Search Strategies and Putting it All Together

I feel extremely comfortable with database research. Using the fruits of database research, I have written a number of 25+ page papers in the last three years of my doctoral studies at the U of M. Prior to that, I authored a 100+ page master's thesis. Outside academic work, I have authored institutional self-studies for accreditation, numerous faculty in-service trainings, and for a class project last year I researched and created an Instructor Improvement Program based on self and peer observations through digital video recordings of teaching sessions. I implemented this program last spring with my faculty and achieved positive outcomes.

The fruits of my database searches tend to include journals accessible online. Many are digitized copies of hard copy journals, while some are exclusively e-journals. Not all journals exist digitally, so I have also relied to a small extent (increasingly smaller as time has gone on) on hard copy journals (some good 1990's content has still not been digitized) and hard copy academic books. A few books have existed digitally, which is a siginficant time-saver because you can typically perform keyword searches within them. I think many of us jump at the chance to access sources that are electronic, especially because of the convenience factor (not having to go to the library). After all, if the same content exists on my laptop as on the shelf of the library, I am not going to make the extra trip. But I think we sometimes also shy away from a hard copy book because of the lack of easy search capability (though a good index is easy to search) among other perceived inconveniences. As long as I continue to find relevant content in a hard copy book, I won't shy away from them.

For researching "Education, higher" as a subject (from U of MN library website), my top three databases in order are:

1. Academic Search Premier (Ebsco)
2. Education Full Text (Wilson Web)
3. ERIC

The most effective strategy I have for finding relevant research is this: If I already have at least one good source, I find it in one of the above databases and look at what keywords it is "tagged" under. This is a similar process to what we are learning about diigo, delicious, and flickr--except that the databases are taxonomized (not folksonomized). Once you hit on a good academic search term, you can quickly multiply your relevant finds. However, cross-disciplinary research makes this particularly tricky! My research focus is "Professional social skills." But that's my term. In Education parlance, it's "soft skills." In Sociology parlance, it's "social skills." In Economics, I have found relevant results in "non-technical skills." And the list goes on. I am excited to see how the folksonomies of the social networking sites referenced above will challenge my thinking, searching, and tagging.

For my final project, I am again toying with something to benefit my faculty, which in turn will benefit my students. I think a mini version of this class--Digital Writing with Web 2.0: A Crash Course (I have only a few hours for a typical in-service!)--is one possibility; a greatest hits of this class, if you will. If I cover a range of topics, faculty members can focus on what they find most interesting or of greatest potential. As tends to happen in our tight-knit faculty, instructors will teach each other how to use the tools they have found useful. Other ideas include focusing on one or two of what I will determine to be the most vital digital writing tools--so far RSS feeds (especially for blogs) and diigo are leading contenders. I have often found benefit in a more focused presentation that allows everyone to master one or two new skills. Then I could always expand the learning at a future in-service. It is possible that I could find a particularly exciting topic for a class unit, such as resume writing or writing business letters, that incorporated a particular set of digital writing tools. E-portfolios for each student would be a particularly ambitious but useful outcome as well. I don't know if just narrowed down or "broadened up" my choices. I will continue to ruminate on the ideas and reflect on them in future posts.