2020 10 COMP FYP Library workshop

How do we learn today?

• Mini-lectures
• Live Demonstrations
• Polling questions

Warm up Question

Imagine that you are a professor and you're looking at the reference lists written by three students.

https://www.menti.com/ikvbc2nf2z or scan QR code:

Which research paper do you think may have the best quality?

Why professors (reviewers) look at your bibliography list?

Those cited sources are what you've used for

• writing your literature review,
• developing your original research ideas, and
• supporting your arguments/hypotheses/observations.

Your reference list reveals the quality, currency and authority of your research project.

Student A

A good variety of scholarly sources

Student C

The citation format is not consistent. Also, some sources are from free websites/blogs, which may not be reliable.

Student B

References are all book information, thus the information cited may be out-dated.

A "simplified" process for developing a thoughtful dissertation:

You will need different types of information sources at different stages of the research process.

Topic

Question

Design & Analysis

Thesis

For Scientific Research

The use of scholarly sources is an expected attribute of academic work

• Books
• Scholarly periodicals
• Conference transactions & proceedings
• Dissertations & theses

Let's try to use Google/Google Scholar to search for a research topic

Data security in cloud computing

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I able to refine or narrow down your searches easily?
• Am I able to find out who are the key authors on this research topic?

Library's Search Toolkits

OneSearch is the Library's main search tool. Plus, we have over 380 databases

Polling question:

Based on your own experience, share 1 tip or 1 advice you have about literature searching.

Answer via QR code or link (https://www.menti.com/):

https://www.menti.com/ikvbc2nf2z

Polling question:

https://www.menti.com/ikvbc2nf2z

OneSeach

• The Library's main discovery search engine.
• It can retrieve most of the Library's collection, but not all.
• Reminder: Make use of HKALL, Interlibrary Loan, and JULAC Reader Cards to gain more resources beyond HKBU!

Databases

Multidisciplinary databases:

• Web of Science
• Scopus

Subject specific databases:

• IEEE Xplore
• ACM Digital Library

Reference works

Reference works include items such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, which provide quick definition of a word, overview of a topic, background information of an object, etc.

vs Wikipedia

You should not cite Wikipedia in your academic papers.

https://hkbu.libguides.com/dictionaries

Lots of e-books on computer science

• O'Reilly - Safari (E-books, videos and online tutorials)

• SpringerLink E-books

• ACM E-books (~20 titles, not a lot)

• ScienceDirect e-book collection

• IOP E-books (Institute of Physics)

This E-books guide gives you a full overview:

https://hkbu.libguides.com/e-books

Not-to-be-missed library services

Access to more resources:

• Inter-branch book transfer
• HKALL
• JULAC Reader Card
• Inter-library loan

Research support:

• Library research guides
• Research consultation
• Scholarly communication support

Other services:

• Mendeley (reference management tool)
• Events/activities from time to time!

Recap

What makes up a good bibliography:

• Made up of a variety of scholarly, reliable sources
• With proper type of information based on your needs

Recommended library resources for your research:

• OneSearch serves as a good start point for your research

• Scholarly databases are more useful to help you find and identify scholarly sources (because of the strong indexing and citation functions)

• Web of Science, Scopus, ACM, and IEEE

Formulate effective search statements - Keyword Search in most database

Two things to remember:

1. Carefully design your search statement

Twp approaches to construct effective search statements

Formulate effective search statements - Keyword Search in most database

Two things to remember:

2. Search in multiple databases for comprehensive results

Every database has its own strengths and limitations in functionality, so as its unique content coverage.

IEEE/ACM: Great for quality control and listing articles in a specific computing and engineering field

Challenges in searching CS literature

No services currently provide a finer-grain search capability that allows the search of programmable objects or ideas that cannot be easily defined by text search.

• E.g.: Function, logic, or algorithm

Difficult to translate computing questions into a language that the search engines can interpret well:

• E.g.: "Given a list of statements, how to specify one as a conditional expression?"
• E.g.: "Given a list of elements, how to specify one as the input/output?"

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Founded in 1947
• World's largest scientific and educational computing society
• Provides leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources

ACM Digital Library

• Premier source of scholarly computing science literature - including journals, transactions, and conference proceedings
• Includes the full text of all ACM publications
• Also provides access to the ACM Guide to Computing Literature - a comprehensive citation database for computing that covers titles from other publishers

Live demo

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

• Founded in 1965
• World's largest technical membership association
• Areas of activity include:
• Membership organization
• Conference organization
• Standards developer
• Publisher

IEEE Xplore

• Powerful resource for discovery and access to IEEE publications and those of its publishing partners
• Contains over 5.2 million full-text documents

Make use of citation tracking features

• Track the scholarly conversation (backward & forward)
• Identify author collaborations
• Identify potential journals where you can submit your manuscripts to

e.g. search for topic "convex programming"

or track citations of a paper titled "Fixed point and Bergman iterative methods for matrix rank minimization"

Screenshot from Web of Science

Recap

• Carefully construct your search statement

• When get stuck, try to search multiple databases to increase your chances.

• When searching for literature on an unfamiliar topic, try to start with a few articles and summarize common keywords used in that field and the names of those subject experts.

• Major databases such as Web of Science and Scopus can generate citation reports, and recommend you related articles.

Avoid plagiarism by quoting & citing properly

Plagiarism is ...

“the action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.” - OED

Referencing and Citations

Think about the following questions:

• How do you insert citations and reference list in your assignments or term papers?
• How do you keep your reading list organized?

What is Mendeley?

Mendeley is an online research manager that helps you:

• Discover and organize papers
• Easily generate citations and bibliographies
• Share and collaborate with other researchers

There is a MS Word add-in for Mendeley. If you are writing your thesis with MS Word, please consider using a reference management tool!

https://hkbu.libguides.com/mendeley

Generate Citation with LateX

There are three main bibliography management packages

1. bibtex

(https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Bibliography_management_with_bibtex)

2. biblatex

(https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Bibliography_management_with_biblatex)

3. natbib

Use Biblatex in LaTex to generate references

• A separate .bib file out of the box (as a separate file)

• The bibliography files must have the standard bibtex syntax

• Here is one example:

https://www.overleaf.com/project/5f69792a7d051200011d7590

How does Mendeley help with generating BibTeX entry?

Mendeley can generate LaTeX citation command and BibTeX entry for the reference selected.

Of course, some major databases also have this function.

Data mining sources

More details:

• Sources for Data-Mining: https://hkbu.libguides.com/data-sources
• Sources for Text-Mining: https://hkbu.libguides.com/text-mining

Learn programming languages

• Linkedin Learning - The Library has a subscription!
• O'Reilly Safari - Follow a learning path!

Got questions? Ask a Librarian!

https://library.hkbu.edu.hk/get-help/ask-a-librarian/

Feedback please!

JG0009