Module 4 - Using Web Search Tools and Specialised Databases

Task 1: Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search with words of your choosing. (Allen, M., n.d.)

I chose to search for Internet Communications using Google which results in about 140,000,000 search results. The first hit received was:

1. Internet Communication
CSIRO research aims to improve how the internet works and how we use the internet. www.csiro.au/science/Internet.html

Followed by:

2. Internet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
VoIP stands for Voice-over-Internet Protocol, referring to the protocol that underlies all Internet communication. The idea began in the early 1990s with ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

3. Internet Communications
This module aims to introduce students to the Web and the ways in which the internet is changing the field of communications. ...
www.newmediastudies.com/module/

4. IS Industry: Communications: Internet | Europa - Information Society
Internet Communications. The internet is one of the most important innovations of our time, bringing substantial benefits to economies and societies, ...
ec.europa.eu/information_society/tl/.../internet/index_en.htm

5. ZeroC - The Internet Communications Engine (Ice)
The Internet Communications Engine (Ice) is a modern object-oriented toolkit that enables you to build distributed applications with minimal effort. ...
www.zeroc.com/ice.html

Task 2: Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three search engines (including one that will search the 'deep web') and repeat eactly the same search. (Allen, M., n.d.)

Searching the same term Internet Communications using Copernic resulted in 59 results which is a lot less than the Google search. Sorting by score, the first hit received (that wasn’t a sponsored link) was:

1. http://www.netspeed.com.au/
2. http://www.privacy.gov.au/topics/technologies
3. http://shop.cirruscomms.com.au/epages/cirrus.sf
4. http://www.smartinternet.com.au/default.aspx?ArticleID=208
5. http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/publish.nsf/Content/WCMP+Communications

I found it a lot easier to use Google as I use it every day and realized today during my work I would have searched approx 15 different searches using Google from searching for the meaning of a word to searching companies.

I found Copernic to be unfamiliar which is obvious but also a bit fiddly. As I downloaded the free version there are annoying ads appearing. Also the search results seemed a bit more commercial than the Google search results. The first result with Copernic is for an internet service provider whereas Google’s first result is CSIRO which I find to be more credible.

If you are intersted in downloading Copernic the link is below:
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/agent/download.html

References:
Allen, M.. (n.d.). "Module 4 Using the infosphere: taking & organising". Retrieved August 19, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_18825_1&content_id=_985243_1