It’s no
secret that there are heaps of useless websites on the Internet—and it is an
endless challenge to sift through the rubbish to get what we really need.
Fortunately, Web 2.0 has recently evolved to appeal to niche markets—and one of
them is education.
The lives of teachers, professors and students are hard enough as it is with demanding hours, straining subject matter and endless research. There are many great search engines that can ease the strain of these pressures. I’ve picked out my favorite ones for college students and higher education professionals that offer functionality that attempts to traverse the invisible web and uncover hidden resources for researching.
The lives of teachers, professors and students are hard enough as it is with demanding hours, straining subject matter and endless research. There are many great search engines that can ease the strain of these pressures. I’ve picked out my favorite ones for college students and higher education professionals that offer functionality that attempts to traverse the invisible web and uncover hidden resources for researching.
1) iSEEK
A 2009 Codi
Award Finalist, iSeek is a great search engine for students, teachers and
administrators. Simply ask a question or enter search topics or tools and iSEEK
will pull from scholastic sources to find exactly what you are looking for. The
search engine is safe, intelligent and time–saving—and it draws from trusted
resources from universities, government and established non–commercial sites.
In this day
and age everything is online—even books. Google Book Search allows web users to
peruse though an index of thousands of books, from popular titles to old, to
find pages that include your search terms. Once you find the book you are
looking for, you can browse through pages, find online reviews and learn where
you can get a hard copy. From bibliographies to lesson plans, the pool of
thousands of books can help students and teachers reach their educational
goals.
It’s no
secret that Google is always one step ahead—and this holds true for their
custom search engine tool. Google Custom Search Engine is a research tool where
users can create a customized search to probe across specified sites. All you
need to do is select the websites and pages you'd like to search from—then
Google will do the dirty work. The ability to narrow down the pool of sources
can really help students and teachers work efficiently on the web.
Last Google
application, I swear! Google Scholar was created as a tool to congregate
scholarly literature on the web. From one place, students have the ability to
hunt for peer–reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from
academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories,
universities and other scholarly organizations.
Populated
by the U.S. Department of Education, the Educational Resources Information
Center (ERIC) is a great tool for academic research with more than 1.3 million
bibliographic records of articles and online materials. ERIC provides access to
an extensive body of education–related literature including journal articles,
books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers
and more. With more than eight million searches each month —it’s no wonder why
this search engine is a great web source for education.
Created in
the late 90s by the U.S. Federal Government, the Federal Resources for Academic
Excellence (FREE) makes it easier to find teaching and learning resources. More
than 1,500 federally supported resources are hosted on this search engine on
topics including: arts & music, health & physical education, language
arts, math and U.S. History.
7) Scirus
Scirus is a
leading search engine for science students on the web. This search engine has a
comprehensive database of more than 350 million scientific–related pages
including: academic journals, websites, scientists' homepages, pre–print server
material, patents and institutional repository. Moreover, the site allows users
to locate technical and medical data, find current reports, search through
peer–reviewed articles and examine patents through a selective search engine.
8) Intute
With
thousands of websites on the internet, it is often difficult to find the right
sources when it comes to researching—but with Intute’s help, your studies can
be a little easier. Intute is a free search engine based in the UK that allows
students to search an array of academic sources by subject. The search engine’s
subject specialists review and evaluate thousands of resources to help users
choose the key websites in a range of academic topics. In addition to the
comprehensive search engine, Intute has 60 free online tutorials written by
college professors and librarians to develop your Internet research skills.
Virtual
Learning Resources Center (VLRC) is an online index that hosts thousands of
scholarly websites, all of which are selected by teachers and librarians from
around the globe. The site provides students and teachers with current, valid
information for school and university academic projects using an index of more
than 10,000 web pages gathered from research portals, universities and library
Internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians. Areas
represented in this search engine include : full–text magazines, newspapers,
electronic text archives, art history, biography, biology, career information,
psychology, history, government information, literature, medicine, social
sciences, legislation, art, crime, history, economics, education, writing,
foreign languages, geography, genealogy, government, literature, mathematics,
music, science and technology.
10) American Memory
History
majors: take not of this search engine. American Memory is a gateway to the
Library of Congress’s database of more than nine million digitized documents, sound
recordings, images, maps, and other American primary sources. This free and
open access site includes sound recordings, images, prints, maps and articles
that document United States history and culture. This search engine is the
go–to source for American history.
11) Noodle Tools
Noodle
Tools is a service that helps students find references for papers or projects. Users
can choose the best search for your information need based on an analysis of
your topic or sift through the database of how–to articles. This site is widely
used among college institutions, as it provides not only an all–inclusive
search functionality, but also a citation generator for bibliographies in MLA,
APA, or Chicago style.
12) Clusty
Clusty is
the brainchild of three Carnegie Mellon University scientists who have tackled
the problem of information overload in web searching. Rather than generating
search results from all types of internet sources, Clusty clusters (hence its
name) keyword searches to include the best results for academic discovery.
Search clusters include: web, news, images, Wikipedia, blogs, shopping,
government and labs. Simply type your search terms, then clustered search
results will appear, citing specific scholarly sources and other search engine
sites.
13) WorldCat
Instead of
sifting through hundreds of books at the library, just pop in front of your
laptop and navigate to WorldCat—a site where you search many libraries at once
for an item and then locate it in a library nearby. Whether it’s popular books,
music CDs and videos—WorldCat will help you locate the materials for your next
paper or project. You can also discover many new kinds of digital content, such
as downloadable audiobooks. You may also find article citations with links to
full text, authoritative research materials and digital versions of rare items
that aren't available to the public.
A librarian's
forte is research—and this search engine has channeled their expertise to a
site called Librarians Internet Index. The search engine is a well–annotated
directory of web resources hand–picked by librarians. It has over 20,000
records representing high–quality websites from topics ranging from technology
to social science.
15) Infomine
Infomine is
a librarian–built virtual library of internet resources relevant to faculty,
students and research staff at the collegiate level. This site narrows searches
to a comprehensive academic virtual library filled with websites, databases,
electronic journals, electronic books and directories of researchers.
Librarians from the University of California, Wake Forest University,
California State University, the University of Detroit – Mercy, and other
universities and colleges have contributed to building Infomine.
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