Unit 01 Assignment 02

Research Log Entry

1. What question did you try to answer?
   
   What size is the ecological footprint in Europe?
   
   
2. What terms did you select to begin?
   
   To begin, I selected three terms:
   1. Ecological
   2. Footprint
   3. Europe
   
   
3. What web search engine or engines did you use?
   
   I used Google, Yahoo! Search, and Ask.
   
   
4. Search Techniques
   
   a.) What search terms did you use?
   
   I used different variations and combinations of the terms “ecological,” “footprint,” and“Europe” to conduct my search.
   
   b.) What search techniques did you use?
   
   I used two techniques, in which I used different BOOLEAN operators to refine my search. For this search, I used two sets of search terms:
   
   
   1. Ecological Footprint/Europe
   2. “Ecological Footprint” +Europe

   
   

5. Evaluation
   
   a.) How did you evaluate your results?
   
   This time, I chose to use C.A.R.D.I.O. to evaluate my results. Using this method, I was able to evaluate the results in terms of Currency, Authority, Relevance, Depth, Information Type & Objectivity
   
   b.) What conclusions did you draw about the different search engines?
   
   
   • What the same?
     
     Each search engine has a similar design and gives users the option to search the web for information images, maps, and news.
     
     
   • What was different?
     
     Although the search engines were similar in design and features, each search engine had a variety of different search features. Below are the links to the extra services/features offered by each search engine:
     
     http://www.google.com/intl/en/options
     http://tools.search.yahoo.com/about/forsearchers.html
     http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/site_features_a11.shtml
     
   
   
   • Differences in number of results
     
     In both variations of the search, Yahoo! Search returned the most results, followed by Google, and then Ask. In the first search, Yahoo! Search and Google returned a comparable number of results (Yahoo! Search - 1,930,000 and Google1, 490,000) while Ask returned a much lower amount (62,000). However, in the second search, Yahoo! Search returned a high number of results (1,050,000). In comparison, Google and Ask returned a relatively low number of results (Google - 94,300 and Ask - 136,700)
     

   
   

   
   c.) Why do you think the search engines behaved as they did?
   
   As I have just learned, Yahoo! Search now claims to be the largest search engine available on the web. Yahoo! Search searches about 22 billions sites for results pertaining to each search – this is most likely the reason behind the high number of returned results. Both Google and Ask refine their results in terms of popularity (which results are viewed most). However, Ask, like Yahoo! Search, also refines its results according to relevance. This implies that these search engines returns results which have information pertaining to the search topic. Perhaps this is why Ask seems to return a lower number of results than both Google and Yahoo! Search – it is more refined (limiting its returned results to those that are both relevant AND popular).
   
   
6. What other questions came into your mind as you carried out this exercise?
   
   While conducting these searches, I began to wonder how the size of a nation’s ecological footprint is determined – what statistics and/or factors are taken into account?
   
   

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Research Log Entry

1. What is Delicious?
   
   Delicious is a web tool that gives users the ability to bookmark, tag, save, manage, and share web pages. Here, you can save web pages which you have found interesting and/or wish to share with others. You may also view other web pages which have been tagged.
   
   
2. What is the advantage of this Web 2.0 tool?
   
   Some advantages of using Delicious may include
   
   
   • Saving Web Pages – this allows you to revisit these web pages in the future without having to conduct another search
     
     
   • Tagged Web Pages – a convenient search tool which will return results of web pages containing tags similar or related to your search
     
     
   • Ability to Manage Saved Web Pages – allows you to sort and organize pages according to your own preferences
     
     
3. Do you think you might use it? If so, why? If not, why not?
   
   I may very well use Delicious. It seems to be a convenient and useful web tool which will make searching the web more efficient. I like the idea of being able to save, tag and manage web pages which I have taken an interest in – this is much easier than having to search for the page every time you wish to revisit it. The ability to tag and manage saved web pages is very appealing – allowing users to categorize their saved pages proficiently.