Online Resources & Searching Skills for Forced Migration Studies

Transcription

1 Online Resources & Searching Skills for Forced Migration Studies Sarah Rhodes, Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, African and Commonwealth Studies Joanna Soedring, Senior Library Assistant (Reader Services/Refugee Studies)

2 Overview Search strategy Bibliographic databases Other sources: Grey literature Theses Statistical data News Reference management

3 Good book on methodology Supervisor recommended this book Useful literature review in this paper Classic paper to use in the introduction Your Thesis Paper supports my argument in chapter 2 Good comparison study in this paper NGO project evaluation, good evidence for chapter 5 Lots of country data on this site

4 Reference chasing You know relevant books and papers already so follow the references, but don t rely on this approach alone. Ask people Recommendations are a good starting point and you have to read what your supervisor suggests but this not a comprehensive solution. Approaches to finding the literature The systematic approach Plan your search, list your search terms, hit the databases, systematically manage your references and papers Google Scholar It is the biggest database and covers books as well. A useful starting point but it is hard to control and causes frustration.

5 Start with a clear research question

6 Example research question Identify the search concepts in your research question: Feminist examination of exclusion from the refugee regime For each search concept, brainstorm keywords, broader and narrower terms, synonyms etc: e.g. for feminist thought also search for feminism, gender theory, women s rights, sexual equality etc. Try also the International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (ITRT) via Refugee Studies Libguide or directly

7 Building a structured search An example of one possible approach Research Question: Feminist examination of exclusion from the refugee regime Row 1 Concept 1: feminist Concept 2: exclusion Concept 3: refugee regime Row 2 Feminism Gender Women Exclusion Clause Criminality Human Rights Refugees Regime Convention International Law Row 3 #1 = femini* OR gender OR women #2 = exclusion clause OR crimin* OR human right* #3 = refug* regime* OR convention OR International law Row 4 #1 AND #2 AND #3 (N.B. # means search number) (femini* OR gender OR women) AND (exclusion clause OR crimin* OR human right*) AND (refug* regime* OR convention OR international law) - this is what the search looks like on the IBSS database

8 Search syntax: Boolean logic AND university and oxford NARROWS SEARCH OR university or oxford BROADENS SEARCH NOT university not oxford NARROWS SEARCH

9 Search syntax: wildcard characters Truncation may be used in a number of ways: * for right side truncation (e.g. plurals and alternative word endings) feminis* retrieves feminist, feminists, feminism? for a single character (e.g. alternative spellings) organi?ation for organisation or organization $ for one character or zero characters behavio$r* retrieves behavior, behaviour, behavioral, etc Check the database online help (the symbols given above are common but not universal)

10 Task 1: Create an Advanced Search string

11 SCOPUS Indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, working papers. Limited coverage of political topics and social theory Jstor full text database, lots of classic journals back to their beginning, lacks most recent years Major databases Proquest Platform Searches scholarly journals, theses, news and commercial publications Google Scholar Searches journal articles and books some other content (but not government, NGOs, policy institutes etc.)

12 Libguides

13 Google Scholar Preferences

14 Log in for remote access and to save searches and settings

15 SAGE Research Methods Online

16 Proquest Platform- IBSS

17 Task 2: Run your advanced search in Proquest

18 Grey literature Key sources for refugee studies working papers, conference papers and policy briefs include: MigrationOxford Dfid FMO UNHCR New Issues in refugee research IDS Eldis CIAO PolicyFILE IOM UNBISnet See the LibGuides for other useful links

19 Theses Search for previous MSc theses on SOLO ( msc thesis forced migration studies ) Proquest Dissertations & Theses: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection (full-text). Mainly US but some global content. EThOS. UK theses digitized by the British Library (not all universities, no Oxford theses)

20 Statistical data services UNdata: UNHCR Statistical Online: MPI Data: World Bank data: US Committee for Refugees: IDMC: UK National Statistics: The Refugee Project:

21 Social science data services John Southall (Social Sciences Data Librarian)

22 News databases AllAfrica's news and information archive, dating from 1996, is a growing collection containing over two million articles and documents from allafrica.com, the leading Africa information source on the Internet. AllAfrica collects and aggregates articles from 130 African news organizations, as well as documents and releases from several hundred governmental, nongovernmental and international institutions

23 News databases: Nexis UK Company profiles / industry news / biographies / UK legal case studies Searching by source, topic or country Over news. Trade and reference sources

24 Non-Western resources Nexis UK, Factiva,World News Connection All Africa BBC Worldwide Monitoring Foreign Broadcast Information Service EMIS (Emerging Markets Information Service) Balkan Insight India: Times of India archive Russia: Pravda archive, Eastview Russian Central Newspapers Japan: Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun China: China Core Newspapers Database (CNKI) People's Daily 1946-present 人 民 日 报 PLA Daily 解 放 军 报 WiseSearch (Wisers 慧 科 )

25 Reference Managers

26 Reference Managers

27 Availability Desktop but can also transfer to Endnote web Cost Buy from OUCS Web based Web-based Web browser extension and desktop Free via our subscription Free via subscription (inc alumni) Freely available (but limited storage space) Web-based and desktop (but no automatic syncing) Freely available Word processing MS Word Open Office Pages MS Word Open Office MS word MS Word Open Office MS Word Libre Office Cross platform support Not compatible with Linux Word processor plugin not compatible with linux Refmobile mobile phone app Mobile apps available Iphone/Ipad interface Database interaction Web of Science / Web of knowledge Proquest For more detailed table see

28 Libguide for Reference Managers

29 Task 3: Refworks