After completing this module you will able to.. 1. Describe the access tools available to you for finding information 2. Identify effective search techniques 3. Describe the characteristics of Internet search engines , subject directory and databases. 4. Identify a range of information sources 5. Consider which sources are most likely to be useful for your search question 6. Understand why some information sources may be more helpful than others in the context of a particular information need.

1. Application of Internet and Computer in Medicine (MD-First Part ) Course Director Prof. A Refat
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Application of Internet and Computer in Medicine
For MD-First Part Faculty of Medicine Zagazig University 2021
Course Director Prof. Ahmed Refat
Tutorial # 3
HOW TO FIND INFORMATION ON
THE INTERNET
An Interactive Tutorial
Interactive tutorial is a structured collection of navigable web pages.
Individual pages can contain any combination of text, images, audio, video,
self test questions and other interactive activities.
Learning outcomes
After completing this module you will able to..
1. Describe the access tools available to you for finding information
2. Identify effective search techniques
3. Describe the characteristics of Internet search engines , subject
directory and databases.
4. Identify a range of information sources
5. Consider which sources are most likely to be useful for your search
question
6. Understand why some information sources may be more helpful than
others in the context of a particular information need.

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HOW TO FIND
INFORMATION ON THE
INTERNET
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
Try this scenario..
How to access information about COVID-19 in Egypt..
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.
https://www.who.int/countries/egy/

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2. BROWSE
Browsing home pages on the Web is a haphazard but interesting way of
finding desired material on the Internet.
Application exercise # 1 … Try the following
.. from the WHO site https://www.who.int Browse for finding term
countries https://www.who.int/countries then try to find Egypt
https://www.who.int/countries/egy/
What information did you find in this page … List 4 main items….
1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
These directories are organized by subject and consist of links to Internet
resources relating to these subjects.
Application exercise # 2… Try this directory http://www.vlib.org/
When to use directories? Directories are useful for general topics, for
topics that need exploring, for in-depth research, and for browsing.

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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).
Application exercise # 3… Try the following
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

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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

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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
.
Examples of Search Engines:
www.Google.com
www.yahoo.com
How Google displays search results
 Google Displays 10 results at a time

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 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
Application exercise # 4… Try the following ….
Copy and paste the selected phrases in search box of google.com
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

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�“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.

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• 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”

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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

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• 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

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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
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 DEDICATED TO DIGITIZED
SCHOLARLY MATERIALS OR BOOKS
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

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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.
8. READ BLOGS AND SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS
Blogs are sites that present postings by one or more people, to which
readers can comment.
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 .
Additional and supplementary information ….. visit the
following sites
https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/internetbasics/using-search-engines/1/
https://libguides.wits.ac.za/Scholarly_Research_Resources/Research_Search_Engi
nes
https://libguides.ust.hk/infoliteracy/module-3
https://subjectguides.esc.edu/researchskillstutorial

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Quizzes
1. What does URL stand for?
a) Unique Records List
b) Uniform Resource Locator
c) Undefined Restricted Learner
d) Universal Robot Location
2. Which is the best search tool for finding Web sites that have been selected and
recommended by experts :
A. subject directories
B. search engines
C. meta-search engines
D. discussion groups
3. Which of the following statements about search engines and directories is true?
A. A search engine does not discriminate between good and bad sites.
B. A search engine displays all Web pages that contain your keywords and may list
thousands of unordered results.
C. A directory is someone’s attempt to categorize the best sites available for a given
subject or topic.
D. All of the above
4. A collection of information that is organized and stored , easy to search called.
A. Network
B. Directory
C. Database
D. Home page.