Evaluating Information

Books, Journals, Theses and Websiteshow to find them and evaluate the information they provide

For more information please contactDavid.litting@uts.edu.au95143390Project ManagementA guide to informationNewspapersNewspapers have editors and fact checking, although because of the speed at which they are published they are more likely to make errors than other print publications. However they are obliged to print corrections and provide apologies if necessary when they do this, usually very soon after the mistake was made.

Newspapers Cont..Newspapers are best searched via specialist Newspaper databases like Newsbank and Factiva (seen opposite)NB: Newspaper databases like Factiva are not compatible with Endnote

BooksBooks also have publishing houses to fact check them before publishing. Because of the time taken to write, market and publish a book, the amount of time to correct errors is longer. Books selected by academic libraries are often sought from academic (ie: university press) publishers and hopefully have an extra layer of quality assurance.

Books contThe UTS library catalogue and also the BONUS system (seen opposite) are the primary places to search for books.

Periodicals and Journals, cont..Periodicals are publications that come out every day, every week, every month, quarterly etc. The fact that they come out after a given period of time is what gives them their names. Different periodicals are for different audiences, and the information within some is considered more reliable and authoritative than in others. Periodicals have different layers of editorial and quality control. They range from the lower end (popular magazines) up to trade publications and then finally scholarly or peer reviewed journals.

Magazines, Trade and Peer-Reviewed JournalsMagazine is a word associated with popular periodicals. Magazines tend to be easily identified in their print form because of their eye catching covers (Rolling Stone or Vogue for example) whereas Scholarly Journals tend to be a bit more low key, even plain, featuring only a masthead logo and textTrade Publications: Between popular magazine and scholarly journals lie trade publications, for industry professionals who are not doing research or teaching at university. They are written by professionals in the industries, and sometimes journalists. It is common for these publications to be subject to the sort of scrutiny a newspaper or popular magazine might be, with editorial control, but not peer review.Scholarly/Peer reviewed journal articles are considered to be good research because a panel of experts in the area read the article and provide suggestions and corrections before they are published.

Popular JournalScholarly JournnalPopular vs Scholarly Journals

Features of a Scholarly Journal Article- Authors credentials listed at the top of the article, or an author biography provided to show their authority on their subject of choice- An abstract, or summary of the articleQuoting, and a bibliography or reference list at the end of an article also indicates a scholarly type of publication, though this does not guarantee peer reviewAlthough there are exceptions, popular articles tend to be shorter than scholarly articles, and use less jargon or terminology.

Other ways to Indentify a Scholarly ArticleTo determine if a scholarly journal is peer reviewed scholarly journal, use these methods:Some databases like EBSCO (Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, and more) and Proquest have a restrict to peer review option. Other databases purport to have only peer reviewed material, like Scopus and ScienceDirect.Another way of investigating a journal is to look up its title in the UTS library catalogue. When you do this, you should be take to the title page of the journal in the database you connect to. Information such whether its peer reviewed should be displayed on this page.

Types of DatabasesAll Peer Reviewedie: ScienceDirectMixedie: Proquest, EBSCO

Use UlrichswebLook up the Journal HomepageStill Not Sure?

Find DatabasesThe library has a Find Databases page that will alert you to the best options we have for the study of Project Management

Google ScholarIs a powerful search tool that can find material from a variety of our databases in the one search. However it lacks some of the search refinement of our proprietary databases.To enable off campus access to UTS library subscription databases through Google Scholar use this url:http://scholar.google.com.au.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/

ThesesFinally theses are longer form pieces of research carried out at University level to achieve Masters and Doctorate degrees. They are subject to peer review by examiners. The supervisor cannot be an examiner, there are at least 2 examiners if not 3 and they are sourced from places outside the university and if possible outside the country.

Finding ThesesTrove and Proquest Discovery are the primary search interfaces for Dissertations and Theses. Trove is Australian, Proquest international (Proquest seen right)

Interlibrary LoansThe Library provides and Interlibrary loan service for post graduates and staff. Using the form at this url:http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/borrow/interlibrary-loansThis provides you access to books, journal articles and theses from libraries worldwide

Specialty Information ResourcesThere are also specialist forms of information that may be useful for you in preparing for these assignments including Property Databases, State Government records, legal information and Hansard transcripts.

Company and Industry DatabasesUTS Library subscribes to a wealth of services that can give you company balance sheets and also information about the performance of various industries both here and overseas.These are accessible from the Business heading under our Find Databases page.

Agile Project ManagementAgile is a rich resource of short, informal pieces of writing from industry professionals about applied, real world examples of project management techniques.Its accessible from the Project Management list in the Find Databases page.

.gov, .edu, and .org websitesGovernment, educational and organizational websites (.gov, .edu and .org) can be searched using the site search in google.Ie: site:.gov.au

ReferencingThe school of Project Management at UTS uses the Harvard UTS style, which incorporates in-text referencing and a matching reference list. A guide to this style is accessible from the libraryhttp://www.lib.uts.edu.au/help/referencing/harvard-uts-referencing-guide

Referencing SoftwareUTS Library provides two free referencing softwares, EndNote and Refworks. Both do the same job, storing references and placing them into word processors.Refworks is a website, and EndNote is desktop software