Submitted October 30

1.      Find a full text article on Collaboration in group project based Online Courses.

            As I was unsure which type of database would produce an article that met these characteristics, I selected multiple ones: Academic Search Premier, Education Abstracts, Education Research Complete, and Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts.  Using the terms “collaboration and online courses” and limiting my search to full text articles only, seventy four results were generated.  (Note, at first I misspelled “collaboration,” substituting an e where the second o should be.  Naturally, since the word was misspelled, I initially produced no results.)  The following article from Online Classroom discusses the role of collaboration in distance education courses:

Facilitate Student Collaboration. (2005, Oct.) Online Classroom, 1.

2.      Provide a full-text article on building digital libraries.

      As I scanned the list of databases in ESCOHOST, two stood out as possibly having relevant sources: Academic Search Premier and Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts.  Using these two databases, I conducted a search using the keywords “building digital libraries.”  I did not opt to limit my search criteria.  The search produced twenty seven results, from which I chose the following article (which is available online through the Buley Library):

Suleman, H., Fox, E. A., Kelapure, R., Krowne, A., & Luo, M. (2003). Building digital libraries      from simple building blocks. Online Information Review, 27(5), 301-10.

3.      Is a school media specialist a technician or technologist?

I chose to search for this answer in Education Research Complete.  I began my search using the following key words: “school media specialist and technician and technologist,” hoping to find an article that addressed this controversy.  However, this proved to be too specific, as no results were generated.  I then conducted a simpler search using the term “school media specialist.”  This produced ninety results.  After reading through the list and examining some articles closely, I became dissatisfied with my results and decided to try a new search.  Using the same key terms (school media specialist) I searched Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts.  One hundred thirty articles were generated.  Many of these results appeared to be the same; I did not feel that any would answer the question.  Frustrated, I then decided to take a break and start fresh the next day.

I decided to stick with Education Research Complete during my second attempt at answering this question, as it still seemed to be the most relevant database.  This time I omitted school media and tried using the key terms “technician and technologist” hoping to come across an article that would distinguish between the terms immediately in the title. And alas, I found an article that would answer this question:

Anderson, M. A.  (2005 Aug/Sep). Technician or technologist? Library Media Connection,        24(1), 14-109.

According to this article, the most effective school media specialist fulfills the role of both.

4.      Conduct a visual search in Academic Search Premier on Boolean Searching. How many categories of results are there? Within the Web Search Results locate an article on Squishy Boolean by Mary Ellen Bates.

The visual search produced ten categories of results: Computer Science, Computer Software, Electronic Information Resources, General, Information Retrieval, Information Services, Internet Searching, Online Databases, Search Engines, and “More.”  By clicking on the Electronic Information Resources circle and then zooming into a smaller circle labeled Search Engines, I was able to find the article entitled “Squishy Boolean” by Mary Ellen Bates.

5.      Do Muslims and Christians believe in the same God? Locate an article that addresses this question.

From EBSCOHOST, I chose to search the ATLA Religion Database.  In the “FIND” box, I entered the following key words:  muslims and christians.  This produced 1100 results.  As I scanned down the beginning of the list, I found an article that I knew would answer my question (note, it was available in full text):

Wesley, A. S. (2004). Do Muslims and Christians worship the same god? Christian Century,       121(11), 29-30.

According to this article, there is no definitive yes or no answer to this question; rather it is quite complex and can vary amongst individuals.

6.      Is there any discussion in the literature on Weight training and Weight Loss?

I decided to begin my search for answer to this question on CINAHL Select, since the database focuses on health related articles.  Using the key terms “weight training and weight loss” my search generated ten results.  The first one stood out to me immediately, both on a personal interest level and in response to the above question:

Lifting weights attacks unhealthy belly fat in women. (2006, June). Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter, 24(4), 8.

After reading the article, I learned that studies have shown a correlation with women who participated in a weight training as also losing body fat.

7.      What does the literature say on Evidence Based Medicine and Curriculum in Medicine?

I chose the database CINAHL Plus with full text for this search.  I did not want to limit myself to just an abstract, as I needed to also provide an answer to the question stated above.  Using the terms “evidence and curriculum” I generated four hundred ninety seven results: a bit too many to have to search through.  Next, I limited my search to “evidence and curriculum and medicine.”  This produced seventy six results, a more feasible number to examine.  As scanned down the list of results, the following citation caught my eye:

Thomas, K. G., Thomas, M. R., York, E. B., Dupras, D. M., Schultz, H. J., Kolars, J.C. (2005,

            Spring). Teaching evidence-based medicine to internal medicine residents: the efficacy of

            conferences versus small-group discussion. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 17(2),      130-5.

After reading the article, I learned that evidence-based medicine is a required part of the curriculum of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Practice Based Learning.  The article suggests that small group discussions help enhance student’s evidence-based medicine competency.