CD 485 Computer Applications in Communication Disorders and Sciences

 

IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNAL ARTICLES THROUGH EBSCOHOST & OTHERS

 

 

Many, if not most, of the research sources we need, will come from the non-book category (journals, newspaper articles, government documents, etc.) It is true that we can find out if the University has a particular journal from Library Online Catalog or WorldCat, but we cannot search for specific journal articles in these databases.

 

For this, we must use other databases, and there are quite a few. For the seasoned, and somewhat removed, doctoral student who has spent 30 years in the library working on his dissertation, these databases are as different as night and day. Each one has strengths and weaknesses and he/she knows what they are and how to use them to the best advantage. For normal folks, however, who work and/or have families and a life, the choice of databases is almost overwhelming. Hence, we will not try to learn or use them all. We will only look at a few of the most powerful ones in our field.

 

Just as we had a dichotomy in the literature (books versus non-books) there is a dichotomy developing in the non-book world, and I must say this one has even me excited! It is electronic - versus non-electronic journals. The former refers to Journals whose articles are available in full-text over the Internet. More and more, it is becoming unnecessary to trudge across town in the wee hours of the evening to seek a journal article, only to find it gone because someone has cut it out with a razor. For busy CD students in particular, full text journal articles (and soon full text books) are the greatest invention since the wheel, if not cable TV.

 

In the last Section, we were introduced to the role that Provider Services play in making databases accessible to CSUN Students   In that Section we looked for book references in a database called WorldCat whose Provider is First Search.  In this Section we will be looking  for journal references in databases with different providers:  This will include among others: 

 

1.   EBSCOHOST with a number of databases.

2.   CSA with ERIC and LLBA

3.   WILEY INTRSCIENCE  with Cochran Library

4.   ENGINEERING VILLAGE with INSPEC

5.   THOMPSON GALE with HEALTH REFERENCE CENTER

6.   ELSEVIER with SCIENCE DIRECT

7.   WILSON WEB with EDUCATION FULL TEXT

 

A.   IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  EBSCOHOST

 

EbscoHost provides access to 14 databases and includes full-text access, and depending on the database, links to check CSUN Oviatt Library holdings.  Five of these 14 databases are of particular interest to Communication Disorders students: 

 

1.   CINAHL Plus with Full Text (EBSCO) which Indexes over 3,000 nursing and allied health journals.  It provides cited references from 1,600 journals; and provides full-text access to many journals and other sources.  It has been in service since 1937.

2.   PsycINFO (EBSCO) which Indexes over 2,000 journals plus books and book chapters.  This has been in service since 1987.

3.   Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) which abstracts to 3,000 journals (over 1,500 peer-reviewed journals), with full text to more than 2,000 of the journals. Although dates may vary, this service goes back to 1985.

4.   Communication & Mass Media (EBSCO) which abstracts over 600 journals in communication studies, speech, mass media, journalism, linguistics, and communicative disorders. Full text for more than 240 journals are available. Dates vary as early as 1915.

5.   ERIC, the Educational Resource Information Center, which contains more than 1,194,000 records and links to more than 100,000 full-text documents. 

 

 

 

One great advantage of using a Provider like EbscoHost is that you can search all five of these databases at one time.

 

To get to EbscoHost (or to any of the individual databases included) we could follow the same path as we did to find the book databases through the Communication Disorders Library Home page.  Another more basic route to Ebscohost, however, begins on the Library Home page, in the box labeled ÒStart Your ResearchÓ where we can click on the Databases A-Z link.

 

 

CSUN Oviatt Library Home Page

http://library.csun.edu/

 

 

This Databases A-Z link sends us to the top of the Resource list, but we can use the Index at the top to go directly to the ÒEÓ listings.

 

CSUN Library Database A – Z Index

 

 

This will move us down the list to the EbscoHost link.  This will finally take usÉ

 

 

Éto the EbscoHost  Search Page where we can select all five of the databasesÉ

 

EbscoHost Home Page.

 

 

Éthat are most germane to Communication Disorders.  Clicking on any of the databases provided by EbscoHost, like Eric for example, would have brought us to the same place.  Here we cam select one or more databases in which to continue our search.  In this case, there will be five.   Proceeding on to the Basic Search (by clicking on the Continue link in the upper left hand corner) we can input our search terms: AAC and Communication.  Since we had previously checked off five databases for our search, they are listed above

 

 

 

EbscoHost  Basic Search Page

 

 

after the word ÒSearching.Ó  By scrolling down, we could refine the search more by selecting a number of options such as English,  years, type of literature, etc.  It is interesting that we can also include a search for books using these databases.  As it is, our search returns a large number of article references (below), many of which are available in Full Text.  Below, for example, please note the ÒLinked Full TextÓ link on references 8, 9 and 10.

 

EbscoHost Search Results

 

 

Clicking on the Linked Full Text link (shown above) gives us the actual article, part of which is show below

 

 

 

Years ago, it would have taken us maybe multiple trips to the library and hours of searching to get this article, which with a little practice we can now pull up in a matter of minutes without ever leaving home.  Research doesnÕt get any better than this!

 

B.  IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER CSA AND THE DATABASES ERIC and LLBA

 

CSA Databases provides access to seven databases including some with full text access and information about print resources.  The main databases of interest to Communication Disorders Students are ERIC and LLBA.  The former we also found in EbscoHost—Eric.  The search page of course will have a different format in CSA.  We could access this from the Communicative Disorders Home page, or from the A-Z list using either CSA or Eric. 

 

A to Z Listing for ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center)

 

 

As you can see above, there are actually three paths to ERIC, each of which will have a different search page format.  We, of course, will be looking in the CSA Provider contracted by the CSUN Library.  If we were not CSUN students, we could use the third choice, the US Department of Education, which is free.  The CSA Search page looks as follows:

 

 

 

 

CSA Search Page for ERIC

 

 

There are, of course, many options available if we wish to scroll down the Search Page.  Also, please note the helpful Search Tips available just under the boxes for the search words.  Using just this simple strategy we come up with 163 references.  Of these, 126 are journal articles (of which 73 are Peer Reviewed), and 5 are books.  Your results may vary slightly as changes occur over time.

 

 

 

CSA Results for ERIC

 

 

To the right (not shown here) is also a list of descriptor terms which we could use if we wanted to start another search with different terms.  Clicking on the article title or the View Record option will give us the full citation.

 

 

 

 

 

CSA Full Citation for ERIC

 

 

In addition to all the information here in the Full Citation, we can pursue the ÒFind Text Òlink as we did previously to automatically format the reference in an APA style by using the ÒSave citation informationÓ link.

 

CSA  Find Text Link in  ERIC

 

 

We are also informed that the Full Text is available from several sources; and that the publication is available in the CSUN Library.  If we click on the Save citation information, we will have the option to chose the Style we wish, such as MLA, APA or others.  If we select APA and click on Go, the reference will be given in APA format.  We can copy and paste the reference in this style into our paper if that is what we need

 

 

We could also pursue the Full Text by clicking on either links, but we have other Providers and Databases to explore for now. 

 

The same procedure, as described above for CSA, can be used to search the LLBA (Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts) database.

 

 

 

As described by our Library, ÒThis database provides current selective access to the world's literature on linguistics and language behavior as a service to all researchers and practitioners in disciplines concerned with the nature and use of language. LLBA provides abstract listings of periodicals, reports, books and conference proceedings in the fields of language learning, speech disorders, and special education in communication, among other topics. Articles abstracted in LLBA are drawn from approximately 1,200 regularly scanned domestic and international journals.Ó  Hence, this is an excellent source of references relevant to research in Communicative Disorders.  But it is only available through the CSA Provider to students enrolled in CSUN.

 

C.     IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  WILEY INTERSCIENCE AND THE DATABASE COCHRAN LIBRARY

 

Wiley InterScience is a full-text resource for journal articles. It also indexes hundreds of online books and several Wiley reference works. There is only one database in the Provider and that is the Cochran Library.  We can access this through the Communication Disorders Library Home page, or the A to Z resource listing either under the Provider, Wiley InterScience . . .

 

CSUN Library Database A – Z Index Under ÒWÓ

 

 

. . . or the database, Cochran Library.

 

CSUN Library Database A – Z Index Under ÒCÓ

 

 

The format of the Search Page will look like thisÉ

 

Wiley InterScence Provider with the Cochran Library Search Page

 

 

Using just a basic search strategy and the words Òaac and communicationÓ we will retrieve around 46 references.

 

 

Wiley InterScience Provider with the Cochran Library Results Page

 

 

These have the full text available as a PDF files.

 

D.     IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  ENGINEERING VILLAGE AND THE DATABASE INSPEC

 

Engineering Village includes two databases:  Compendex and INSPEC.  While they both may have articles germane to a study of AAC, of particular interest to Communicative Disorders Students would be INSPEC.

á      Compendex - abstracts 5000 engineering journals, conferences and reports in all areas of engineering from 1969 to present.

á      INSPEC- indexes 3,500 technical and scientific journals and 1,500 conference proceedings in physics, electronics, computing, control engineering and information technology. Coverage is from 1969 to the present.

 

INSPEC can be accessed from the A-Z Index or from the Communicative Disorders Library Home Page.  It has a search page that looks like this:

 

 

Search Page of INSPEC in the Provider Engineering Village

 

 

It is worth noting that Search Tips at the bottom of the screen provide useful hints for our search strategy.  I always recommend sorting by Date so we get the most recent articles first.  It is possible to search both INSPEC and Compendix at the same time, but I am not sure that is of any advantage to a search for AAC references.  We might wish to try it out by checking that option under ÒSelect DatabaseÓ at the top of the page.  Using the simple search strategy, Òalternat*  augment* communicat*, we get 200 references.

 

 

Results Page for Inspec in Engineering Village

 

 

There are the familiar links to ÒFind TextÓ which we can use to see if the reference is in the CSUN Library or any CSU Library; and we can also automatically format the reference in an APA format.  There is also a Full-text link.  In this case it only leads us to an abstract.  If we take this link we need to realize that we will eave the Engineering Village format and enter another entirely different database in a different Provider, in this case Informaworld in a Provider called Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. We would then have to use the back arrow on the Browser if we wanted to return to Engineering Village and INSPEC.

 

 

Full Reference from Informaworld in Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

 

 

 

E.   IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  THOMPSON GALE AND THE DATABASE HEALTH REFERENCE CENTER.

 

The THOMPSON GALE Provider (actually, I think they are dropping the Thompson and going just by Gale) has database of particular interest to Communication Disorders Students called Health Reference Center Academic.  It can be accessed through the A –Z Index or the Communication Disorders Library Home page.  I recommend using the database name and not the Provider.  The search page looks as follows:

 

Basic Search Page for ÒHeath Reference Center AcademicÓ in Gale

 

 

Without limiting the results by the options listed farther down the page (not shown above) we obtain 213 references .

 

Results Page for ÒHeath Reference Center AcademicÓ in Gale

 

 

Eighty Six of the references are in Academic Journals, 102 are in Magazines and 25 are news reports.  No books are listed. We need to click on the Tabs to see the individual References.  If we click on the reference itself however, we can a full text reference and even have it translated into another language!

 

 

Full Text Reference for ÒHeath Reference Center AcademicÓ in Gale

 

 

 

 

F.   IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  ELSEVIER WITH THE DATABASE SCIENCE DIRECT.

 

Science Direct in the Provider Elsevier has over 1700 science and social science journals published by Elsevier, Academic Press, and several other publishers; full text from 1998- as well as abstracts of hundreds of journal articles from partner publishers.  It can be accessed through the A – Z Index or the Communication Disorders Library Home page.  It has a search page that looks as follows:

 

Search Page for Science Direct in the Provider Elsevier

 

 

Please note the ÒSearch TipsÓ link available in the left upper corner (see arrow above). Conducting a simple Keyword search using the terms Òaac communicationÓ we get more than 6000 references.  We may wish to reduce this number by using the Advanced Search option (see the arrow below), and some of the delimiters like dates, Content type, Language, type of publication, etc. 

 

Results Page for Science Direct in the Provider

Elsevier

 

 

Please note that the white book icon to the left of the reference indicates that CSUN does not subscribe to this journal.  But the green book icon indicates that the article is available online.  Clicking on the Full Text link under the reference takes us to the online article, or we can have also get the full article in PDF format (see below).

 

 

Full Text Article for Science Direct in the Provider Elsevier

 

 

G.  IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE DATABASES – JOURNALS FROM THE PROVIDER  WILSONWEB WITH THE DATABASES EDUCATION FULL TEXT and OMNIFILE FULL TEXT MEGA.

 

The WilsonWeb Provider includes many databases including Art Full Text, Art Index, Biography Index, Book Review Digest Plus, Business Full Text, Education Full Text, General Science Full Text, Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective, Humanities Full Text, Library Literature & Information Science Full Text, Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective, OmniFile Full Text Mega, Readers' Guide Retrospective, Readers' Guide Full Text, and Social Sciences Full Text. 

 

The two databases that interest us the most are, Education Full Text and OmniFile Full Text Mega.  The latter does a cross search in all these databases.

We can access the Education Full Text database either through the A – Z Library Index or the Communication Disorders Library Home page. 

 

A – Z Library Index

 

 

The search page looks something  like this:

 

 

Search Page for Education Full Text Database in Wilson Web

 

 

It was necessary to pull down the Database Selection area to choose the Databases we wish to search.  In this case we have checked the ÒEducatlon Full Text Database.  Using the smart search option and sorting by date we get 119 records.  If we had also checked off the Omni Full Text Mega option, we would have obtained around 158.  As it is, most of the references we have can be obtained in Full Text online in HTML or in PDF format.   It is interesting that if we had limited the search to Full Text only we would still have received 67 records.

 

Search Results Page for Education Full Text Database in Wilson Web

 

 

 

The number of useful records with their full text in all these databases is certainly amazing and much can be done with these.  In the next Section, however, we will look at some of the Òbig gunsÓ available to CD student to do research.   These include, Medline, PubMed and Communications Disorders Multi Search.