Workshop: Literature Searching & Strategies

This week, I attended the Literature Searching & Strategies Workshop in R695. For me, I think the workshop is useful and beneficial although I am pretty familiar with most of the literature searching strategies introduced in the workshop. I think I will be using more IU library resources for searching literature in the future other than Google Scholar. The new and interesting searching tool I learned is the Web of Knowledge database. The advanced search options in Web of Knowledge are not as useful and powerful than other database searching, but the citation map with timeline and overviews of each reference article is really cool and makes the literature searching process more efficient.

Here's the example of my search on professional development and technology integration:

Another key focus of this workshop is using digital tools to organize literature. It's been a year since I started using Mendeley for organizing my course and research articles. The most powerful function of Mendeley is not only being able to import PDF files with auto detected APA citations, but also being able to search for lots of articles in the similar topic/field added by other users by joining groups or communities. It is pretty much like Mendeley learning communities for its users. The sharing and collaborating features in Mendeley are something I'm going to utilize more in my future research.