Week 12

Lecture: In the last week we learned about Social and Ethical Issues. There are many problems when it comes to WWW which are: Privacy - digital trails, freedom vs protection of information and the rights of individuals and/or groups, Intellectual property, Copyright, Plagiarism and Security. The reasons why we get these problems is because of: characteristics of the Internet - open protocols and no enforceable standards, characteristics of Internet information - anyone can publish, no control on bias or unethical information, and characteristics of Internet users - a lot of smart or dumb people. When it comes to copyright or plagiarism there are ways to make sure that information received or published by the person has references. Last the issues of protection - make sure you have all the req'd security systems in the computer and when it comes to giving your personal information out, make sure you only give it to trustworthy and secure sites and if you can get away with it only give limited info to the site or organisation/company.

Workshop: This week we had to visit the copyright website and make a list of information sheets that will be relevant to my undergraduate course. Then visit US Department of Justice website and summarise the case US vs SANKAS.

The information sheets that would be useful for me are: Artworks, Computer Software, Copyright Amendment Act and Graphic Designers.

In the case of US vs SANKAS I found he was the co-leader of a software privacy group known as DrinkOrDie, in which there were 65 members from 12 countries and he was sentenced to 46 months in jail.

Week 11

Lecture: This week we learned about Data, Information and Knowledge. There are some definition we were taught that are important which are: Datum - a fact or proposition, Information - a collection of facts or data, Knowledge - learned information. These 3 definitions also have characteristics which are: Data - factual, non-judgemental, non-inferential, transient, has no meaning and has no value. Information - summative, relational, dimensional, permanent, has meaning and uncertain value. Knowledge - inferential, experimental, judgemental, subjective and is very valuable. Also the definitions have importance like: data - must be quantitative and representative, information - must be inform, relational and meaningful, and knowledge - origins should be clear, must have a logical conclusion and have justification of data. Some examples of these are: data - price, shares, weather and census data. Information - tables of census data, almanacs and budgets. Knowledge - white pages, press release and marketing strategies. they all have relationships to each other which starts with data and then moves to information to where it can be stored as knowledge.

Workshop: We were given some tasks to do which are: to visit some dictionary websites to find the definitions of data, information and knowledge.
Data - raw facts and figures which is turned into information.
Information - is a collection of raw data but can also be data itself.
Knowledge - there was no term for knowledge as it is only what the person knows.



The relationship between data, information and knowledge is, raw data is recorded and transferred into readable accessible information and then we learn the information to which it becomes knowledge.

5 organisations that collect information are Bureau of Statistics, Australian Medical Association, City of Gosnells, Westpac Bank, Health Department of Australia, and Census of Australia.
They all collect information to produce statistic data so it can be analysed.

Week 10

Lecture: This weeks lecture was on Using Online Libraries and Databases. This subject was split into 2 parts: Online libraries and of course Online databases. The reasons we use online libraries is because: of the convenience, access to info, currency of articles, the ease of making notes and copying/pasting and 24hr service. Some types of online libraries are: text respositors, journals, electronic books, musical and artworks. One of the main limitations of online libraries is that most of them require subsciption and payment. When using these online libraries it is important to reference everything so not to be caught copy writing any info or should be careful not to copy music or art that has copy write protection. Online databases are similar to online libraries in which they are also a collection of information stored in data fields. E-mail directories and government information & statistics are some of the types of online databases. The advantages and disadvantages of online databases is pretty much the same as online libraries.

Workshop: This week we had to visit the ECU library online and make a list of ten useful things found on the website.
1. News Update - info on libraries workings
2. Quick Links - other supported databases
3. Find - list of sources that can be used
4. Learning Assistance - list of help areas
5. Info About - info on the library
6. Resources For - list of different services the library offers
7. Services - list of different services the library offers
8. Feed Back - gives the person the ability to rate the libraries services
9. Ask The Library - gives the person the ability to ask questions
10. Disclaimer - tells us when the website was last updated.

Another task was to go website www.medlineplus.gov, have a look around, answer 2 questions and go through one of the interactive tutorials.
I found the website to have a lot of information on all medical issues from diseases to types of medications to treat a medical issue. I have no interest in any drugs but if I did this website would give me the info I desire. The types of people that would use this website are some doctors and some patients but mainly nurses would be the people that would use this website.

Week 9

Lecture: This week we learned about using Search Engines. The overview contained: Search Tool Types and Search Engines - intro, problems, interface, common search engines, types of queries and search tips. First there are 2 main categories for search tools, which are Search engines and directories. Search Engines are web-based applications that looks through the Internet to find as many websites on the typed in subject it can find, and display them in a list from were you can choose. Examples of Search Engines are Google.com, yahoo.com, altavista.com etc. Some problems that can be is sometimes you can get too many results when using these search engines, which will give results of websites that have nothing to do with the desired subject except for maybe half of the word typed in to be searched. The search engine interface is the different pieces of info that can be used with the search engine like: similar pages, whether the site is cached or not, website address and result. When typing in a query use only keywords or phrases and maybe use advanced engine features.

Workshop: There were 3 tasks to do in this weeks workshop which are: 1. Go into monash website and list 4 strategies that will help structure a good search, 2. Complete online quiz from siteseen website, and 3. Discuss some of the strategies used.

1. My 4 strategies are Authenticity, the bias, currency and authorship.

2. Unfortunately I could not get the website (http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/generalknowledgehard/) to come up, the search engine keeps coming up www.siteseer.co.uk.

3. With authenticity - it is about seeing if the website is actually authentic, has correct info.
Bias - to see if the info given to us from a website is biased towards or against the subject in question.
Currency - to see if the info given to us is current (10years or less) or if the info is historic or not.
Authorship - is to see if there is any authors names, dates, place of origin and authors past history.

Readings: The first piece of reading is about all what we learned in the lecture. The second piece of reading is about the different types of strategies we can use to get around and use different search engines. The third is about search engine watch, which would not open for me to have a look at. The last piece of reading is on the history of the Internet and search engines.

Week 8

Lecture: This weeks lecture was on Evaluation & Authentication. Information quality is the first issue we addressed. The context of the WWW has quick and convenient exchange of information, anyone can create web content, information is now bypasses traditional filters and there is no enforceable quality control. The reasons why the web became unruly is: the WWW was developed from the Arpanet, connectivity, access, retrieval and sending data was the focus of Arpanet research and security of the network had little concern early on. Evaluating information quality on the WWW was the second issued covered. Some principles to remember are: what are we measuring, why does the information resource exist and is the information fit for use. Some suggested criteria for evaluating information on a website are: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, coverage, credibility, reasonableness, support, publishing body, bias, other sources and verifiability. Some authentication considerations are: where is it (.com .org), who wrote it and references.

Workshop: After looking at the first website in the tasks I found the information to be the same as what was taught to us in the lecture.
The second task was to evaluate 2 of the 5 websites given, I chose: A trip through the 60's - to me this site had accuracy, purpose, detail and design, and overall worth, but did not have authorship. I would say that this site is credible. The second website is Psychedelic 60's - this site had all of the criteria to make it a credible website.

Week 7

Lecture: In this weeks lecture we went through information on using the World Wide Web. The major points that were covered are: Internet vs Web, historical perspective of the Web, defining WWW, Web protocols and Web browsers/interface. On the Net you will find other computers and the connection is between cables, On the Web you will find documents, music, videos and other information, and the connection is bye the hypertext links. Historical perspective was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 to facilitate sharing research information. The Web is a universe of accessible information stored on computers throughout the world. The WWW is a network of computers using TCP/IP to communicate between each other. WWW protocols are TCP/IP - Transmission control, HTTP - hypertext transfer protocol, DNS - domain name system, and URL - uniform/universal resource locator. Web browsers are programs that allow users to access and explore the pages of the WWW, like www.internetexplorer.com and www.netscape.com.

Workshop: Part 1. We were asked to have a look at sites: www.haggishunt.scotsman.com and www.molossia.org and discuss their authenticity. With haggishunt I found this site to be authentic because they have: dates, well known sponsors, info on the haggis and haggis cams. I thought the site was only just authentic but is not a site I would use. The Molossia sit was more authentic due to having dates, being a .org site, has very good info on Molossia and having current information.
Part 2. We were asked to visit www.martinlutherking.org, but first write down what we are expected to find in this site - info on Martin Luther King. Then see if the site name gives us any clues on the site - his name is the Website. My first impressions of the site is that it is all about Martin Luther King. After looking at the different articles in the site I found it to mainly against Martin Luther King.

Readings: First there was readings on Search Engine Watch Tutorials - this is on a collection of articles from a search engine watch and how to use these search engines more effectively.
Second there was History of the WWW - this piece of reading material was on the origins of the Internet, how it became what it is today.