Tutorial 4 - Information Resources on the Web

Tutorial 4 Information Resources on the Web

Objectives Find current news and weather information on the Web Obtain maps and city guides Find businesses and people on the Web Find library and text resources on the Web New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Objectives Learn how to cite Web resources Learn how copyrights affect your use of resources found on the Web Find graphics and multimedia resources on the Web Learn about the future of online publishing New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Current Information on the Web To help you find current news and information, many search engines and directories include sections devoted to news items T he Excite directory’s home page includes a collection of hyperlinks to general news stories, sports scores, stock market reports, and weather New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Current Information on the Web New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Current Information on the Web Many search engines allow you to set a date range on the Advanced Search page HotBot provides two ways to search within a date range: Choose one of HotBot’s preset time range options, such as “in the last week” or “in the last 3 months,” to limit your search to sites that were last modified within your selected time period Limit searches to dates before or after a specific date AltaVista allows you to set an exact “between” date range on its advanced Search page AlltheWeb allows you to set separate “after” and “before” date filters; by setting both of these filters, you can construct an exact “between” date filter New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Date Filters on the HotBot Advanced Search Page New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Date Filters on the AltaVista Advanced Search Page New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Date Filters on the AlltheWeb Advanced Search Page New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Finding Web Sites that Have Been Modified Recently Go to the Web site for a search engine or directory that allows date-range restrictions Formulate your search expression Set the date-range restriction in the search tool Run the search Evaluate the search results. If you do not find useful results, select an alternative search tool, and then run the search again New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Google Date-Filtered Search Results New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Getting the News Wire service ( press agency or news service ): an organization that gathers and distributes news to newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, and other organizations that pay a fee to the wire service Most news comes from the four largest wire services: United Press International (UPI) and the Associated Press (AP) in the United States, Reuters in Great Britain, and Agence France-Presse in France In addition to selling stories to news outlets around the world, these major wire services all display current news stories on their Web sites New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Getting the News All of the major US broadcast networks, including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC, and NPR have Web sites that carry news features Major newspapers have Web sites that include current news and many other features from their print editions Many broadcast news, wire services, and newspaper Web sites include search features that allow you to search the site for specific news stories Web news directories : Offer links to the Web sites of newspapers and other media outlets Internet Public Library – Online Newspapers site includes hyperlinks to hundreds of international and domestic newspapers New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Internet Public Library – Online Newspapers New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Getting the News News search engines let you search the content of current news stories in multiple publications and wire services Yahoo! News includes news from the major wire services along with news it purchases from other leading newspapers and magazines Google News includes stories from similar news sources Some news search engines contain blogs Web logs ( Weblogs or blogs ): Web sites that contain commentary on current events written by individuals New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Weather Reports A number of Web sites offer weather information and forecasts Two of the most popular weather forecasting sites are: The Weather Channel AccuWeather Finding a weather forecast: Open a weather information Web site in a Web browser Locate the weather report for the city or area in which you are interested Repeat the steps to find other weather forecasts in different weather information Web sites New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Weather Reports The Weather Channel local forecast page for Nashville

Obtaining Maps and Destination Information A number of Web sites provide maps and driving directions Although the information provided by these sites is not perfect (new roads and detours caused by current construction work are not included), many people find them to be helpful travel aids One of the most popular of these sites is MapQuest New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Obtaining Maps and Destination Information New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Finding a Local Area Map on the Web Open a Web site that offers maps in your Web browser Enter the location of the map you need to find Zoom the map scale in or out to suit your requirements Print or download the finished map New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Finding a Local Area Map on the Web Ryman Auditorium area map in Google Maps and MSN Maps & Directions

Obtaining Travel Destination Information You can find a variety of useful information using city guide sites including information about entertainment, restaurants and specific attractions To use a city guide: Go to a city guide Web site in your Web browser Search the site for your destination city, region, or country Explore the hyperlinks provided by the site for your destination New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Citysearch The Ryman Auditorium Page

Finding Businesses and People on the Web Yellow pages directories : Web sites that store information about businesses only, similar to the printed yellow pages phone book White pages directories : Let you search for individuals’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers Collect information from published telephone directories and other publicly available information and index it by last name Some Web sites make unpublished and unlisted telephone numbers available for public use Response to concerns about privacy violations has led to most white pages sites offering people a way to remove their listing New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Finding Business Listings on the Web Navigate to a yellow pages directory site in your Web browser Enter information about the nature and geographic location of the business that you want to find Run the search Examine and evaluate the results to determine whether you should revise your search or try another search engine New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Searching for Your White Pages Listing Open a white pages directory Web site in your Web browser Enter your name and part of your address Run the search, and then examine the search results Consider repeating the search with various combinations of partial address information or variants of the correct spelling of your name New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Online Library, Text, and Multimedia Resources Virtually anybody can create a Web page on almost any subject Resources of this vast online library include text, graphics, and multimedia files New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Library Resources The Web has made existing libraries more accessible to more people Library users should see many new and interesting research resources as traditional libraries and online collections of works that have serious research value begin to recognize each other as complementary The LibrarySpot Web site is a collection of hyperlinks organized in the same general way that a physical library might arrange its collections New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

LibrarySpot Home Page New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Library Resources New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Text and Other Archives on the Web The Web contains a number of text resources, including dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, glossaries, and other reference works A computer interface allows you to enter a search term and saves you the trouble of scanning several pages of text to find the correct entry Many of the best resources offered on the Web require you to pay a subscription fee Free reference works on the Web are good enough to provide acceptable service for many users and are worth investigating New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Text and Other Archives on the Web Two of the most well-known Web sites for full text copies of works that are no longer protected by copyright: Project Gutenberg: supported by donations Bartlebycom: converted into a privately held corporate site in 1999; uses advertising to generate revenue The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine provides snapshots of Web pages as they were at various points in the history of the Web New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Citing Web Research Resources The APA and MLA formats for Web page citations are similar to those of print citations. They include: Name of the author or Web page creator (if known) Title of the Web site in italics If the page is untitled, provide a description of the page but do not italicize the description Name of the site’s sponsoring organization (if any) Date the page was retrieved URL enclosed in chevron symbols (< >) If you do not enclose the URL in chevron (or other) symbols, do not add a period at the end of the URL New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Citing Web Research Resources Citation formats for electronic resources are still emerging so you should check for updates to these styles before using them Always check to see if your instructor or editor has established guidelines that are different from these New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Citing Web Research Resources New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Citing Web Research Resources There is no clear standard specifying where or how to break long URLs at the end of a print line, but most authorities currently agree that: URL should be broken at a slash that appears in the URL Hyphen should not be added at the end of the line that occurs in the middle of the URL Any method of citing Web pages faces one serious, yet unsolved problem—moving and disappearing URLs New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Copyright Issues Intellectual property: a general term that includes all products of the human mind Products can be tangible or intangible Copyright: a right granted by a government to the author or creator of a literary or artistic work, the tangible expression of an idea Right is for the specific length of time provided in the copyright law Gives the author or creator the exclusive right to print, publish, or sell the work New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Copyright Issues Creations that can be copyrighted include virtually all forms of artistic or intellectual expression: Books Music Artworks Recordings (audio and video) Architectural drawings Choreographic works Product packaging Computer software New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Copyright Issues In the US, works created after 1977 are protected for the life of the author plus 70 years Registration is no longer required in the US; a work created after 1977 is automatically copyrighted unless the creator makes a specific statement on the work that it is not copyrighted Once the copyright has expired, the work is in the public domain , which means you are free to copy the files without requesting permission from the source New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Copyrights and Ideas The idea contained in a product is not copyrightable The expression of an idea is what creates a work that can be copyrighted A collection of facts can be copyrighted, but only if the collection is arranged, coordinated, or selected in a way that causes the resulting work to rise to the level of an original work New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Copyright Protection and Internet Technologies When you use your Web browser to read text, see a graphic image, listen to a sound, or view a video clip, your Web browser downloads the multimedia element from the Web server and stores it in a temporary file on your computer’s hard drive A new, intermediate level of ownership that did not exist before the emergence of the Web is created during this process Because computer files are even easier to copy than a picture in a book, the potential for Web copyright violations is much greater New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Ethical Issues: Fair Use and Plagiarism The US copyright law includes an exemption from infringement actions for fair use of copyrighted works Fair use : Use of a copyrighted work includes copying it for use in criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research Definition is intentionally broad and can be difficult to interpret New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Fair Use and Plagiarism Court cases on fair use usually turn on two considerations: How the copyrighted material was used Amount of copyrighted material that was used When you make fair use of a copyrighted work in your school assignments or research, always be careful to provide a citation to the original work Plagiarism : failure to cite the source of material that you use (even though it is in the public domain and not protected by copyright) A number of companies have created Web sites that teachers can use to identify plagiarism in papers that students submit New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Fair Use and Plagiarism Turnitin.com Research Resources pages

Fair Use and Plagiarism Free files often carry a restriction against selling or redistributing them, even though you may be able to use them without cost on your own personal Web page You must carefully examine any site from which you download multimedia files to determine what usage limitations apply If you cannot find a clear statement of copyright terms or a statement that the files are in the public domain, you should not use them on your Web page or anywhere else New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Images and Graphics on the Web Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) : Older format for images that does a very good job of compressing small- or medium-sized files Most GIF files have a gif filename extension Can store only up to 256 different colors Widely used on the Internet for images that have only a few distinct colors, such as line drawings, cartoons, simple icons, and screen objects Animated GIF file : combines several images into a single GIF file and gives the appearance of cartoon-like animation New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Images and Graphics on the Web Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) : Newer file format that stores more than 16 million colors Particularly useful for photographs and continuous-tone art (images that do not have sharp edges) Most JPEG files have a jpg filename extension New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Images and Graphics on the Web GIF and JPEG formats offer file compression , which is important on the Web Uncompressed graphics files containing images of significant size or complexity are too large to transmit efficiently JPEG file compression is lossy A lossy compression procedure erases some elements of the graphic. The greater the level of compression , the more graphic detail is lost New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Images and Graphics on the Web Other graphic file formats on the Web include: Windows bitmap file format (bmp) Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) (tif) PC Paintbrush format (pcx ) Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format (png) Windows bitmap , TIFF , and PC Paintbrush formats are all uncompressed graphics formats and Web page designers usually avoid them because they take too long to download The PNG format is a new format that the World Wide Web Consortium has approved as a standard New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Images and Graphics on the Web One of the best Web resources for the fine arts is the WebMuseum site, which occasionally features special exhibitions Many search engine and Web directory sites have improved their image classification databases New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web Many Web site designers include sound or video clips to enhance the information on their pages Sound and video files often require that you add software extensions to your Web browser Software extensions , or plug-ins , are usually available as free downloads Firms that offer media players as free downloads earn their profits by selling encoding software to developers who want to include audio and video files in that format on their Web sites New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web A computer must be equipped with a sound card and either a speaker or earphones to play an audio file The Wave (WAV) format digitizes audio waveform information at a user-specified sampling rate and can be played on any Windows computer that supports sound The size of WAV files limits their use on the Web to situations that require only short, lower-quality audio information New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format is a standard adopted by the music industry for controlling devices that create and read musical information The MIDI format digitally records information about each element of the sound, including its pitch, length, and volume It is easier to edit music recorded in the MIDI format because you can manipulate the individual characteristics of the sound with precision MIDI files are much smaller than WAV files and are often used on the Web. They usually have a midi or mid file extension New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web The UNIX operating system’s audio file format is known as the AU format because its file extension is normally au AU files are approximately the same size as WAV files that store the same information New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web Streaming transmission : Web server sends the first part of the file to the Web browser, which begins playing the file; while the browser is playing the file, the server is sending the next segment of the file Popular technique for transferring both sound and video files Allows you to access very large audio or video files in much less time than the download-then-play procedure requires New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web Another streaming video format that has become popular is Adobe’s Flash format. You must download and install one of the real file players from the firm’s Web site to play these files Flash video files requires that your Web browser have the Adobe Flash Player software New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web The International Standards Organization’s Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has created a series of standards for compressed file formats Older video file formats are also available on the Web, including AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) format and QuickTime format One minute of video and sound recorded in either of these formats results in a file that is about 6 megabytes, which is a very large file to transmit over slower types of Internet connections New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Multimedia on the Web MP3 : MPEG format’s audio track Somewhat lower in quality than WAV format files, but they are 90 percent smaller Became wildly popular just as disk storage on personal computers dropped in price and CD writers (also called CD burners) became affordable for home use CD that might hold 15 songs in WAV format (about 40 megabytes per song) could hold 150 popular songs in MP3 format (about 4 megabytes per song) New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Ethical and Legal Concerns: Sharing Audio Files The smaller size of MP3 files made it easy to send them from one person to another through the Internet File sharing software, such as Napster and Kazaa, became very popular File-sharing activity is unethical because it deprives the creators of the audio works of their rights to control distribution and to profit from their work File-sharing is also illegal in many countries, including the United States New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Legal MP3 File Distribution Portable digital music players that use flash memory technology can store thousands of songs A number of Web sites now sell digital music in MP3 and other formats Some charge per song; others charge a monthly fee that allows subscribers to download as many songs as they wish Most place restrictions on the number of copies you can make of each song Some restrict you from converting downloaded song files into other formats, or they restrict the types of devices on which you are permitted to play the song New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Future of Electronic Publishing Information can now be disseminated more rapidly than ever and in large quantities, but with a low required investment E-zines : Web-based magazines Are appearing on the Web in increasing numbers Can focus on specialized, narrow interests Usually managed by an editor Blogs and wikis : Written by a single person or group of people who wish to express a particular point of view or convey information Most blogs focus on issues about which people have strong opinions New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Summary Current news stories, weather information, maps, and information about travel destinations can be found on the Web by using specialized search engines and Web directories Online library resources and other research and reference resources are available on the Web New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Summary You learned some facts about copyright protection, fair use, and avoiding plagiarism in the use of text, images, and multimedia files that you find on the Internet Graphics and multimedia resources can be accessed on the Web There are several image, sound, and video file formats common on the Web New Perspectives on The Internet, Seventh Edition

Tutorial 4 - Information Resources on the Web

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Tutorial 4 - Information Resources on the Web