Best Research Practices & Effective Search Strategies
Wednesday, April 16
Langson Library Room #229 (next to the Main Library Technology Enhanced Classroom)
Stephanie Davis-Kahl & Christina Woo
What information sources do social scientists search?  What types of information--published articles, conference proceedings, data, dissertations, etc.--are in these sources?  To what extent are they indexed and abstracted?  What information is available on the Web--free to anyone or only through licensed databases?  This workshop will include a brief overview of the information available to social scientists and then examine research practices that are efficient and appropriately comprehensive.  Participants will also discuss how to formulate search strategies and improve them, document the search process, create search strategies to run periodically (including those that will run themselves and notify the student automatically). [handout]

Social Science Literature Overview & Interdisciplinarity
Friday, April 18
Christina Woo & Julia Gelfand
The social and behavioral sciences have become increasingly interdisciplinary with emerging new emphases.  This session will demonstrate the core literature and new information products, reference tools, indexing & abstracting sources, finding & evaluation aids that are of interest to social scientists in a variety of formats, particularly those that blend subject areas, have a theoretical focus and a range of applications. [handout]

Government Information & Geographical Information Service (GIS)
Wednesday, April 23
Margaret Renton, Kay Colllins, & Judy Ruttenberg
Part I of this workshop will cover finding strategies for statistics and data sets from the U.S. Government. It will also focus on the federal government's influence on the social agenda: using laws, hearings, and other legislative information. Participants will learn to navigate free government web sites and appropriate databases such as Lexis-Nexis Congressional Universe. Part II will be an introduction to International Governmental Organizations (IGOs), including debates, resolutions, and statistical data. Part III will introduce students to GIS resources and services available at the UCI Libraries. [GIS in the UCI Libraries handout] [International Government Organization handout]
[U.S. Government Information handout]

Social Science Data
Friday, April 25
Dan Tsang
Empirical research in the social sciences relies in part on secondary analysis of data already collected.  This introductory session addresses what constitutes social science data, where to locate it, and how to read the associated documentation or "metadata."  We also will discuss the procedures for Institutional Review Board approval and how to access "restricted" data. [handout] [Quick Guide to Human Subjects Research at UCI]

Contemporary Issues: News Media and Public Policy Sources
Wednesday, April 30
Pauline Manaka & Dan Tsang
This session covers mainstream and alternative news media and public policy sources available for informed analysis in international and domestic studies on contemporary issues. It addresses issues of scholarly content, advocacy journalism and researcher/writer perspective. Find out what Third World and ethnic studies content is available, and what news sources have archived their articles in full text.  It also addresses how to uncover public policy working papers from think tanks and advocacy groups. [News handout]

Introduction to EndNote & Scholarly Communication
Friday, May 2
Roumiana Katzarkov, Julia Gelfand, & Stephanie Davis-Kahl
The first part of the session will introduce participants in the functions of bibliographic management software, specifically EndNote and how it contributes to good research habits so that students can build personalized databases and can collect, organize, recall and appropriately cite references as needed.  Scholarly communication describes a set of principles that suggest healthy ways for the academic and scientific community to respond to economic and distribution challenges within the publishing and information chain.  Participants will learn about the efforts underway within libraries to promote eResources, eScholarship and a sense of scholarly communication. [Scholarly Communication]

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updated 5/6/03 sdk
 created 4/2/03 sdk