Report blog presentation_at3_v.1
- 1. 27 June 2015 CULINL301A Develop and use information literacy skills Assessment Task 3 Report 1. What is your topic? The initial question was ‘What effect does the sun have on our skin?’ and was refined to focus on sun exposure in relation to skin cancer. 2. Why did you choose it? My customer is looking for information on sun exposure in relation to skin cancer. They have extremely pale, sun damaged skin that needs to be checked for changes by a skin cancer specialist/dermatologist annually. They are looking to update their knowledge of the subject with reliable, authoritative sources. 3. What retrieval strategies did you apply? The image was the first resource I tried to find. I searched Google Images and initially wanted to use a skin cancer chart. I started searching for this using those keywords, unfortunately the relevant charts were not images but PDF files and/or not authoritative. A search using skin cancer found this image. I searched YouTube initially with the keywords skin cancer and then tried melanoma. When I wasn’t able to find many worthwhile authoritative sources I changed the search to skin cancer animation. Tofind a blog/RSS feed was a little more difficult as I searched Google using the term blog or RSS Feed along with keywords – skin cancer, melanoma, sun. A lot of the authoritative results were not actually RSS feeds (or blogs with in-built RSS feed) but simply news pages. Social Media was easy as I was already following the New Town Skin Cancer Clinic on Facebook. And the ABC Website article I came across during my other searching and saved it in Delicious as a possible resource.
- 2. 4. Which of the following tools were relevant and why? Definition: Social Media tools allow people to create, share and exchange information, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities. Non print sources were extremely relevant tothis topic and all of my sources were found online. I have used an RSS feed, a YouTube video, and an image because the assessment required me to. I was able to use a relevant, authoritative Facebook page as I have been personally following that page for some time. And my final source of a website article was used simply because I found it through searching for other resources. 5. Which information agencies or Internet sites did you use? I used Google, Google Images and YouTube to conduct searches. I needed to find relevant, authoritative and current sites and so I tried to use organisational, government and educational sites. I posted using .net (generic domain but authoritative site of the ABC – Government organisation), .edu (Skin and Cancer Foundation/Sydney Skin Hospital - educational), .org (cancer council Australia - organisation) domains and posted indirect links (YouTube, Facebook) with originating sources of .org (Cancer Research UK - charitable organisation) and .com (generic domain but authoritative site – New Town Skin Cancer Clinic) domains. 6. How did you analyse / sort the information? I analysed the information by checking the currency of the information I wished to use. I then clicked on links such as ‘about us’ and ‘contact us’ to find facts and information to verify the resource. I checked for any perceived bias, references/original sources as well as any obvious inaccuracies. 7. Did you need to reassess or follow up? Yes. Because I had found several resources, more than the assessment requirements, I found I needed to double check I was planning to use the most relevant, authoritative information out of what I had found.
- 3. 8. How have you recorded and managed your information? I started by creating Blogger drafts to save information but then was introduced to Delicious in class. And so I started saving links with keywords as tags in Delicious. 9. Discuss and evaluate your blogging experience in light of how your own information literacy skills have developed. I found the experience more difficult that I first thought. The ability to find authoritative sources online is quite difficult, even when researching my topic where there was plenty of information to be found. YouTube was the most difficult place to find authoritative clips and it seemed it didn’t have much to do with my search strategies, but simply through luck. Searching in Google Images wasn’t easy either as there were many images that were not authoritative but knowing the type of domain names more likely to be reputable helped a lot. Once I had found my first resource through trial and error it helped a lot with knowing what may and may not work with the following searches.