Peter Greening, 11233041
I chose www.altavista.com because I believe that it is a good search engine for finding websites on the internet. Its problem is that sometimes it is too big and it is difficult to narrow searches to a reasonable number of hits.
Search Attempt 1
Syntax: "online learning"
No. of hits: 219584
Quality: Most of these results were of no use to me, they were companies selling their
online learning products.
Example:Online-Learning.com
Search Attempt 2
Syntax: "online learning" +effectiveness
No. of hits: 14707
Quality: There are some good sites here, but the majority
of the results are too broad to be useful.
Example:Online Learning: Methodology and Effectiveness
Students Perceptions of Distance Learning, Online Learning and the Traditional Classroom
Search Attempt 3
Syntax: "online learning" +effectiveness +tertiary
No. of hits: 1018
Quality: Most of these sites are what I am looking for,
some bad ones managed to slip through
Example:Online Learning Environments Research, Scott Walker
Search Attempt 4
Syntax: "online learning" +effectiveness +tertiary +Australia*
No. of hits: 795
Quality: Several of these pages are exactly what I am looking for.
Example:Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education
I chose the computer section of the Proquest database because it has lots of full text articles on all sorts of computer topics. Hopefully I can find an article that is not too specific.
Search Attempt 1
Syntax: "online learning"
No. of hits: 1099
Quality: There were a few articles on the topic I want, but most results
were on other issues about online learning.
Example:Online Learning Today: Strategies That Work
Search Attempt 2
Syntax: "online learning" +strategies
No. of hits: 79
Quality: This is obviously not the keyword I needed to refine my search. All the results were off my topic.
Search Attempt 3
Syntax: "online learning" +effectiveness
No. of hits: 3
Quality: There are some excellent articles here that will be excellent resources for my essay.
Example:Assessing student perceptions of Internet-based online learning environments
I decided to look at ingenta to see if I could find any newspaper or magazine articles that would support the arguemnt in my essay.
Search Attempt 1
Syntax: "online learning"
No. of hits: 153
Quality: The results were mixed. Some results were right on target, whilst others seemed
in no way connected with my search.
Example:Online university learning: cognitive and affective perspectives
Search Attempt 2
Syntax: "online learning" +tertiary
No. of hits: 10
Quality: The result below was perfect, along with a few good ones. Some results were still
useless.
Example:A UK study into the potential effects of virtual education: does online learning spell an end for on-campus learning?