Student Survival Guide

Running head: STUDENT SURVIVAL GUIDE

Student Survival Guide

Tineisha D. Taylor

Western International University

IT 101

Skills for Learning in an Information Age

Don Bronsard, Ph.D.

Computers, Internet, electronics are all apart of technology. Businesses are being buffeted by an increasingly rapid rate of change. There are new products, new regulations new customers and new technology in almost every industry. Part of that new technology is distance learning. More and more of adults are taken advantage of it. It is very convient for that working adult with spouse and kids or the adult going back to school. However some adults are not as savvy with the Internet or computer. Both items are essential in order to become a distance-learning student. Therefore I have created a student survival guide that would be useful for a new online student.

Conducting Successful Library and Internet Searches

The Internet provides access to a wealth of information on countless topics contributed by people throughout the world. A user has access to a wide variety of services and access protocols. These protocols such as http and e-mail allow users to search and retrieve material.

The Internet is not a library in which items can be retrieved by a single catalog. No one knows how many files reside on the internet. The number runs into a few billion and is growing at a rapid pace. When As if you were traveling from place to place in the real world; you have to in a virtual environment. Look for every entrance to a topic and every potential door that may lay hidden behind that room with no apparent end. Therefore, it may seem daunting, but it is nothing more than changing the way you view your particular topic from a different perspective, or angle. It may be as simple as looking for the opposite or slightly off the topic in order to find the major you are looking for. Another good reference for researching the Internet is http://www.aresearchguide.com/ or A Research Guide for Students by I. Lee, he gives a lot of good information and places to start.

There are many different ways to search for information on the internet. Ultimately looking at a topic from many different points of view, can help you find the information you are looking for. The Internet is a very large set of computers. In a matter of moments, you can gather information that is been posted from around the world. As you view this information, everything you see becomes obsolete because the Internet is growing as fast as our humanity can create new ways to view technology. Seeing the Internet and the information involved as if it were a three-dimensional evolving entity can as well help you navigate through it.

How and where to find academic resources online

Usually where to look is sometimes just as important as how to look for information on the web. If you find a good search engine once it does not mean it will always be the best engine to use. Sometimes you need to check many different types of search engines. Like everything on the World Wide Web search engines come in many different shapes, sizes and styles. Some are real, poorly developed and some just want to find a way to throw spam at you and hope that you spend money on their, ever so useless product. Let us start with real search engines and the different types, such as directories, library directories, library catalogs, spider search engines, super searchers, and alternatives to search engines.

Directories are topical lists of resources. These are usually compiled information on various topics, usually by a set of individuals who manage the site. Depending on the management's standards, the quality of these as in any engine can vary (Ackermann, 2005). A definite positive to using a directory is that they usually carry less resources of higher quality, thus lessening the haystack, in order to find the proverbial needle. Search engines, are directories, but most often; these are very large if they are run with a program considered a spider or robot. Spider or robot programs gather document links and load them into their databases, using them for your information (Ackermann, 2005). With most directories, you can search either by category [hierarchical] view or by key word. Sometimes, information updating can be slow due to lack of labor, or information is black listed by the site's management. Examples of directories are www.yahoo.com, www.hotbot.com, www.google.com, and www.altavista.com (Ackermann, 2005).

Virtual Libraries are another resource to check into when you are looking online. These libraries are logically organized resources, like your local community library. There are very few differences, they do not use the dewy decimal system, but rather subject guides, reference works, and specialized databases (Ackermann, 2005).

A subject guide is of tremendous value when looking for informational resources, by providing hyperlinks. Reference works are common in any library online or off, they are the encyclopedia, dictionary, and almanac collections. You probably do not usually know your looking at a specialized database, mostly you can think of these like the different sections of your local libraries, non-fiction department. Online they are searchable databases of journal articles, financial data, and other published works. Some examples of this type of directory include WIU College Library, and www.clearinghouse.net. You may find more libraries at http://lii.org/, The Librarians' Index to the Internet (Ackermann, 2005).

Navigating the University Library

Our library is an excellent source of information. Finding the relevant information you are looking for, can be quite easy by simply considering how specialized your topic might be. If you are looking for financial or business information, are you as well looking for the stress management in the industry? If the answer is no, then it serves no purpose to search "Health and Wellness Resource Center." Like most libraries, types of works, such as journals, dictionaries, or books, first categorize ours. Fields of study or databases are next such as business, health, or security. Sometimes we tend to overlook some categories, I have found that not just 'ProQuest Dissertations and Theses - Full Text' are quite useful but the 'Books, Dissertations, and Theses'