set 4 (planning OR architect* OR build* OR
design)
Set 5 Example: Set 1 AND Set 3
Example: Set 1 AND Set 2
Continue with combining sets until you
are sure you have covered all
keywords and phrases.

STEP 5: Locate the Information by Conducting
the Search
How do you enter your search strategy into the database to
get the best results?
Using the SKILL Search Strategy Planner, you may find that you
generate a number of sets of keywords and phrases (similar to Fig
4 above). If this is the case, you may be able to use a building
block approach (similar to Fig 4 above) to enter your search
strategy into your selected database.
SKILL Search Strategy Planner
STEP 1: Summarise your topic below
STEP 2: Key words and phrases need to be highlighted
Key Word/Phrase
1
Key Word/Phrase
2
Key Word/Phrase
3
STEP 3: Identify other phrases, synonyms and variant words
OR OR OR

OR OR OR
STEP 4: Combine your keywords and phrases
o Broaden the search by combining
terms using OR
o Combine keywords with AND to
narrow the search
o Further narrow the search, if
necessary, by joining the terms with
the NOT or AND NOT connector.
Use the NOT connector sparingly!
Keyword/Phrase Connectors -
AND/OR/NOT
Keyword/Phrase
STEP 5: Locate the information
Build your search step by setp by entering your sets one at
a time into the database's text box. Review the results after
each step allowing them to guide your progress.

How To Improve Your Results?
Your initial searches might find not enough, or too much
information. Solution?: review your search terms, and either
broaden or narrow your search.
To broaden your search (i.e. increase the amount you find)
you can:
 reduce the number of concepts you are
using
 use an OR search
 look for alternative terms
 use more general search terms
 use subject headings as search terms
 make sure you have used any Boolean
operators correctly
 use truncation to get variations on your
term, or use alternate spellings
To narrow your search (i.e. reduce the amount you find) you
can:
 use an AND or NOT search
 look for more specific alternative terms
 use subject headings as search terms
 make sure you have used any Boolean
operators correctly
 use more precise terms
 remove any truncation
Building on what you've found
Whenever you find a record that seems relevant, or an information
source that is useful you should use it as an introduction to other
information.

In the library books are shelved together in subject areas. This
means that if you find one useful book on the shelves, there will
probably be others nearby.
Catalogue and database records have subject headings or
descriptors attached to them. If you search again using these
terms you will find other records on similar topics.
Most academic resources contain references and bibliographies,
which show where the author obtained their information. You can
use these references to find other information.
Summary
Key points to remember when developing a search strategy:
Be specific
Pulmonary tuberculosisEXAMPLE:
Whenever possible, use nouns and objects as keywords
Use At Least Three Keywords
Put most important terms first in your keyword list
interaction vitamins drugsEXAMPLE:
put a +sign in front of each one
+gas +vehiclesEXAMPLE
Combine keywords, whenever possible, into phrases
"search engine tutorial"EXAMPLE:
Write - Revise – Type
EXAMPLE: +"south Carolina" +"financial aid"
+applications + grants

Example
Say you were assigned a project about the ocean. You
will have to focus your topic later, but right now, all you
know is that you want to do something about ocean
mammals like whales or dolphins.
1. Write a sentence about your topic:
I want to do my project about some kind of ocean
mammal such as whales or dolphins.
2. Pull out the key words and phrases in the sentences
above and list them separately:
ocean mammal whales dolphins
3. Now start expanding the list with related terms and
synonyms:
ocean --> sea --> marine
mammals --> warm-blooded animals
ocean mammal --> marine mammal
whales --> cetaceans
dolphins --> porpoises
4. Are there any larger categories that might lead you to
information?
ocean mammal --> ocean life, marine life,
mammals, animals
5. Are there any words or phrases that are more specific?

whales --> blue whale, killer whale, humpback
whale
dolphins --> bottle nose dolphin
6. Now you have a beginning list of key words and
phrases to begin searching for information. You can put
them in order like this:
Synonyms and
Related Terms
ocean
sea
marine
ocean mammal
marine mammal
whales
cetaceans
dolphins porpoises
Larger Categories
ocean life
marine life
mammals
animals
Smaller Categories
blue whale
killer whale
humpback whale
bottle nose dolphin
6-
-
-
-
7-

Using Parentheses (Nesting)
In complex search statements involving the use of more than one
Boolean operator it is necessary to use parentheses (i.e.
brackets). This is also called nesting. Otherwise, keep search
statements simple, and combine them later
Truncation
Keywords may have variant endings - singular, plural and
adjectives - all of which may be relevant to your subject. Using the
singular form will only retrieve records which have the word in that
form. In order not to miss any 'hits' (and to reduce the amount of
typing!) use truncation.
Type in the start of the word plus the truncation symbol ($ * ? #)
depending on which database you are using to retrieve all the
variant forms of the word. For example:
Child*
Couns*
Wom*
Use truncation with care. Truncating inappropriately retrieves false
'hits'
Headings and Subheadings
Many databases use a thesaurus (i.e. a controlled vocabulary of
terms or subject headings to ensure that all items on a particular
topic have standard search terms assigned to them. Big, general
subjects can also be broken down into subheadings, and your
search using thesaurus terms can be more narrowly focused by
selecting one or more of these.

Limiting Search Results
You may get too many references, too few, or none at all.
Too Many:
* add additional keywords with 'AND'
* use more specific keywords
* use thesaurus terms
* limit by particular fields (Database references are divided into
fields. These can be the more familiar ones such as 'Author', 'Title',
'Journal Title' and others such as 'Abstract', 'Source', 'Year of
Publication', 'Language', 'Publication Type' and so on. Searching
for information in these fields can help you to make your search
more specific and reduce the number of references.)
Too Few:
* check your spelling
* use truncation
* use all possible synonyms for your topic
* terminology can differ (e.g. primary education in UK is
elementary education in USA)
* use alternative spelling
* combine keywords using 'OR'
* check the thesaurus terms.
'Snowballing' (Moving from specific to general)
Once you have identified some, or even one, useful reference it
can lead you on to other similar ones. Note the keywords assigned
to your reference(s) in the database. Use these to run a new
search. Also don't forget to search for other writings by the author,
and also follow up on the references your author has used in their
bibliography.

Limitations and Pitfalls
Database searching is not an exact science. How do you know
that you have carried out a totally comprehensive search, and that
you have structured your search strategy correctly? The answer is,
you don't. Sometimes, the sheer volume of references forces you
to be more specific and some key references may be missed.
When in doubt seek professional advice. Here are some things to
watch out for:
1. The range of databases which might be relevant in
your subject area - you may find references in less
obvious places.
2. Subjects can be described in different ways.
3. Indexers may apply a different range of thesaurus
terms to similar subjects.
4. Authors' names - may differ from the name they are
known by, or may vary from article to article and from
journal to journal. Sometimes all initials are given, just
the first initial or the full forename.
5. Delays in indexing articles.
6. Journal titles are listed in different ways in different
databases. Sometimes the full title, is given,
sometimes it is abbreviated.
7. Journal titles change.
8. Terminology is constantly evolving.
9. Using NOT to eliminate unwanted terms/keywords may
mean losing some key references. Some references
will mention desired terms, as well as the excluded,
unwanted terms.

Unit 7
How to develop a search
strategy (II.Applied Exersises )
What is a search strategy?
When you design a search strategy you are planning how you will
look for information. The more care and thought you put into your
search strategy, the more relevant your search results will be.
A well designed search strategy:
 saves you time in the long run
 allows you to search for information in many different
places
 helps you to find a larger amount of relevant
information
Different strategies work better for different people. There is no
need to follow every step in this tutorial. Try a few different
techniques to see what works best for you.
Where Do I Begin?
The first step is to think about what information you need to answer your
question. This seems obvious, and to a certain extent you are probably
already doing it. But a more systematic approach will reward you.
You should think about:
1. Finding The Focus Of Your Question
2. What The Key Concepts Are
3. Your Understanding Of These Concepts
4. Alternative Terms To Describe These Concepts

5. Building On What You've Found
Finding The Focus
To find relevant information you need to focus on what is being asked.
Think about what you need to find by asking questions about your topic.
To find out about How has Australia's relationship with England
changed since 1945? some relevant questions might be:
 What element(s) of the relationship? Political, popular
opinion, military, legal, trade?
 What was the state of the relationship in 1945? What is it
now?
 Has the relationship been affected by other countries?
You may need to consult some background material, such as
encyclopedias or general works to help you. Your answers may depend
on the context in which the question is being asked (e.g. are you studying
History or Law?).
Identifying Key Concepts
Try breaking down your question into its key parts or concepts. This will
be especially helpful if you are searching in the catalogue or other
databases. You can combine the concepts using Boolean operators.
Defining Key Concepts
It is important that you understand what you are looking for, and in what
context terms are used. English can be a very tricky language, and an
imprecise use of words can lead to irrelevant results.
To find out the meaning of words, try dictionaries or encyclopedias.
Finding Alternative Terms
To increase the likelihood of finding relevant material, you need to think
about alternative terms that can be used to describe the same concepts.

You should think about:
 synonyms (eg mobile telephones, cellular telephones)
 plural/singular forms (eg women, woman)
 spelling variations(eg behaviour, behavior)
 variations of a root word (eg feminism, feminist, feminine)
 acronyms (eg chief executive officer, CEO)
Many books, journals, webpages and databases are produced in the
United States and therefore favour North American spelling and
terminology, so include these in your alternative expressions if
appropriate.
Here are some alternatives for the concepts in the question How has
Australia's relationship with England changed since 1945?
Australia's
Australia
Australian
Australians
relationship
relations
England
Britain
British
Great Britain
British Empire
English
How Can I Improve My Results?
Your initial searches might find not enough, or too much information.
Solution?: review your search terms, and either broaden or narrow your
search.
To broaden your search (i.e. increase the amount you find)
you can:
 reduce the number of concepts you are using
 use an OR search

 look for alternative terms
 use more general search terms
 use subject headings as search terms
 make sure you have used any Boolean operators correctly
 use truncation to get variations on your term, or use alternate
spellings
To narrow your search (i.e. reduce the amount you find) you
can:
 use an AND or NOT search
 look for more specific alternative terms
 use subject headings as search terms
 make sure you have used any Boolean operators correctly
 use more precise terms
 remove any truncation
Building On What You've Found
Whenever you find a record that seems relevant, or an information source
that is useful you should use it as an introduction to other information.
In the library books are shelved together in subject areas. This means that
if you find one useful book on the shelves, there will probably be others
nearby.
Catalogue and database records have subject headings or descriptors
attached to them. If you search again using these terms you will find
other records on similar topics.
Most academic resources contain references and bibliographies, which
show where the author obtained their information. You can use these
references to find other information.
Develop Your Search Query Prior To
Searching
•Analyze your question to ensure you have phrased it
correctly.

•Tailor search methods to the problem to be solved. Not
all searches are done the same way.
•Decide whether a Boolean or a Natural Language search
is needed. Then develop an effective search query.
•Determine the keywords to use. Modify keywords if
desired search results are not obtained.
•Redo or refine the query if desired results are not found.
•Learn from your search results. Clues that lead to more
information can be found here.
Think like a detective when doing a search.
This is the frame of mind needed.
Keywords/Query Concepts:
What, Where, When, How, Why
The most difficult part of search strategy formulation is
deciding upon the keywords to use. Carefully choose and
use a sufficient number of appropriate keywords. A
common mistake is not providing enough keywords.
When formulating a search, ask what is sought as a
question and formulate the topic. A query is a search
for missing/needed information. Ask the
"Who/What, Where, When, How, and Why"
questions about your search topic. All of these
categories will not always apply to all queries. This helps
show where you need to focus and shows you what is/is
not known.
Reduce The Query To Its Singular Parts
Analyze the query in terms of its parts. Decide which
are/are not relevant. Make sure your queries are modular
enough so query parts are easily interchangeable. You
should be able to mix and match key terms, phrases, etc.

Think of this as similar to stacking colored blocks and
removing one block to substitute another in its place.
Stop Words Are Useless Key Terms
Common words, prepositions, conjunctions, and common
verbs such as "and, about, the, of, in, as, if, and it" are
examples of stop words. Do not use stop words. They are
usually ignored and vary among search tools. Read the
"Help" page for the search tool used to find out what the
stop words are for that tool. Know how stop words are
handled and know when/when not to use these. Stop
words are handled in one of the following ways among
search tools: Ignored whether in a phrase or not, Ignored
if a stand-alone word, or Searched if part of a phrase.
Nouns And Objects Should Be Your Query
Terms
Keyword types should be nouns since they are the most
precise query terms. Adverbs and adjectives can help
refine a search but should usually be avoided as singular
terms since they are not always applicable. Exceptions are
when they help define a noun such as in "Sitting Bull",
"Running Duck", "Purple People Eater", etc.
Word Stemming/Truncation And Wildcards
Use these when they can save you from having to type
both the single and plural forms of a term.
Keyword Specificity
Finding the right level of specificity can be hard. Too
broad and too many results are returned, too narrow and
too few are returned. Use a thesaurus, search directory,
etc to help choose appropriate keywords.

Keyword Synonyms/Alternate Keywords
Have alternate keyword terms available if needed. A
thesaurus, dictionary, personal knowledge, or a
preliminary Net search are some places to find synonyms.
Keyword Phrasing
When phrasing, consider punctuation and other
grammatical nuances. For example, spaces between
words are important. If a double space is put between
words and the phrase has only one, the search may fail. If
two dashes were used and you had only one dash, the
search tool may miss documents that have two dashes.
Search tools vary in how spaces, dashes, and such are
treated. Submit phrases in different ways to find the
variations when you think this is needed.
Avoid One Word Searches
Use phrases and not just a singular word to help eliminate
unrelated hits. Avoid using common words for search
terms except in phrases. Exceptions are rare, uncommon
words unlikely to be used except in proper context.
Understand Search Tool Options
Effective searching requires knowing the search tool
options. New tools arise, others die, and search tool
options change. Keep up with the major search tools to
see if new operators have been added to them. Try new
search tools to see if a better one can be found. This will
be an ongoing process so long as you use the Net.

Case Study
•Zakaria is an office worker. While on lunch break one fine
Spring day, Zakaria ’s eye is caught by a flash in the sky
above. Zakaria sees a bird about the size of a crow ‫غرراب‬
diving at high speed and catching in mid-air what
appears to be a pigeon. The bird then swoops out of
sight. Zakaria is captivated ‫مفتون‬ by the mostly gray and
white bird, with the crooked black and yellow beak.
•Zakaria has never seen this bird before, and wonders
what it is doing in the city. That night, Zakaria decides to
find out more on the Internet about this mystery bird.
•Where does Jan begin?
Query Concepts:
•Who, What, Where, When, How and Why
•WHO / WHAT? gray and white bird, about the size of a
crow; yellow and black beak
•WHERE? – downtown office buildings in the City .
• WHEN? – daylight in the Spring
• HOW? – fast flyer, hunting pigeons (?) as prey
• WHY? – hunting bird; why never seen before? blown off
course? is it migrating?
Breaking Down Your Query
•There are many common words in these responses that
are prepositions, conjunctions or common verbs.
and, about, the, of, a, in, as, if, not, why, never,
before, is and it… .

These common words are ―stoplist‖ words:
Focus on Nouns and Objects
Almost without exception, the central keywords in your
queries will be nouns.
―‖Though sometimes adverbs and adjectives can help
refine your search, the key‖‖
Why is this?
The most precise terms we have in language are for
tangible, concrete ―things‖ or objects. Actions and
modifiers are very diverse, easily substitutable, and
generally not universally applied in any given description
Word Root Variants
One of the first mistakes in query formulation is not using
word root variants sufficiently.
Finding the Right Level
•Our query subject bird* is contained on more than 37
million documents (in Yahoo! alone). It would be a little
difficult to review all of those documents at one sitting.
•THE MOST CRITICAL PROBLEM IN ALL QUERIES IS
FINDING THE RIGHT LEVEL OF SPECIFICITY FOR
THE SUBJECT QUERY TERM(S). Too broad a keyword
specification, and too many results are returned; too
narrow a specification, and too few are returned.
Synonyms
Avoid Misspelling

Unit 8
Medical / Health
Informatics
Medical Informatics
Medical informatics is the intersection of information science,
computer science, and health care. This field deals with the
resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the
acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and
biomedicine.
Medical or health informatics focuses on information technology to
positively impact the patient - physician relationship through
effective collection, safeguarding, and understanding of health
data.
Public Health Informatics:
Definition: Public health informatics is the systematic application
of information and computer science and technology to public
health practice, research, and learning.
Information science: Theories in information science try to
explain how we think, store, retrieve, and transmit information
Computer science: Is the systematic study of algorithmic
processes that describe and transform data and information
including the theory, analysis, design, efficiency, implementation
and application

Information Technology: Information technology is the
development and use of hardware, software, and supporting
infrastructure to manage and deliver information.
Mobile Devices and Apps for Health
Care Professionals
mHealth and eHealth
mHealth is the use of mobile devices such as a mobile phone or
tablet to support the practice of healthcare. Essentially, mHealth
applications improve the delivery of healthcare information to
researchers, practitioners and patients. Patients can log, store
and monitor their own health and access electronic health records
on their own personal mobile devices.
eHealth on the other hand, is the healthcare practice supported by
electronic processes and compared to mHealth is a much broader
term. For example, eHealth includes technology such as electronic
health records, patient administration systems and lab systems, all
of which cannot be stored within mobile health applications
mHealth : Uses and Benefits
Need for Mobile Devices at the Point of Care
One major motivation driving the widespread adoption of mobile
devices by HCPs has been the need for better communication and
information resources at the point of care. Ideally, HCPs require
access to many types of resources in a clinical setting, including:
• Communication capabilities—voice calling, video conferencing,
text, and e-mail
• Hospital information systems (HISs)—electronic health records
(EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), clinical decision
support systems (CDSSs), picture archiving and communication

systems (PACSs), and laboratory information systems (LISs)
Informational resources—textbooks, guidelines, medical literature,
drug references
• Clinical software applications—disease diagnosis aids, medical
calculators.
Communication between individuals and health
services
• Health call centres/Health care telephone help line
• Emergency toll-free telephone services
• Communication between health services and individuals
• Treatment compliance
• Appointment reminders
• Community mobilization
• Awareness raising over health issues
• Consultation between health care professionals
• Mobile telemedicine
• Intersectoral communication in emergencies
• Emergencies
• Health monitoring and surveillance
• Patient monitoring
Main Uses of mHealth & App
Information Management
• Write notes
• Dictate notes
• Record audio
• Take photographs
• Organize information and images
• Use e-book reader
• Access cloud service

Time Management
• Schedule appointments
• Schedule meetings
• Record call schedule
Health R ecord Maintenance and A ccess
• Access EHRs and EMRs
• Access images and scans
• Electronic prescribing
• Coding and billing
Communications and C onsulting
• Voice calling & Video calling
• Texting
• E-mail
• Multimedia messaging
• Video conferencing
• Social networking
Reference and Information Gathering
• Medical textbooks
• Medical journals
• Medical literature
• Literature search portals
• Drug reference guides
• Medical news
Clinical Decision-Making
• Clinical decision support systems
• Clinical treatment guidelines
• Disease diagnosis aids
• Differential diagnosis aids
• Medical calculators
• Laboratory test ordering

• Laboratory test interpretation
• Medical exams
Patient Monitoring
• Monitor patient health
• Monitor patient location
• Monitor patient rehabilitation
• Collect clinical data
• Monitor heart function
Medical Education and Training
• Continuing medical education
• Knowledge assessment tests
• Board exam preparation
• Case studies
• E-learning and teaching
• Surgical simulation
• Skill assessment tests
Telehealth and Telemedicine
Telemedicine refers solely to remote clinical services. The
concept of telemedicine began as a means to treat patients who
were located in remote areas. Furthermore, the connected patient
now wants to spend less time in waiting rooms and receive
treatment for urgent conditions when needed.
By comparison, telehealth refers to both clinical and remote non
clinical services such as providing training and continuing medical
education, therefore, is a much broader concept. Both telehealth
and telemedicine can be used interchangeably, which is why there
is no universal definitions for both terms.
The aim of eHealth, mHealth, telehealth and telemedicine is to
improve the quality, efficiency and cost of healthcare by a variety

of electronic means. All four terms play a key role in improving
patient self-management via electronic processes with each term
playing its own unique role.
Electronic medical records (EMR)
Electronic medical records (EMR) software is an electronic record
of health-related information on an individual that can be created,
gathered, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and
staff within one health care organization.
Who Uses EHRs?
Nearly every healthcare provider uses an EHR. This includes
private practices, medical groups, and hospitals. More specifically,
the vast majority of ambulatory surgical centers, specialized
clinics, hospitals, and general physician specialized clinics use
EHRs.
Improved Quality of Care
EMR software can potentially improve patient care in a number of
significant ways, allowing you to:
 Access legible records immediately and easily
 Increase patient time by reducing paperwork and filing
 Reduce mistakes and omissions by charting at the point of
care
 Eliminate mistakes with overlooked symptoms and misread
prescriptions
 Eliminate mistakes with drug interactions, conflicts, and
recalls
 Set alerts and reminders for follow-up visits, preventive
health procedures, lab work, etc.
 Improve communication and management of treatment from
multiple physicians

Unit 9
Medical Apps and Mobile
Resources
Free Medical Apps and Mobile Resources
The use of mobile devices by health care professionals (HCPs)
has transformed many aspects of clinical practice. Mobile devices
have become commonplace in health care settings, leading to
rapid growth in the development of medical software applications
(apps) for these platforms. Numerous apps are now available to
assist HCPs with many important tasks, such as: information and
time management; health record maintenance and access;
communications and consulting; reference and information
gathering; patient management and monitoring; clinical decision-
making; and medical education and training.
Examples of Medical Apps.
1. Medscape—Free. enormous content that grows
continuously with each update. Find drug references, disease
clinical references, clinical images, procedure videos, and
more. This reference tool has its real value in the disease and
condition clinical references it provides

2. Prognosis—Free. Clinical case simulation game designed
for doctors and medical students updated with a new case
every week (available for iPhone and Android)
3. Micromedex—Free, easy to use, straightforward, and a
reliable reference for medical prescriptions
4. Epocrates—Free. The number one mobile drug reference
among US doctors, and a notable rival to the Medscape app.
Check for potentially harmful interactions between up to 30
drugs at a time. Review evidence-based, patient-specific
guidelines condensed for the moments of care. Consult in-
depth, peer-reviewed disease content developed in
collaboration with BMJ.
5. Student BMJ—Free. Download this and other articles and
read them offline at your convenience (available for iPhone)
6. MedPageToday—Free. Keep up with the latest medical
news.
7. PubMed for Handhelds **
(Download iOS App or Android
App )
 PICO search- Patient, Intervention, Comparison,
Outcome
askMEDLINE- free-text, natural language search
Consensus Abstracts *
MEDLINE/PubMed
Search MEDLINE/PubMed
Read Journal Abstracts

Dangers of medical apps
The Good Medical Practice standards requires that ―doctors and
students must provide a good standard of practice and care‖ and
keep their ―professional knowledge and skills up to date.‖ Mobile
medical apps will play a central role in this process.
The advent and rapid growth of the medical app market has
increased the risk of using an app that is unreliable, that is not
evidence based, that is trivial, or that is even dangerous.
Patient privacy
One of the biggest concerns related to the use of smartphones in
clinical care is the potential breach of patients’ confidentiality.
Clinical decision making
Hospitals and doctors need to ensure that they clearly designate
and peer review apps that are evidence based, reliable, and up to
date for use in daily clinical care, when such use is appropriate,
and they should provide sufficient training to support this.
Conflict of interest
The drug industry is increasingly using medical apps for
marketing, and it is often difficult to determine the origin of a
medical app; whether it is funded privately or by a commercial
company—for example, a drug company. Using apps developed
by a drug company can raise substantial ethical issues. Such
companies might use these apps for marketing purposes to
influence treatment options, and they may display information in
favour of their own drugs, all of which can affect patient care. .

Recognising a High Quality
Medical app
There are many different medical apps. Everyone equipped with
the skills to make a smartphone application could launch it on the
medical app market, and no guidelines exist stating that rules or
regulations must be met before this occurs. A few questions can
help you decide which app to download ..
Questions to ask before downloading an app
Clinical decision making
 Is it produced by a medical publisher? For example, apps
adopted by a medical journal or publisher
 Is it regularly updated?
 Is it properly referenced?
 Are the authors listed?
 Is it possible to give feedback?
 Is the content peer reviewed?
 Has it been recommended by your tutor, university, or
healthcare institution?
 Is the app’s primary purpose to inform the health
professional (and not patients)?
Patients’ privacy
 Does the app require you to input patient specific data, and
could this compromise patients’ privacy?
Conflicts of interests
 Do you know where the app is from? Is it produced by a drug
company or a non-commercial organisation?

Unit 10
INFORMATION
LITERACY
―the ability to find, evaluate, and use information
efficiently, effectively, and ethically to answer an
information need.‖
Definition from the UNESCO
INFORMATION LITERACY means the set of skills,
attitudes and knowledge necessary to know when
information is needed to help solve a problem or make a
decision, how to articulate that information need in
searchable terms and language, then search efficiently for
the information, retrieve it, interpret and understand it,
organize it, evaluate its credibility and authenticity, assess
its relevance, communicate it to others if necessary, then
utilize it to accomplish bottom-line purposes (Information
Competency,‖ or ―Information Fluency‖)

SKILLS FOR AN
INFORMATION
LITERATE INDIVIDUAL
An information literate individual should be able to:
1. Access the needed information effectively and efficiently.
2. You know where and how to look for the information you
need and you can find it quickly.
3. Evaluate information and its sources critically, and
incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base.
4. You can determine if the information you found is
appropriate to your research and whether the information, or
its source, is good or bad
5. You learn from all that information you gathered.
6. Understand the economic, legal, and social issues
surrounding the use of information, and access and use
information ethically and legally.
7. You understand the concept of intellectual property and
know the consequences of plagiarizing someone else’s
ideas.
8. You know how to cite your sources

Unit 11
Online Information
Seeking Behaviour
and Models
Digital Literacy
Digital Literacy describes a process whereby researcher conduct
research using online databases via computers or mobile devices
to find answers to their personal or academic questions.
Top Ten Information Literacy Skills
1. Know when information is required
2. Know how to write a research question
3. Know where to find information
4. Determine/understand sources of information
5. Select the best source
6. Use the information
7. Organize information
8. Present information
9. Evaluate information

10. Use information in an ethical manner
Information Seeking Process
―Information seeking is the process engaged in by humans to
change their state of knowledge. It is a high level cognitive
process that is part of lifelong learning , critical thinking or problem
solving. To seek information implies the need to change the state
of one’s knowledge‖.
Advantages Online Information Seeking
— 1.Availability in Electronic Format—The amount of information
available in electronic format has vastly increased over recent
years.
— 2. Accessibility—Most electronic information resources are
vailable anywhere, anytime to anyone with a computer, and
participants appreciated this ease and convenience.
— 3. Usability—The biggest advantage of online sources are the
usability features of electronic information resources. Electronic
resources are convenient, easy to use and easy to access.

— 4. Efficacy—Electronic information resources are to be
timesaving,convenient, and effective.
Research Models
Exploration Form
The Most Popular Four Models are:
A. Information Search Process ISP
1. Initiation: Person becomes aware of what they don’t know.
2. Selection: Person identifies a topic which gives way briefly to
sense of optimism.
3. Exploration: This is most difficult stage. Frustration and
confusion often resurfaces as individual works toward an
understanding of topic.
4. Formulation: Turning point where uncertainty fades and
understanding increases. Forming the focus is key here.
5. Collection: Information is gathered specific to the focus.
6. Presentation: The search is complete, the problem resolved,
and a conclusion is reached.
B. The Research Cycle
1. Questioning- clarify and map out essential questions; begin by
brainstorming to form a cluster (graphic organizer)
2. Planning- think of ways to find information that will help
students answer the questions they created in the cluster. (ex.
Books, Internet, etc.)

3. Gathering- start ―gathering‖ information from the different
sources discussed.
4. Sorting and Sifting- students should scan and organize the
information they gathered.
5. Synthesizing- as they organize information, they can
arrange/rearrange until patterns or ―bigger‖ pictures begin to
emerge.
6. Evaluating- students should decide if more research is needed
at this point. (They should ―determine the quality of their
information harvest‖)
7. Reporting- students report findings and recommendations to an
audience of decision makers.
C. Critical Thinking and IL Process Model
1. Encountering the Task
2. Exploring/Formulating/Questioning/Connecting
3. Searching/Locating
4. Collecting/Organizing/Managing/Monitoring
5. Analyzing/Evaluating/Interpreting/Inferring
6. Synthesis/Solving
7. Applying New Understanding
8. Communicating/Presenting/Sharing
9. Reflecting/Extending
D.The Big 6 Model and the super three
This model involves six steps. It is a process which guides
students though information and technology problem solving which
provides a framework for teaching and promoting informational
literacy. In other words, students use the six steps to
gather/research information to formulate a concept or answer on a
topic.

1. Task Definition- determine informational problem or
information related to a problem
2. Information Seeking Strategies- students determine
possible informational sources, then select appropriate, defined
task
3. Location and Access- use of the access tools,
arrangement of the materials, points of the book, online
organization of materials
4. Use of Information- Read information, review the material.
5. Synthesis- Reconstruct information to fit one’s
understanding and application of information
6. Evaluation- determine the effectiveness of the information
and research along with task carried out
Tools of the Big 6.
1. Task Definition
 Define the information problem
 What do I need to know?
 What am I supposed to do?
 What information do I need in order to do this?
2. Information Seeking Strategies
 Determine the range of possible sources
 Brainstorm
 Evaluate the different possible sources
 Which ones are best for me to use?
 Select the best sources
3. Location and Access
 Where will I find these resources?
 Who can help me find what I need?
 Locate sources
 Find information within sources

4. Use of Information
 Engage the information in a source
 Read, hear, view, touch
 Extract relevant information from a source
 Take notes, make chart, use a tape recorder
 How will I give credit to my sources?
5. Synthesis
Organize information from multiple resources
 What product or performance will I make to finish my
assignment?
 Present the information
 Write, paint, record, diagram
 How will I credit sources in my final product?
6. Evaluation
 Was the information problem solved?
 What would I do differently next time?
 Judge the product
 Judge the problem solving process
 Am I pleased with my project?
 Daily Applications
 Students need to fully understand what is being asked.
The Super Three ( PLAN - DO - REVIEW)
1. PLAN – Task Definition (1) – Information Seeking Strategies
(2)
2. DO – Location & Access (3) – Use of Information (4)
– Synthesis (5)
3. REVIEW – Evaluation (6)

Unit 12
Data –Information-
Knowledge
WHAT IS DATA?
 Data is information in raw or unorganised form ( such as
alphabets, numbers or symbols) that refer to, or represent
conditions, ideas or objects.
 Data means the undigested observations and unvarnished
facts
 Data is any fact, text, graphic, image, sound …etc without
meaningful relation to anything else.
INFORMATION
 Information is ―... all ideas, facts, and imaginative works of
the mind which have been communicated, recorded ,
published and distributed formally or informally in any form
 Information: ―Data which has been recorded, classified,
organized, related, or interpreted within a framework so that
meaning emerges.‖
 Information refers to data placed in context with analysis.
 Information = organized data
 data + meaning = information

Knowledge
Knowledge the application of information by the use of rules
Information + application = knowledge
Knowledge = information that has been organized, internalized
and integrated with experience, study, or intuition
For example, "8,000,000" and "9%" are not information;
they are bits of data. However, "The population of Cairo in
2005 was reported to top 8,000,000 persons, a growth of
9% since 1990" is indeed information. Adding that
information to other information and data on the funding of
and expansion in public healthcare services in Cairo
would help city officials to develop knowledge of the
stresses related to delivering healthcare services.

Organizing Information
There aretwo approaches to organizing information and these
are:-
 Format ,
 Content
A. Format refers to the medium used to present or store the
information. Information comes in many configurations:
 -Paper / Print
 -Audio (cds, audio cassette)
 -Visual (Digital video disk,(DVD), video cassette,
images/pictures, sculptors , charts
 Audio-visual (DVD, slide tapes)
 Formats affect the ease of access to information.
B. Content has two aspects
1. The subject of the information in an item
2.The characteristics of information in an item

B.1. THE SUBJECT OF INFORMATION
Most information is organized by subject or discipline. In a library
setting, information on the same subject is grouped together. This
practice is called classification and it creates order and easy
retrieval of information resources in the Library
.
B.2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION
Information could be:
 Primary
 Secondary
 Factual
 Analytical
 Subjective
 Objective
B.2.1. PRIMARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 These are original materials on which other research is
based.
 They are usually the first formal appearance of research
results in the print or electronic literature.
 They present information in its original form, neither
interpreted nor condensed nor evaluated by other writers.

 Not translated by anyone else.
 Have not been published elsewhere
PRIMARY SOURCES Examples include:
 Autobiographies
 Correspondence
 Diaries
 Interviews
 Paintings
 Photographs
 Research journal
B.2.2. SECONDARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Secondary sources are edited primary sources.
 Repackaged primary sources
 They represent someone else's thinking.
 They describe, interpret, analyse and evaluate the primary
sources.
 They comment on and discuss the evidence provided by
primary sources.
SECONDARY SOURCES Examples include:
 Biographies
 Bibliographies

 Books
 Literary criticism & interpretation
 Historical criticism
 Review articles
B.2.3. FACTUAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 These are also known as reference sources of information.
 Provide quick answers to queries
 Not normally read from cover to cover
 Can be general or subject- oriented
 Can be current or retrospective
 Can be hard copy or electronic
 Made up of real facts/things that actually Exist
FACTUAL SOURCES Examples include:
 Dictionaries
 Atlases
 Handbooks
 Directories
 Almanacs/Year books
 Catalogues
 Encyclopaedias
B.2.4. ANALYTICAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Information in analytical sources is usually provided by
 experts in a subject.

 Interpretations
 Analysis
 Criticisms
ANALYTICAL SOURCES Examples include:
 Reviews
 Statistical digests
 Dissertation/theses
 Political commentaries
 Books
 Subject Encyclopedias
 Reports
B.2.5. SUBJECTIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Subjective information advances a unilateral perspective on
an issue for example an editorial in a newspaper Personal
view(particular to a given individual)
 Can emanate from a person's emotions
 Not easily verified.
 Can be interpreted differently by other people; as opposed to
"Objective"
 Information
SUBJECTIVE SOURCES Examples include:
 Individual opinion
 Newspaper editorials

 Political party manifestoes
B.2.6. OBJECTIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Objective sources of information advance a balanced or
impartial perspective.
 Non-judgemental and balanced reporting
 Without bias
 Not influenced by personal feelings orinte rpretations
 Present all sides of a topic.
 Helpful in decision-making.
 Based on facts
OBJECTIVE SOURCES Examples include:
 Encyclopaedias
 Subject Dictionaries

Unit 13
Internet Ethical Issues
Copyright , Plagiarism and Citation
I. Copyright
The Internet has been characterized as the largest threat to
copyright since its beginning.
What is protected on the WWW?
The unique underlying design of a Web page including:
 Links - original text - graphics - audio - video
 html, other unique markup language sequences
 List of Web sites compiled by an individual or organization.
When creating a Web page, you CAN:
Link to other Web sites. [It is wise to ask permission]. You need to
cite source, as you are required to do in a research paper, when
quoting or paraphrasing material from other sources. Use free
graphics on your Web page. If the graphics are not advertised as
"free" they should not be copied without permission.
When creating a Web page, you CANNOT:
 Put the contents of another person's or organizations web
site on your Web page
 Copy and paste information together from various Internet
sources to create "your own" document. [You CAN quote or
paraphrase limited amounts, if you give credit to the original
source and the location of the source. This same principle
applies to print sources, of course.]

 Incorporate other people's electronic material, such as e-
mail, in your own document, without permission.
 Forward someone's e-mail to another recipient without
permission
 Copy and paste others' lists of resources on your own web
page
 Copy and paste logos, icons, and other graphics from other
web sites to your web page (unless it is clearly advertised as
"freeware." Shareware is not free).
The Internet and Copyright
A .Copyright © (All Rights Reserved)
Copyright is a legal right that protects creative work. All Rights
Reserved copyright © means that the copyright holder reserves
for their own use, all of the rights provided by copyright law. Users
are not allowed to republish the work without copyright holder’s
explicit permission.
B. Open Access OA and Open Licenses
Open access (OA) refers to making content available to readers
without charge and giving the permission of the copyright owner to
reuse content. Openness of the content is a permission for users
under a specific licenses called Creative Commons Licenses (
CC) .
C. Public Domain : Public domain is the purest form of open/free
since no one owns or controls the material in any way (PD).

Public Domain Open License All Rights
Reserved
Copyright ownership
waived.
Copyright ownership
retained.
Copyright
ownership
retained.
Author gives away
rights to the public.
Author grants rights in
advance.
Author does
NOT grant
rights to the
public.
It is not mine. I give up
my right as an author.
You don’t even have to
cite me although I would
appreciate it.
It is mine but I do allow
you to take my material.
No need to ask for my
permission to use it
because it is already
granted -just be sure to
make proper attribution
to me.
It is mine. I do
NOT allow
you to take
this material
and
repurpose it.
You definitely
need to ask
for my
permission to
use it.
Most open.
Most closed.
Creative Commons (CC) Open Access Licenses
1. Attribution CC BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon
your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the
original creation. Recommended for maximum dissemination and
use of licensed materials.
2. Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work
even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and
license their new creations under the identical terms.
3.Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-
commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in
whole, with credit to you.
4. Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-
NC
This license lets others to use your work non-commercially, and
although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-
commercial.
5.Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work
non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new
creations under the identical terms.
6.Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only
allowing others to download your works and share them with
others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in
any way or use them commerciall

No Rights Reserved‖ CC0 ―all rights granted‖ public
domain.
CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and
owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those
interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as
possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon,
enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction
under copyright or database law.
Open Access Publishing Models
There are two primary ways for delivering OA: OA Journals (or
"Gold OA"), and OA Repositories (or "Green OA").
Green OA Gold OA
Definition Green OA refers to self-
archiving/depositing
published or pre-publication
works in an institutional
repository, a
disciplinary archive, or
a personal website. Authors
provide access to preprints or
post-prints (with publisher
permission) for free public
use.
e.g., arXiv.org
Publishing works in open
access journals. The works
can be freely accessed via
publisher's website,
and sometimes an article
processing charge (APC) is
applied after the work has
been accepted and
published.
e.g., Public Library of
Science (PLoS),
BioMed Central (BMC)
Peer-
Review
Do not conduct peer review
themselves, but articles are
usually peer-reviewed
elsewhere before publication
(within institution, or in peer-
reviewed journals).
Most OA journals conduct
peer review.

Cont….. Green OA Gold OA
Charge Do not charge. APC payable by authors
(usually covered by
institutions or funders).
Availability For published articles,
embargo period usually
applied (6, 12 or 24 months)
after publishing online.
Immediate available after
publishing online.
Copyright Cannot generate permissions
for re-use. Copyrights of works
may have been transferred to
publishers.
Can generate permissions
for re-use. Copyrights of
works are usually retained
by authors.
Green OA : Subject-specific OA Repositories
A disciplinary repository (or subject repository) is an online archive
containing works or data associated with these works of scholars
in a particular subject area. Disciplinary repositories can accept
work from scholars from any institution. A disciplinary repository
shares the roles of collecting, disseminating, and archiving work
with other repositories, but is focused on a particular subject area.
These collections can include academic and research papers.
Examples of Subject-specific OA Repositories
1. arXiv.org Owned and operated by Cornell University,
arXiv.org provides e-print archive and distribution service in the
fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative
biology, quantitative finance and statistics.
2. PubMed Central (PMC) is a free full-text archive of
biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine.

3. Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to
the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and
is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each
of the social sciences.
4. CogPrints is an electronic archive for self-archive papers in
the areas of Psychology, Neuroscience, Linguistics, Computer
Science, Philosophy, Biology, Medicine, Anthropology, etc.
Finding CC Contents
1- Use search.creativecommons.org
https://search.creativecommons.org/
2-Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a collection of 50,101,987 freely usable
media files to which anyone can contribute
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
3- Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media
A guide By Harvard Library containing links to a group of the
most credible images, audio an video sites .
https://guides.library.harvard.edu/Finding_Images
4. Public Domain Photos ( https://unsplash.com/ )
NB-Articles and other material in any internet site usually include
an explicit copyright statement. In the absence of a copyright
statement, users should assume that standard copyright protection

applies, unless the article contains an explicit statement to the
contrary. In case of doubt, contact the webmaster or the publisher
to verify the copyright status of the work.
Copyright in the Egyptian Laws
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws ( in Egypt : Law No. 82
of 2002- Pertaining to the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights)
Article 138/8: * Public domain: Domain including all works initially excluded
from protection or works in respect of which the term of protection of
economic rights expires, in accordance with, the provisions of this Book.
Article 140: Protection under this Law is conferred to authors of literary and
artistic works and particularly the following works:
 Books, booklets, articles, bulletins and any other written works;
 Computer programs;
 Databases, whether readable by computer or otherwise;
 Lectures, speeches, sermons and any other oral works when recorded;
 Dramatic and dramatico-musical works, and pantomimes;
 Musical works with or without words;
 Audiovisual works;
 Works of architecture;
 Works of drawings with lines or colours, sculpture, lithography, printing
on textile and any other similar works of fine arts;
 Photographic and similar works;
 Works of applied and plastic arts;
 Illustrations, maps, sketches and three-dimensional works relating to
geography, topography or architectural designs;
 Derivative works, without prejudice to the protection prescribed for the
works from which they have been derived. Protection shall cover also
the title of the work if it is inventive.
Article 141: Protection shall not cover mere ideas, procedures, systems,
operational methods, concepts, principles, discoveries and data, even when
expressed, described, illustrated or included in a work. In addition, protection
shall not cover the following:
(1) Official documents, whatever their source or target language, such as
laws, regulations, resolutions and decisions, international conventions, court
decisions, award of arbitrators and decisions of administrative committees
having judicial competence.
(2) News on current events which are mere press information.

However, collections of the above shall enjoy protection if the selection of
such collection is creative by virtue of its arrangement or any other personal
effort deserving protection.
Article 161: The economic rights relating to works of joint authorship shall be
protected throughout the lives of all co-authors and for 50 years from the
death of the last survivor.
II. Internet and Plagiarism
Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of others and passing them
off as your own. Plagiarism is a type of intellectual theft.
If you use someone else's words or ideas and you don't tell the
reader where you got your information, the reader will logically
assume the words and ideas are your original work.
 It's misleading
 It’s dishonest.
 It's cheating.
 It's plagiarism
Common Forms of Plagiarism
1.Copying
 Using the same words as the original text without
acknowledging the source or without using quotation marks is
plagiarism.
 Putting someone else's ideas into your own words and not
acknowledging the source of the ideas.
 This includes copying materials, ideas or concepts from a
book, article, report or other written document, presentation,
composition, artwork, design, drawing, circuitry, computer
program or software, website, internet, other electronic
resource, or another person's assignment, without appropriate
acknowledgement.

2. Inappropriate paraphrasing .
 Using the exact words of someone else, with proper
acknowledgement, but without quotation marks.
 Changing a few words and phrases while mostly retaining the
original structure and/or progression of ideas of the original,
and information without acknowledgement. .
 This also applies in oral presentations where someone
paraphrases another’s ideas or words without credit.
3. Relying too much on other people’s material
 Relying too much on other people's material; that is, repeated
use of long quotations (even with quotation marks and with
proper acknowledgement).
 Using your own ideas, but with heavy reliance on phrases and
sentences from someone else without acknowledgement.
 Piecing together quotes and paraphrases into a new whole,
without appropriate referencing.
4. Inappropriate citation
 Citing sources which have not been read, without
acknowledging the 'secondary' source from which knowledge
of them has been obtained.
 'Padding' reference lists with sources that have not been read
or cited within assignments.
5. Self-plagiarism
 'Self-plagiarism’ occurs where an author republishes their own
previously written work and presents it as new without
referencing the earlier work, either in its entirety or partially.
 Self-plagiarism is also referred to as 'recycling', 'duplication', or
'multiple submissions of research findings' without disclosure.

 In the student context, self-plagiarism includes re-using parts
of, or all of, a body of work that has already been submitted for
assessment without proper citation.
The 10 most common types of plagiarism
https://www.turnitin.com/static/plagiarism-spectrum/
Type Description
(1)Clone:
Submitting another’s work word-for-word, as
one’s own
(2)CTRL-C:
Contains significant portions of text from a
single source without alteration
(3)Find –
Replace:
Changing key words and phrases but retaining
the essential content of the source
(4)Remix:
Paraphrases from multiple sources, made to fit
together
(5)Recycle:
Borrows generously from the writer’s previous
work without citation
(6)Hybrid:
Combines perfectly cited sources with copied
passages without citation
(7)Mashup: Mixes copied material from multiple sources
(8)404 Error:
Includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate
information about sources
(9)Aggregator
:
Includes proper citation to sources but the
paper contains almost no original work
(10) Re-
tweet:
Includes proper citation, but relies too closely
on the text’s original working and/or structure.

III. Citation
Acknowledge your source
There are a variety of reasons for acknowledging the sources
upon which you have built your own work. Here are the key
reasons:
 To distinguish your own work from that of your sources.
 To receive credit for the research you’ve done on a project.
 To establish the credibility and authority of your knowledge
and ideas.
 To place your own ideas in context, locating your work in the
larger intellectual conversation about your topic.
 To permit your reader to pursue your topic further by reading
more about it.
 To permit your reader to check on your use of source
material
You do not need to acknowledge
 information that is common knowledge
 your own ideas, discoveries and reasonings
You may acknowledge
 information available from a wide variety of sources that is
especially well addressed in a particular source
Five Types of Information You Must
Acknowledge
1. direct quotations
2. paraphrases and summaries
3. arguable statements
4. statistics, charts, tables, and graphs

5. images, photos and graphics
Using citation styles
Most disciplines use the APA style (American Psychological
Association ). It is the most important standard for the social
sciences. In health and medicine the Vancouver style is preferred.
Managing and processing your sources
There are various tools to manage your sources, such as
RefWorks, Mendeley and Zotero.
Citing Resource By Vancouver style
The Vancouver style of referencing is a numbered referencing
style predominantly used in the health science field.
This style is also known as National Library of Medicine (NLM) or
ICMJE style. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/
Vancouver is a numbered referencing style commonly used in
medicine and science, and consists of:
 Citations to someone else's work in the text, indicated by the
use of a number
 A sequentially numbered reference list at the end of the
document providing full details of the corresponding in-text
reference
1. Electronic journal
Electronic journal articles
 The word [Internet] in square brackets should be inserted
after the abbreviated journal title.
 The date cited [in square brackets] must be included after
the date of publication.
 The URL (web address) must be included at the end of the
reference
Style: Author AA, Author BB. Title of article. Abbreviated title of
Journal [Internet]. Date of publication YYYY MM [cited YYYY Mon

DD];volume number(issue number):page numbers. Available from:
URL………
Example: Stockhausen L, Turale S. An explorative study of
Australian nursing scholars and contemporary scholarship. J Nurs
Scholarsh [Internet]. 2011 Mar [cited 2013 Feb 19];43(1):89-96.
Available from:
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/
docview/858241255?accountid=12528
2. Book :
Style) Author AA. Title of book. # edition [if not first]. Place of
Publication: Publisher; Year of publication. Pagination.
b.) Author AA. Title of web page [Internet]. Place of Publication:
Sponsor of Website/Publisher; Year published [cited YYYY Mon
DD]. Number of pages. Available from: URL DOI: (if available)
Example) Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental
biology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2009. 541 p.
b.) Shreeve DF. Reactive attachment disorder: a case-based
approach [Internet]. New York: Springer; 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 2].
85 p. Available from:
3. WEB SITES AND OTHER ONLINE REFERENCES
Web Site (Basic Format)
Author Surname Initials (if available). Title of web site [Internet].
Place of Publication: Publisher; Date of First Publication [Date of
Last Update; Date of Access]. Available from: URL
Note: Websites vary considerably in the amount of publication information
supplied. Be sure to look for information such as author name in a variety of
places – it may be given somewhere on the web page you wish to cite, on the
webs site’s home page, or elsewhere within the site.

If you cannot find the place of publication, publisher, or date of first
publication, use: [Place unknown], [Publisher unknown], or [date unknown].
Other elements, such as author, can simply be omitted if they are not
specified.
Example : Bellham S. Histology–World! [Internet] [Publisher
unknown]: Histology–World; [date unknown] [cited 2010 Feb
20]. Available from: http://www.histology-world.com
4.AN ONLINE IMAGE
Example :
Delisle GJ, Tomalty L, Queens University. Encapsulated
streptococcus pneumonia [image on the Internet]. [Date
Unknown] [cited 2010 Mar 2]. Available from:
http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/fox/Spneumo.jpg
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Shingles on face.
[Image on internet]. 2011 [updated 2011 Jan 10; cited 2012 Nov
6]. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/photos.html
Source https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

Unit 14
Criteria to Evaluate
the Credibility of WWW
Resources
Why Evaluate Web Sites?
The World Wide Web is an effective means of disseminating
information, but the fact that anyone who has access to a Web
server can create and maintain a Web site on any topic raises
issues of quality and integrity not normally encountered in the
medium of print, where the publishing process is governed by
close editorial scrutiny. Explicit standards and editorial control are
often absent in Web publishing. Also, some people delight in
producing "spoof sites" containing misinformation that the
inexperienced or unwary user might be tempted to accept as truth.
Because Web pages are not physical objects in the commonly
understood sense, information in digital format is easier to alter
than print. The form and content of online information can be
surprisingly fluid, for example, the appearance or "look" of a Web
site may undergo frequent revision, a Web address (URL) may
change without warning when the site is moved to another server,
or a Web site accessible today may disappear tomorrow, leaving
little record of its existence except the message "Not found" on the
screen.

Here are a few tips for evaluating the quality and integrity of Web
sites:
Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites
1. Accuracy
 How reliable is the information provided at the site? Have the
facts been checked by someone other than the site's author
or creator?
 In print publishing, the accuracy of a manuscript is usually
checked by an editor prior to publication. Web publishing
may bypass the traditional publishing process, leaving the
viewer responsibile for verifying the accuracy of factual
material. Before quoting from or basing an argument on
information provided at a Web site, be sure to check the
facts in at least one other source.
2. Authority
 Is the author or editor of the Web page qualified to write on
the stated subject? What are his/her credentials (education,
occupation, previous publications)? Beware of sites that do
not identify the author or authors by name.
 What kind of organization hosts the Web site? Is the
publisher (host) a reputable organization? Be wary of sites
that do not identify the host by name.
3. Objectivity

 If the subject is controversial, is the information presented
fairly (both pros and cons) or in a one-sided manner?
Examine the content carefully for possible bias.
 Does the Web site promote (openly, craftily, or
unconsciously) a specific product, service, or point of view?
Is it an infomercial?
4. Currency
 Is the information provided at the site up-to-date or out-of-
date? Currency is particularly important in the sciences and
medicine where knowledge is rapidly changing, and in
business and management where decision-making may
depend on current, reliable statistical data.
 Is the site updated as often as necessary to keep abreast of
new information on the topic? Is there an automatic
"Refresh" feature?
5. Coverage
 What topics (subjects) are covered by the Web site?
 Are the topics discussed or analyzed in-depth, or merely
highlighted or summarized?
 If the author claims that coverage is comprehensive within
the stated scope, does the site really cover all aspects of the
topic? If coverage is selective, does the author state clearly
the criteria used in the selection process?

Techniques for Evaluating Web Sites
Accuracy
 Examine the Web page to see if the author provides
documentation identifying sources, usually in the form
of notes or a bibliography at the end of the page, or on a
separate page linked to the main content page. The format
of notes and bibliography should follow accepted citation
style for the appropriate discipline.
 When in doubt, verify factual information in at least one other
source to detect possible discrepancies.
 Accuracy can be a problem when the factual record is scanty
or incomplete, or when an issue is clouded by strongly held
beliefs. Compare the scientific accuracy of these three Web
sites:
Authority
 Examine the Web site to see if the author(s) or editor(s)
identify themselves and state their qualifications (education,
occupation, years of experience, publications, etc.).
Remember: you can use the print resource Contemporary
Authors, located in the reference section on the first floor of
the Ruth Haas Library, to research a writer's background. If
authorship and qualifications are not explicitly stated in the
Web site, is there a reason?

 Does the Web page indentify the institution or organization
hosting the site? If not, the Web address (URL) may provide
a clue to the type of host organization (.edu at the end of an
address indicates that the host is an academic
institution, .org that it is a nonprofit organization).
 Does the site claim to represent the official views or policies
of a specific group, organization, company, or governmental
agency? If so, does the site address (URL) support the
claim?
 Is the host a legitimate, reputable organization?
The Encyclopedia of Associations, available in print in the
reference area of the Haas Library, can be used to research
nonprofit organizations. The librarians at the Young
Business Library (203-837-9139) can be of assistance in
researching commercial enterprises.
 Is contact information for the author and sponsor provided
on the Web page? If not, ask yourself why the author or host
does not wish to encourage feedback from visitors to the
site.
 Be especially vigilant in the case of Web sites hosted by
commercial Internet service providers (AOL, etc.). The
author may be self-publishing because no institution or
organization is willing to host the site.
 In your opinion, which of the following Web sites speaks with
greatest authority on the topic "smoking and health"?
Objectivity

 Is the purpose, aim, or goal of the author or sponsor clearly
stated? (Fudging on this point is often an indication of bias.)
 Does the author of the Web page harangue the viewer with
personal opinions or a specific point of view, or attempt to
use other means of persuasion?
 Does the publisher/host of the site have a specific political,
social, or commercial (advertising) agenda? If so, is it
a hidden agenda?
 Does the information provided in the Web page promote the
author's own published works at the expense of other
sources of information?
 Is there evidence of egotism in the way the site is
presented? Clues: author's name included in the site title,
frequent use of the first person in the text, overly chatty style,
etc.
Currency
 When was the Web page first published and last updated? If
these dates are absent, you have no way of knowing
whether the information is current or outdated.
 If links to Web pages at other sites are included, are they still
functional and relevant to the topic?
 If a message indicates that the site is no longer being
updated, be cautious about using information that may no
longer be correct.
Coverage

 Does the actual content of the site coincide with the author's
stated purpose? If not, does it fall short of the author's
claims?
 If you find that important aspects of the topic
are not covered, does the author explain why?
 If portions of the site are "under construction" does the
author indicate when they may be completed?
 Assume that you are looking for the best Web site providing
a list of Internet resources in the field of history because you
want to bookmark it for personal use. Which of the following
sites do you feel is the most comprehensive?
Style
 Is the content well-organized? If the site is extensive, does it
have an internal index? Is search capability provided within
the site?
 Does the overall design of the site make the content easier
to comprehend? Is the design graphically pleasing or does it
lack visual harmony and appeal?
 Does the site include automatic pop-up windows that distract
attention from the main content and waste the user's time?
Does intrusive advertising crowd the main content?
 Does the text follow accepted rules of spelling, punctuation,
grammar, and usage?

Types of Web Sites:
Advocacy:
"An Advocacy Web Page is one sponsored by an organization
attempting to influence public opinion (that is, one trying to sell
ideas). The URL address of the page frequently ends in .org
(organization)."
Business/Marketing:
"A Business/Marketing Web Page is one sponsored by a
commercial enterprise (usually it is a page trying to promote or sell
products). The URL address of the page frequently ends in .com
(commercial)."
News:
"A News Web Page is one whose primary purpose is to provide
extremely current information. The URL address of the page
usually ends in .com (commercial)."
Informational:

"An Informational Web Page is one whose purpose is to present
factual information. The URL Address frequently ends in .edu or
.gov, as many of these pages are sponsored by educational
institutions or government agencies.
Examples: Dictionaries, thesauri, directories, transportation
schedules, calendars of events, statistical data, and other factual
information such as reports, presentations of research, or
information about a topic."
Personal:
"A Personal Web Page is one published by an individual who may
or may not be affiliated with a larger institution. Although the URL
address of the page may have a variety of endings (e.g. .com,
.edu, etc.), a tilde (~) is frequently embedded somewhere in the
URL."

Health On the Net
Foundation Code ( The HONcode )
http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html
1. Authoritative
Indicate the qualifications of the authors: Any medical or health
advice provided and hosted on this site will only be given by
medically trained and qualified professionals unless a clear
statement is made that a piece of advice offered is from a non-
medically qualified individual or organisation.
2. Complementarity
Information should support, not replace, the doctor-patient
relationship: The information provided on this site is designed to
support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a
patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician.
3. Privacy
Respect the privacy and confidentiality of personal data
submitted to the site by the visitor: Confidentiality of data
relating to individual patients and visitors to a medical/health
Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site.
The Web site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal
requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in
the country and state where the Web site and mirror sites are
located.
4. Attribution
Cite the source(s) of published information, date and medical
and health pages:Where appropriate, information contained on
this site will be supported by clear references to source data

and, where possible, have specific HTML links to that data. The
date when a clinical page was last modified will be clearly
displayed (e.g. at the bottom of the page).
5. Justifiability
Site must back up claims relating to benefits and performance:
Any claims relating to the benefits/performance of a specific
treatment, commercial product or service will be supported by
appropriate, balanced evidence in the manner outlined above in
Principle 4.
6. Transparency
Accessible presentation, accurate email contact: The designers
of this Web site will seek to provide information in the clearest
possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors that
seek further information or support. The Webmaster will display
his/her E-mail address clearly throughout the Web site.
7. Financial disclosure
Identify funding sources: Support for this Web site will be clearly
identified, including the identities of commercial and non-
commercial organisations that have contributed funding,
services or material for the site.
8. Advertising policy
Clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content : If
advertising is a source of funding it will be clearly stated. A brief
description of the advertising policy adopted by the Web site
owners will be displayed on the site.

Web Page Evaluation Worksheet
Date Web pages were accessed: Answer the following questions for the Web
Page.
Title of Web Page
URL of Web Page
1. AUTHORITY
What kind of domain?
.com, .edu, .gov, .org
Who is the author or publisher?
(How can they be contacted?)
Are they a qualified authority on the topic?
(What are their qualifications?)
Is there a link to more information about the
organization, company, or institution?
Who sponsors the Web page?
(What is their agenda or motivation?)
2. CONTENT
What is the subject or topic?
Is the information complete and reliable?
(Primary or Secondary?)
Does the information seem biased?
3. CURRENCY
What is the date of the Web page?
When was the web page last updated?
(Is the information still relevant?)
Does the date matter to the content?
3. PURPOSE
What is the intent or purpose of the Web page?
(Information? Entertainment? Sales? Personal?)
Who is the Web page’s target audience?
3. USABILITY
How is the Web page organized?
Is the content presented error-free?
(Punctuation? Spelling?)
Is the reading level appropriate for the intended
audience?
Does the Web page take a long time to load?
Do you have any other observations?

Authority & Credibility
Who is the author?
What makes the author an
authority on this subject? Does the
author cite his/her
experience/credentials?
Is there any way to contact the
author?
Is the page part of a larger site?
Who is responsible for this site?
Is the site accredited or endorsed
by a reputable organization?
Is the page a peer‐reviewed or
scholarly article?
Does the page contain footnotes?
Is material taken from other sources fully
credited?
Scope, Coverage & Relevance
Who is the intended audience?
(general, specialized readership,
scholars, etc.)
What is the level of the material?
(basic, advanced, etc.)
Are the content and level
appropriate for your assignment?
What time period is covered?
What geographical area is
covered?
Is this information a part of larger
source? If so, who shortened this
source, and why?
Bias & Accuracy
How is the information presented?
(fact, opinion, propaganda, etc.)
If presented as fact, is it accurate?
Is there a bias? (cultural, political,
religious, etc.)
If so, is the bias clearly stated?
Currency / Timeliness
What is the resource's date of
publication, or date of posting to the
Web?
Does this date tell when the
resource was created, or when it was
last updated?
How recent is the information
contained in the source? How frequently
is the source updated?
Is some of the information
obviously out of date? Too old for your
needs?
Quality
What was the quality of the
research methodology?
Did it use accepted methodologies
for its field, insofar as you know?
Is the information clearly written
and well‐organized?
Is new research being reported or
is the author reviewing previously
conducted research?
Commercialism
Is the presenter selling
something ‐ a product, a philosophy,
himself/herself?
Does the resource/page have a
corporate sponsor?
Are there any hidden costs?
Do you have to enter personal
identification in order to proceed?

Unit 15
Introduction to PubMed
and MEDLINE
PubMed is a database of over 25 million biomedical article
citations created and maintained by the National Library of
Medicine. MEDLINE is the subset of PubMed records which have
been indexed by the National Library of Medicine and have had
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms applied. Currently
approximately 80% of PubMed records are indexed for MEDLINE .
Subject Coverage: Biomedicine and the health care sciences.
MEDLINE also covers medically relevant fields of the biosciences
such as microbiology, immunology, virology and neuroscience .
Publication Date Coverage: Approximately 1950 to present. The
earliest citations in PubMed date back to the late 1940s, but
consistent coverage and indexing began in earnest in the early
1950s.
Record Content: PubMed records are comprised of fields, or
"data elements", such as Author, Title, Publication Date, Abstract,
MeSH Terms, etc. A PubMed record can have as many as 60

different fields. It is important to note that PubMed is a citation
database, not a full text database so when searching PubMed, you
are searching the citation information contained in these fields
only, not the entire text of the article.
MeSH: The Key to MEDLINE
The key to MEDLINE is a controlled vocabulary system called
the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
MeSH terms impose uniformity and consistency to the indexing of
biomedical literature and are applied to citations when they are
indexed for MEDLINE. This system offers three main advantages:
1. MeSH indexing facilitates the retrieval of relevant articles
even when authors have used different words or spellings to
describe the same topic.
For example:
 Trisomy 21, Down's Syndrome and Down Syndrome are all
possible synonyms for the same topic. The MeSH
term Down Syndrome covers all of the variations - saving
you from having to type them all into your search.
 Krebs Cycle, Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle, and Citric Acid
Cycle are all possible synonyms for the same topic. The
MeSH term Citric Acid Cycle covers all of the variations -
saving you from having to type them all into your search.
 Lung cancer, lung tumor, lung neoplasm, and pulmonary
cancer are all possible synonyms for the same
topic. The MeSH term Lung Neoplasm covers all of the
variations - saving you from having to type them all into your
search.

2. MeSH indexing increases the discoverability of citations. If
a citation has no abstract or otherwise does not effectively
convey the topic(s) discussed in the article, MeSH indexing
allows for discovery of this citation even by basic keyword
searching.
For example:
I run a basic search for chemoembolization and
hepatocellular carcinoma. I am able to find the citation below
(PMID: 25376280) only thanks to the MeSH indexing. Since
the term chemoembolization does not appear in the title,
abstract, or any other field, prior to when this citation was
indexed for MEDLINE it would be missed by my search
for chemoembolization and hepatocellular carcinoma. Only
because the MeSH term Therapeutic Chemoembolization has
been applied can I locate this record using these search
terms.
3. MeSH indexing facilitates searching of both the broad and
the narrow simultaneously due to the existence of the MeSH
hierarchy. MeSH Headings, Subheadings and Publication
Types are organized in hierarchies, or "MeSH trees".
PubMed Simple Search
Most of the time, you'll search PubMed by simply entering
your search terms in the search box.
But PubMed does more than just search for those words. It also
uses Automatic Term Mapping to search for synonyms to your
search terms in the MeSH vocabulary. Then it searches for your
terms and those synonyms in all the fields (author, journal title,
article title, MeSH heading, author keywords, abstract, publication
date, etc.) used to describe an article.

Automatic Term Mapping
Automatic Term Mapping ( ATM ) is a key feature of PubMed's
search formula since this mapping enables more comprehensive
search results than other search interfaces.
The Automatic Term Mapping process adds subject
heading words from the MeSH thesaurus to your search in all
fields of every PubMed record, including those that are not
indexed for MEDLINE.
First, ATM compares terms from your search query with MeSH
terms, journal titles, author and investigator names. It uses
a MeSH translation table to "map" your search words or phrases
to MeSH headings or subheadings. If a match is found in the
MeSH translation table:
1. The term will be searched as MeSH term
2. PubMed will add any specific terms indented under the
MeSH term in the MeSH hierarchy
3. PubMed will search the words that make up the MeSH terms
in all fields of the PubMed record.
Example: When you search for heart attack, PubMed maps your
query to the MeSH "Myocardial Infarction".
 PubMed then adds a search for the MeSH term "Myocardial
Infarction" in all the MEDLINE records in PubMed.

 And, PubMed searches for all MEDLINE citations indexed
with five more specific MeSH terms found below Myocardial
Infarction in the MeSH Hierarchy, e.g., "Myocardial Stunning"
and "Shock, Cardiogenic". (See the screenshot, right.)
 In addition, PubMed searches heart attack, myocardial
infarction, cardiogenic shock, myocardial stunning, etc. as
text words in all fields of all the records in PubMed.
MeSH Search vs. Basic Search
 A MeSH search retrieves subjects, not words: When you
search with a MeSH term, you restrict your search
to MEDLINE citations indexed with that subject heading.
 It's true that PubMed's basic search is fast, easy and often
very successful. Automatic Term
Mapping usually identifies the appropriate MeSH
terms associated with your search concepts.
 However, restricting your search to selected medical
subject headings (MeSH) can provide much needed focus
and precision.
 In this module, we'll review when it may be best to do a
MeSH Search, and we'll go over using the MeSH
Database as a tool to build a MeSH search and launch it in
PubMed.

Consider a MeSH Search If...
You need more precise results in a subject search. For
example:
1. Your basic search results are too large and not focused on
your main concepts.
In a basic search, your search terms (and the synonyms found by
Automatic Term Mapping) will be found in all the fields of a record,
including ones where your search term only mentioned in the
abstract. A MeSH search is a type of field search, and like any
search using field qualifiers, it will retrieve fewer results than a
similar text word search. More importantly, in a MeSH search,
PubMed restricts your results to articles indexed with a subject
heading for your topic.
2. A large amount of literature has been published on your topic.
A MeSH search enables you to restrict your search to Major Topic
Headings only. This allows you to retrieve articles where your
topic is a major point discussed, rather than a secondary focus or
finding.
3. You need to disambiguate a search word or phrase.
 Example: Searching with the word "aids" retrieves articles on
AIDS virus, as well as articles on hearing aids, audiovisual
aids, clinical aids, teaching aids, etc. Using the MeSH term
for AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
[MeSH] will limit your retrieval to the relevant subject.

 Example: Searching with the word expression retrieves
articles about gene expression, but also facial expression,
verbal expression, etc. Using the MeSH term "Gene
Expression" [MeSH] will disambiguate your search and limit
your retrieval to the relevant subject.
Consider Using MeSH Subheadings if...
• If you need to focus on a specific aspect of a topic, consider
using a MeSH subheading.
• MEDLINE uses a combination of MeSH headings and
coordinated subheadings to describe a concept as specifically
as possible. Use MeSH with subheadings to target your
retrieval on one aspect of a larger topic such as "Etiology of
Sickle Cell Anemia", "Genetics of Turner Syndrome" or
"Biosynthesis of RNA"
• When your topic contains the word "of", consider selecting
MeSH and MeSH subheadings for your search.
• Although the subheading field can be searched separately,
subheadings are usually "attached" to MeSH descriptors to
describe an aspect of that topic. .
MeSH will Probably NOT Help You If...
• Your topic is a new or emerging concept for which a MeSH
term does not yet exist.
• You suspect that very little has been published on your topic -
meaning, again, there is probably no MeSH term.

• Your topic is a gene, unless it is a very heavily studied gene
such as BRCA1 (most genes do not have MeSH terms).
• You want to retrieve recently published articles. The newest
articles in PubMed may not yet be indexed for MEDLINE. There
is a short lag time (a few days to many weeks) between when
citations enter the PubMed database and when they are
described with MeSH terms.
• An article you need is not indexed for MEDLINE. PubMed
includes over 1.5 million articles that are not indexed with
MeSH for MEDLINE
Remember .....
• A MeSH search is a subject search.
• A MeSH search usually results in a smaller retrieval than a
basic text word search. Selecting MeSH terms limits your
search to MeSH fields.
• MeSH will not usually help you if you need to research a new or
rare topic or the most recent articles on a topic.
• If MeSH doesn't help with a search, do a basic search using
AND, OR and parentheses.

MEDLINE, PubMed, and PMC
(PubMed Central)
MEDLINE®
is the National Library of Medicine®
(NLM®
) journal
citation database. Started in the 1960s, it now provides more than
22 million references to biomedical and life sciences journal
articles back to 1946.
MEDLINE includes citations from more than 5,600 scholarly
journals published around the world. In addition to the
comprehensive journal selection process, what sets MEDLINE
apart from the rest of PubMed is the added value of using the NLM
controlled vocabulary, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®
), to
index citations.
PubMed has been available since 1996. Its more than 25 million
references include the MEDLINE database .
PubMed citations often include links to the full-text article on the
publishers' Web sites and/or in PMC and the Bookshelf. MEDLINE
is the largest subset of PubMed.
PMC (PubMed Central) launched in 2000 as a free archive for
full-text biomedical and life sciences journal articles. PMC serves
as a digital counterpart to the NLM extensive print journal
collection; it is a repository for journal literature deposited by
participating publishers, as well as for author manuscripts that
have been submitted in compliance with the NIH Public Access
Policy and similar policies of other research funding agencies.

Unit 16
Internet and
Evidence-Based
Medicine
Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) can be defined as the integration
of individual clinical expertise with the best available external
clinical evidence from systematic research .
The Need for EBM
In the years after you graduate, two things will happen:
1. Your memory of what you learned in medical school
will lose its freshness.
2. New treatment methods will be found that they
never taught you about in school because they didn't
exist.
If you are to remain a good doctor, or become a better one, you
need to stay on top of new developments as they occur. Evidence
Based Medicine provides you with the tools you need to find
important new medical research quickly and easily, and to work
out its implications for your practice.
The Benefits of EBM
1. The total amount of knowledge out there is far greater and
often more reliable than the clinical experience of one physician or
even a group of experts. You no longer need to read through
masses of journals in order to take advantage of it. It is no longer

your job to know everything, even in your chosen specialty. It IS
your job to be able to find the information as and when you and
your patients need it.
2. A detailed and exact knowledge of the outcomes of different
interventions, derived from the research, can often save lives.
 PROBLEM: Practitioners must deal with an explosion of
available medical literature.
FACT: In order to keep up with the 7,827 relevant articles
published monthly, a family medicine physician would need to
dedicate 627.5 hours to reading the medical literature.1
EBM SOLUTION: Consulting critically appraised evidence-
based review resources helps reduce the necessary time
expended on collecting, reading, and evaluating medical
literature.
EBM RESOURCE: The ACP Journal Club provides access to
succinct enhanced abstracts for individual articles and studies
that are indentified as being methodologically sound and
clinically relevant.
 PROBLEM: Practitioners must keep up to date with
current research.
FACT: Medical research is continually discovering improved
treatment methods and therapies.
EBM SOLUTION: Practicing EBM helps keep practitioners up
to date on current evidence and practice guidelines.
EBM RESOURCE: ACP PIER (Physicians' Information and
Education Resource), an electronic evidence-based textbook,
provides easy access to continually updated clinical evidence.

 PROBLEM: Research findings are often delayed in being
implemented into clinical practice.
FACT: Did you know that it takes on average 17 years for
clinical research to be fully integrated into everyday practice.1
FACT: Prior to the early 1990's, it was recommended that
infants sleep on their stomachs despite evidence available in
the 1970's that this contributed to Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome (SIDS).2
EBM SOLUTION: The constant advancement and
development of EBM resources, which take into account
evidence from a wide variety of fields, provide clinicians with
the opportunity for greater exposure to clinical evidence.
EBM RESOURCE: The Cochrane Database of Systematic
Reviews provides access to highly developed systematic
reviews that integrate evidence from a broad spectrum of
resources and that critically appraise and succinctly summarize
the best available medical literature.
 PROBLEM: Lack of familiarity with primary research can
result in unnecessary clinical trials and possible harm to
research subjects.1
FACT: 64 clinical trials involving the drug Aprotinin between
1987 and 2002 continuously found that the drug lessened
bleeding during surgery, but only 20% of previous studies were
cited by researchers.2
Because later researchers were unaware
of research that came before, they may have denied a proven
therapy to a control group.
EBM SOLUTION: A careful and critical literature review should
be carried out prior to engaging in clinical research.
EBM RESOURCE: Medline (Ovid or PubMed) searching with
the results limited to Clinical Trials will provide a fairly complete
representation of previously
completed clinical research.

Clinical Evidence Resources
EBM Resources can be divided into three major categories:
A- Background Information Resources
Where do I start?
Background Information Resources are a great place to start the
EBM process. They provide broad overviews of medical topics,
which help increase your understanding of the topics and acquaint
you with the related evidence-based literature.
Examples of Background Information Resources:
1- Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines and Consensus
Statements
Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines and Consensus Statements
are carefully considered treatment guidelines, often published and

updated by government or professional associations, that
represent the preferred or gold standard treatment strategies for
common diseases.
 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is
a great starting point.
2- Evidence-Based Topic Overviews
Evidence-Based Topic Oveviews broadly summarize the available
evidence-based literature on topics without specifically focusing on
a particular clinical question.
 American College of Physicians' ACP PIER, an e-textbook
and BMJ's Clinical Evidence, are two valuable e-textbooks
for Evidence-Based Topic Overviews.
B- Filtered Information Resources
I have the background information down. Now what?
Once you have a solid understanding of your topic next investigate
Filtered Information Resources. These resources sometimes also
called "digested" or "synthesized" resources are structured to
save you time and effort by providing varying levels of analysis.
Examples of Filtered Information Resources:
1- Cochrane Systematic Reviews
Cochrane Systematic Reviews utilize stringent and explicit
methods to collect, critically appraise, and succinctly summarize
the best available medical literature, including individual studies.
Generally Cochrane Systematic Reviews answer a specific clinical
question.
 The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews provides
full-text access to Cochrane Systematic Reviews
2-Non-Cochrane Systematic Reviews
A Systematic Review in general is "an overview of primary studies
that used explicit and reproducible methods".1

 The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness
(DARE) critically assesses systematic reviews from a variety
of medical journals.
3- Critically Appraised Articles
Critically Appraised Articles analyze a single research article,
judge its validity, and publish an enhanced abstract of the article.
 ACP Journal Club offers enhanced abstracts of studies
identified as being methodologically sound and clinically
relevant
B- Unfiltered Information Resources
There was no Filtered Information on my topic. What next?
If there is no filtered information on your topic or that fits your
specific patient you will need to utilize individual journal articles
and studies. However, because generally journal articles and
studies are not evaluated you will need to analyze your found
articles and studies to determine their quality.
Examples of Unfiltered Information Resources:
1- Journal Articles
Research articles found in journals often investigate one topic in
detail and require critical evaluation on the reader's part.
 MEDLINE is the premier source for biomedical journal
articles. MEDLINE is available through BUMC MEDLINE
Plus/Ovid or PubMed.
2- Randomized Controlled Trials
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) randomly assign participants
into control or experimental groups to provide unbiased
assessment of an intervention.
 When using MEDLINE you are able to restrict your searches
to RCTs.

Searching for the Evidence
 Textbooks/Handbooks, etc. for electronic resources check
MDConsult link and StatRef link; also consider Scientific
American Medicine available via HML
 Practice Guidelines
o Definition: "systematically developed statements to
assist practitioner and patient decisions about
appropriate health care for specific clinical
circumstances." Source: National Academy of
Sciences. Institute of Medicine.
o National Guideline Clearinghouse

 free resource for evidence-based clinical practice
guidelines.
 sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality in partnership with the
American Medical Association and the American
Association of Health Plans.
o MEDLINE; search topic; select limit; look under
publication types for "guideline"
 Systematic Reviews
o Definition: "written by reviewers who use explicit and
rigorous methods to identify, critically appraise, and
synthesize relevant studies from the published medical
research." Source: Nesbit, Evidence Based Clinical
Practice Tutorial.
o Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
 prepared by the Cochrane Collaboration;
abstracts FREE
 Full-text reviews
 search via HML's OVID EBM Reviews
Cochrane Database
 DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of
Effects)
 includes structured abstracts of systematic
reviews published in medical journals that have

been critically appraised by reviewers at the NHS
Centre.
 search via HML's OVID as a separate database
OR search in OVID MEDLINE and limit to "
Article Reviews (DARE)"
o Bandolier Evidence-based Health Care
 a monthly Internet journal that synthesizes the
information from systematic reviews and meta-
analyses
 free searchable database
o Meta-analysis: A kind of systematic review. "A
quantitative method of combining the results of
independent studies (usually drawn from the published
literature) and synthesizing summaries and
conclusions which may be used to evaluate
therapeutic effectiveness, plan new studies, etc., with
application chiefly in the areas of research and
medicine. " Source PubMed MESH Browser
 Search MEDLINE Use limit option. Under
publication types, select meta-analysis, with your
subject search.
 Critically Appraised Research Articles
o Definition: critiques of published research articles. In
OVID databases on the summary screen; these are
easily identified by the caption "Article Review"
o Search OVID MEDLINE as follows: Search your
subject and limit to "All EBMR Article Reviews"

o ACP Journal Club
 Publication of the American College of
Physicians
 purpose is to select from the biomedical
literature those articles reporting studies
and reviews that warrant immediate
attention by physicians attempting to keep
pace with important advances in internal
medicine. These articles are summarized in
"value added" abstracts and commented
on by clinical experts.
 Editorials and Resource Corner full-text
articles; searching tips, etc.
o Evidence Based Medicine and EBM Online
 co-publication of the BMJ Publishing Group
and the American College of Physicians-
American Society of Internal Medicine
 purpose of this secondary journal is to alert
clinicians to important advances in internal
medicine, general and family practice,
surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, and
obstetrics and gynecology by selecting
from the biomedical literature those original
and review articles whose results are most
likely to be both true and useful. These
articles are summarized in value-added

abstracts and commented on by clinical
experts.
o Other sources of critically appraised research articles
 InfoPOEMS (Patient Oriented Evidence that
Matters) Published by Journal of Family Practice.
 General Databases
o TRIP--Turning Research into Practice meta-search
engine that searches across 55 sites of high-quality
medical information
 Results are sorted by Evidence Based Links
(direct and indirect); peer-reviewed journal
articles; guidelines.
 Searches words in the titles and text only; must
search on synonyms
 Free
o SumSearch from University of Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio
 Metasearch engine which searches the
Emergency Medicine, Medline, National
Guideline Clearinghouse and Cochrane
Database and DARE.
 Returns results in one search
 MEDLINE database
o Use OVID's Limit "Evidence Based Medicine Reviews"t
or PubMed's Clincal


What Is Your Question?
Before starting an EBM search, you must have a clear idea on the
type of information you are looking for. What type of intervention, if
any, do you want to explore?
One good way of doing this is to apply a set of questions to the
clinical problem. This is called PICO, which stands for:
P Patient or
population
Describes patient (age,
sex, race, past medical
history, etc.)
A 50 year old
woman with a
family history of
breast cancer
I Intervention What happens or is to be
done; treatment,
diagnostic test, exposure,
screening
Hormone
replacement
therapy
C Comparison Compared to what?
Nothing, placebo, gold
standard, another
intervention
Placebo
O Outcomes
(preferably
clinical)
What is the effect of the
intervention? (Be specific:
mortality after a particular
time period,
hospitalizations).
Prevention of
Alzheimer's
Disease
Before starting a search, write down the answers to these PICO
questions. The key elements in the answers will become search
terms in your on-line search and the additional information will help
you when analyzing the studies you find.
It often helps to form these elements in the form of a question:

AMONG 50-year old women with a family history of breast
cancer DOES hormone replacement therapy AS COMPARED
TO placebo reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease?
Question
(examples)
Questio
n Type
Patient
(population
/disease)
Intervention
(Exposure)/
Comparison
Outcome
How accurate is
mammographic
screening in the
diagnosis of
breast cancer in
obese women?
Diagnosi
s
In obese
women
is
mammogra
phy
an accurate
tool for
diagnosing
breast cancer?
Does the
survival of
women with
breast cancer
differ when a
total
mastectomy is
performed as
opposed to a
lumpectomy.
Therapy
In patients
with breast
cancer
does total
mastectomy
versus
lumpectomy
have a more
postive effect
on survival
rates
How effective is
mass screening
in reducing
mortality /
increasing
survival from
breast cancer?
Therapy
In women
with
previously
undiagnose
d breast
cancer
does mass
screening
compared
with no mass
screening
have a positive
effect on
survival rates.
Is there any
evidence that
smoking
increases the
risk of breast
cancer in
women?
Aetiolog
y
Is there
evidence
that women
who smoke
versus non-
smokers
are more likely
to develop
breast cancer

Unit 17.Using of Social Networks
and Publishing Facilities to Build
Your Online Profile
The table below provides an overview of social networked
technologies and publishing processes that combine to build an
online academic profile.
Activity
Tools/
Processes
AcademicProfiles
Academic.edu
Academia.edu allows you to update your status, upload
your academic papers (including unpublished drafts), list
your research interests and follow other scholars with
similar areas of research.
Research Gate
ResearchGate is the leading social networking site for
scientists and an increasing number of scholars in
humanities and social sciences. It offers the same
functionality as Academia.edu: share publications, get
statistics about views and downloads of your research;
collaborate with peers, etc.
Mendeley
Mendeley is a social reference management site. You can
list or upload your research publications, provide a brief
academic CV and biographical information, and participate
in a group.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors
to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check
who is citing your publications, graph citations over time,
and compute several citation metrics. You can also make
your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar
results when people search for your name.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social networking site with a focus on job
recruiting. However, it's not all business. Many scholars
use LinkedIn to show off their academic service. If you're
investigating a non-traditional career, or even if you just
want to ensure discovery of your CV by university
administrators and support staff, LinkedIn can be an
important complement to your other social networking
activities.
ResearcherIDs
ORCID
OrcidID provides a unique identifier for each researcher.
Having a distinctive author name is essential for
academics’ work to be found among a global network of
researchers. ORCID is required by a growing number of
agencies and publishers such as Oxford University Press,
Taylor & Francis, Public Library of Science (PLoS) and
Thomson Reuters.
ResearcherID
ResearcherID operates in Web of Science, offering a
unique scholar identifier within Web of Science and a
scholar profile page with citation metrics for each
researcher.
ContentSharing
Twitter Hashtags & Lists
The microblogging platform Twitter allows you to use
hashtags to discover important news in your discipline or
other active scholars. It is increasingly common for
conferences to have an associated hashtag so make sure
to check if there is one when you attend your next meeting.
Slideshare
Slideshare allows you to archive your slides online and can
give people an early glimpse into your research. This will
help maintain your active research presence after the
presentation and build interest in your future publications.
Digital Repositories
Many academic libraries are actively involved in building
digital repositories of the institution's books, papers,

theses, and other works. As a member of UBC you can
―archive‖ your work in the UBC Library institutional
repository cIRcle. If you've published an article in your
field, you may also want to explore archiving in a subject
repository.
Open Education
You can leverage all the time you spend teaching by
publishing your teaching materials online for others to use
in their own instruction. Open Education Resources (OER)
can include, but are not limited to, syllabi, reading lists,
handouts and course readings, PowerPoint slides, and
even videos.
Open Bibliographies
Open bibliographies is the act of sharing citations on a
specific theme or topic on the internet. This curated list of
materials can be a useful starting point for other
researchers while also directing people to your knowledge
in the area of study. Open bibliographies can be created
using citation management tools, or through blogs, wikis or
personal websites.
ContentCreation
Blogs, podcasts, videos
Blogs are a space where academics and scholars engaged
in new ideas, begin discussions on research findings, and
gain feedback on pre-published materials. Videos and
podcasts allows you to capture presentations that may be
dependent on audiovisual materials for expressing ideas,
discussion periods that can add clarity to your work, and
nonverbal skills associated to effective presentation.
Twitter
Twitter is a popular microblogging service. The service
provides access to current updates in your discipline, as
news services and academic journals broadcast breaking
news over Twitter. One distinct advantage of Twitter is the
ability to reply to journalists and scholars in your field and
to easily repost links to articles through your own account.

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