Lecture
In the lecture for week 12, we were told of how we could protect not only our computers on the World Wide Web, but ourselves as well. It was made clear that when you are on the Web, you have to remember you are in an electronic version of the world. There are a lot of smart people and there are a lot of dumb people. We also have to remember that we have to respect copyright law. To avoid plagiarism, we must always remember to acknowledge the intellectual property of other people whether they are direct quotes or simply ideas. Our computers are under threat as well. They can be subjected to prove attacks which may lead to stolen passwords and content theft. Virus’s can also be a problem when opening an email attachment or downloading software. To protect your computer from these things, it is important to install a firewall and antivirus software. It is also a good idea to familiarise yourself with the latest viruses and what attachments often carry those viruses. It is also important to never give out personal information and to never reply to SPAM mail (as it confirms your email address exists).

Workshop
In the first part of the workshop for week 12, students were required to take note of all the Australian Copyright Council’s information sheets we thought might be relevant to university students. I believe some of these include ‘Databases, compilations, tables and forms’, ‘Educational institutions: introduction to copyright’, ‘Internet: Copying & downloading material’, ‘Quotes and extracts: copyright obligations’, ‘Maps and charts’ as well as ‘Journalists and copyright’.
In the second part of the workshop, students were asked to review a case in the United States. In this case, 16 people had been convicted with copyright offenses and 13 of those people had been sentenced to up to 46 months in jail. These people had downloaded computer software, games, movies and music through ‘warez’.
For the final part of the workshop, students were asked to look at three websites and use them to understand how we can protect our computers and the information held on them. Firstly, to ensure your information is safe you should choose a password that only you know. There are many books you can familiarise yourself with to gain a better understanding of how to protect yourself from hackers. People who write viruses get the same thrill out of it as they would in breaking a car window or watching something blow up. There are also bragging rights that can appeal to these people.
(note: the third link provided on blackboard retrieved a 404 error and so I could not use it. See the screenshot below).



Readings
The first reading for this week informed us of ways to protect ourselves from viruses and such. We should not reveal personal information to people we do not really know. We should turn on our cookie notices and use a pseudo name when emailing people we don’t know. Information should not be revealed to people we have just met and keep personal issues away from workplace emails as they may be monitored. We should also watch out for sites that award some sort of ‘prize’ for our personal details. SPAM mail should not be replied to for any reason and we should make ourselves aware of web and computer security. It is a good idea to exam private policies as well. Lastly, people should use encryption.
The second reading for this week included articles on electronic monitoring. The topics available included types of monitoring, privacy issues, suggested policies, and privacy recourses.
The third reading was an article about the history of computer viruses and how it is closely related to the history of the WWW.
The fourth reading was about how you can protect your intellectual property through patents, trademarks, copyrights, computer software and registering domain names.
The fifth reading was on music copyrights. It also included information on why it is illegal to download music from file sharing programs and how you could be punished if caught.
The sixth and final reading was information on why you shouldn’t open attachments in emails. Also included was what types of files are more likely to have a virus.

Lecture
The lecture for week 11 informed students of data, information and knowledge. Data is statistics and such which is factual but on its own, is next to meaningless. It is when that data is collected and compared that patterns emerge and become information. From that information, we learn different things which we call knowledge. We must remember that information must always relate to the data from which it has been collected. Some examples of data can be prices, shares and exchange rates. Information can be anything from tables of census to minutes of a meeting. Knowledge comes in the form of things like press releases and marketing strategies.

Workshop
In the first part of the workshop for this week, students were asked to find dictionaries that described data, information and knowledge.
The first dictionary I found was www.onelook.com
(data) noun: a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn
(information) noun: knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction (knowledge) noun: the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning
The second dictionary I found was www.m-w.com
Data : factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation
Information 2 a (1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2): intelligence, news (3): facts, data
Knowledge 2 a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association
The third dictionary I found was www.yourdictionary.com
data (dāt′ə, dat′ə; Brit also dä′tə) facts or figures to be processed; evidence, records, statistics, etc. from which conclusions can be inferred; information
in•for•ma•tion (in′fər mā′ən) noun knowledge acquired in any manner; facts; data; learning; lore
knowl•edge (näl′ij) noun acquaintance with facts; range of information, awareness, or understanding

For the second activity, students were asked to create a visual representation of the transition from data to information to knowledge in MS Word. I chose to make a tree with the data being the roots, the information being the trunk and the leaves being the knowledge. To view a screenshot of my drawing, see below.



Understand the transition from data to information to knowledge is very helpful for a university student. From this, we can see that we must gather a vast amount of data and facts before we can see patterns emerge. From this, we can build information from the trends we see and eventually gain knowledge which we can use to strongly back up a point of view.
For the final task for this week’s workshop, students were asked to think of 5 organisations which collect information from its clients and why.

1. Phone companies (e.g. Telstra)
• So as they know when people are making more calls. This will assist pricing and special deals.
2. Police
• To find out where to place speed cameras and at what times they will be most effective.
3. Venues
• Understanding how many people will turn up when a show is being held. This way, enough money is charged per person so that a profit is made.
4. Online Games
• These often have polls so as they can find out who their target audience is and how to better the game for that audience.
5. Television
• News and current affair programs often hold polls which the public can phone in and vote on. This could assist in knowing what kind of news viewers want to see.

Readings
The first readings for this week included information on data information and knowledge. There were, however, two extra stages placed in the process which were referred to as ‘understanding’ and ‘wisdom’. Understanding being the ‘appreciation of "why"’ and wisdom being ‘evaluated understanding’.

The second reading indicated different organisations that may collect data. Most of these organisations were said to be linked to the government (in the United States). I was also made aware of why exactly certain journals are known as ‘scholarly’.

The third reading informed the reader of specific reasons data is collected and how powerful it is. A lot can be learned about a person by collecting data on a chosen topic. If you apply that to a community, you see just how powerful the knowledge you eventually gain can be.

Lecture
In the lecture for week 10, students were informed about online libraries. They contain so much information in the forms of online text repositories, online journals, electronic books, art and music. Examples of online archives were given for all of those information types. Sometimes, however, that information is only available through subscription. Referencing is very important because there are a lot of copyright issues surrounding online information. Students were then informed of online databases. These can be people searches, e-mail directories, genealogy recourses, maps and atlases, government information and statistics, news and media as well as portals. Again, much of this information is only available through subscription.

Workshop
For the first workshop activity, students were asked to visit the ECU library website and record 10 useful features.

1 – Journal Articles
There is a huge amount of electronic journal articles. Searching for an article is much the same as searching on a search engine such as Google. The searches can also be refined so that the articles returned are from a certain time/place etc. This is a database.
2 – Books, CDs
Books can be looked up by using a topic or a specific author. This is referred to as a catalogue.
3 – Websites
There is a list of websites which you can access by selecting the appropriate topic they fall under.
4 – Quick Catalogue Search
Searches by automatically using a keyword search and in all of the ECU campuses.
5 – Subject or Title
You can search for articles by using either their subject or title. Searching by title allows you to select a database to search in while searching by subject means you must pick a specific subject first.
6 – Database Range
There is a very large of databases which the user may search in.
7 – Searching Help
There is a section where a student may refer to if they are unsure of what to do or how to search.
8 – Podcasts
There is a range of podcasts a student may download. These subjects range from annotated bibliographies to maps of campuses.
9 – Trial Databases
There are two databases available that include media information
10 – Reserve Readings
A student can find information on their course or from their lecturer/tutor by searching for the correct information.

The second part of our workshop required students to visit a medical website and use the built-in search engine to find out about a certain disease or treatment we were interested in. I chose to search information on cervical cancer. To see the screenshot for this activity, see below.



We were then required to watch an interactive tutorial on another subject. To see my interactive tutorial, see the screenshot below.



I believe that everybody can benefit from a website like this. It includes information that anybody who is curious about a medical subject will find useful and interesting. It will also educate people who may not know about ways to make sure they are healthy (feeling for lumps etc).

Readings
There were no readings posted on Blackboard for week 10.

Lecture
In this week’s lecture (week 9) covered search engines. Students were informed that a search engine is a program that crawls the Internet and retrieves websites depending on what text is included in them. There are, however, problems with search engines in that they can return so many search results, it is practically impossible for somebody to preview them all. Those searches can also be quite irrelevant to what you are looking for. There are many different search engines that can be used and they all have different features. There are different types of searches that can be done and some may benefit your search. These search types include keyword, phrase, Boolean and advanced. We were then advised on certain things that may improve our searching skills (using search tools, several keywords etc).

Workshop
In the workshop for this week, students were to firstly asked to list four strategies that would help us in using search engines according to this website: http://www.monash.com/spidap.html

First of all, I believe the student should know whether they should search directories or a search engine. If the student has a very clear query, a directory will probably return pages that are more relevant to the search. There will be considerably less pages than if the student searched the same query in a search engine which offers a more broad result.

Secondly, students should understand the search engine’s capabilities. Many do not understand symbols and numbers in the way that humans do. The same goes for short and common words such as ‘be’, ‘and’, ‘to’ and ‘or’. While our technology advances, this problem is not as bad as it used to be. However, it is still something to be wary of.

Thirdly, in the interest of retrieving more relevant hits the student should understand what kind of search will work best for what they are looking for. Keyword searches often return very broad results and so it is best to use several words in the query. If your query has more than one meaning (e.g. Jaguar being a cat and a car), you can use a Boolean search to exclude pages that contain information relevant to the meaning you are not looking for.

Finally, the student should understand that he or she is supplying the information to the search engine. If the results being provided by the search engine are not relevant to what the student really wants, then they have to change what is being searched or how they are doing it.

The second task set for students in the workshop for week 9 was a quiz. To complete this quiz, students were to use the searching skills they had gained from the week.

Q1 : What civilisation is associated with the once great city of Machu Picchu the spectacular ruins of which were rediscovered in 1911 ?
A1 : Inca
What I searched : Machu Picchu ruins
Q2 : A saintpaulia is more commonly known as an African _____?
A2 : Violet
What I searched : saintpaulia African
Q3 : Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the USA in 1877 by a margin of only one electoral vote, but what did the initial B stand for ?
A3 : Birchard
What I searched : Rutherford Hayes
Q4 : What was the name of the author who wrote the famous poem the Lady of Shalott ?
A4 : Tennyson (note: I think this question was poorly worded as the only accepted answer was ‘Tennyson’ and not ‘Alfred Tennyson’. It should have been noted that only the surname was required.)
What I searched : Lady of Shalott poem
Q5: What would a conchologist study ?
A5 : Shells
What I searched : def : conchologist
Q6 : What was Gerardus Mercator (AD 1512-1594) famous for making in the 16th century ?
A6 : Maps
What I searched : Gerardus Mercator 16th century
Q7 : Who wrote, but never finished, the opera Turandot ?
A7 : Giacomo Puccini
What I searched : Turandot unfinished
Q8 : Popocatepetl is a famous _______?
A8 : Volcano
What I searched : Popocatepetl
Q9: What is the name of the breed of non barking dog ?
A9 : Basenji
What I searched : “non barking” dog
Q10 : What was the name of the Dutch painter of "Garden of earthly paradise" ?
A10 : Bosch
What I searched : Dutch+Painter+Garden of Earthly Paradise
Q11 : What was the name of the critical European battle that took place in 1815?
A11 : Waterloo
What I searched : European battle 1815
Q12 : What creatures live in a formicary ?
A12 : Ants
What I searched : animals formicary
Q13 : What was the name of the movie company, MGM's, lion ?
A13 : Leo
What I searched : MGM lion name
Q14 : What was the country called Thailand formally known as ?
A14 : Siam
What I searched : Thailand former name
Q15 : What vegetable will a chasseur add to your food ?
A15 : Mushroom
What I searched : Vegetable chasseur
Q16 : Which ape has a name which means "forest man" ?
A16 : Orangutan
What I searched : "forest man"+ape
Q17 : What is the coldest planet in our solar system ?
A17 : Pluto
What I searched : coldest planet
Q18 ; What was Mussolini's first name ?
A18 : Benito
What I searched : Mussolini
Q19 : What type of creature is a skink ?
A19 : Lizard
What I searched : Skink
Q20: What famous leader died in 1821 of arsenic poisoning ?
A20 : Napoleon
What I searched : 1821 arsenic poisoning
For a screenshot of my certificate, see below.


Upon completing this exercise, I have learned that there are many different things to consider when using a search engine. There is a lot of information on the Internet and if you know how to find it through search engines, they are very accessible.

Readings
The first reading for week 9 was about what information is on the Web. This includes the free visible Web, the free invisible Web and paid databases over the Web. It also included information about search engines and how to use them.
The second reading was a guide to using search engines effectively. This included different searching methods and what search engines are best for certain queries.
The third reading included different sites that contain helpful hints and guides to using search engines.
The fourth reading included a guide to how you can find information on the Web as well as a brief history on information on the Internet.

Lecture
The lecture for week eight included knowledge students could use to decide whether or not information on websites is factual or more or less people’s opinions. Using information on the web is quite risky as anybody can obtain a web page and publish information that may or may not be credible. As there are no web standards in place, there is no telling how authentic the knowledge you are gaining is. It is always a good idea to ask yourself questions about the website you are visiting. What is its purpose? Who is the author? Can you contact the author to ask them questions? Also look to see if the information given seems to show any level of bias. Looking for the domain type will also give you some clues behind the purpose of the website.

Workshop
In the workshop for week eight, students were asked to visit http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html and rewrite in our own words the strategies the site lists for evaluating information on the internet.
Firstly, you must understand whether or not the Web is the right source for what you are looking for. Some information (for different reasons) is not listed on the Web and while you could spend hours on end looking for it there, you might find considerably quicker by looking through a journal or book.
You must also question every piece of information you find. Look for the resources used and/or research that back it up. Don’t just take the authors word for it.
It is a good idea to have knowledge of who the author is and if they have any credentials that might suggest they are very knowledgeable in whatever subject they include on their site. You can even try Googling the authors name for more information on them. The domain can also give you clues to the nature of the website (.gov usually being more reliable than .com sites).
If possible, find out who is the sponsor behind the site. Figure out who the target audience is for the site through use of language on the site.
Sometimes it is very easy to tell how credible a site is if you take a step back and look at the website as a whole. Are there spelling mistakes? Is there advertising and if so, for what? Are there distracting images and/or icons? All of these things can suggest the purpose of the site.
There are different types of pages on the WWW that differ from the common web page. These can be accessed through web pages but serve a different purpose. These pages can include articles and books.

For the second part of the workshop, students were asked to evaluate sites from the Web Site Evaluation Assignment.
The first site I chose to evaluate is located at http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html
Accuracy – I believe this site is fairly accurate because the information appears to be supported by dates and links to other websites with further information about the subject matter. For an example, view the screenshot below.


Authorship – In the signature down the bottom of the website, there is a list of the site authors. While they do not appear to have any credentials, they do seem to be affiliated with Kingwood College. There is also a link to contact one of the authors if the reader wishes to do so. To see this, view the screenshot below.


Purpose – I believe the purpose of this site is to review what was accomplished during the 1960s.
Detail and Design – The detail in the website seems to be of a good quality and nothing stands out as being nonsense. There is a wide coverage on what happened in the 1960s. While the site becomes a little hard to navigate at times with the menu being at the top of the text, the design of the page isn’t bad. With the aid of pictures, the reader knows what the purpose of the paragraph is.
Overall Worth – I believe this page was worth visiting as it included a vast amount of information and statistics surrounding the 1960s. Nothing seemed to be particularly unique about the site however, save for the fact that the authors stayed on topic throughout the entire text. The site also appears to be free of any spelling or grammar mistakes.

The second site I chose to evaluate is located at
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/
Accuracy – I believe the information on this site is reliable because the website includes articles from what seems to be a scholarly journal.
Authorship – The person responsible for the site does not appear to have any credentials, nor do they seem to be linked with any reputable sponsors. There are, however, clear contact details listed on the first page. View the screenshot below.


Purpose – While I am unsure of the exact purpose of this site, I believe it is to collect information and literature either from or about the 1960s.
Detail and Design – The information on this site seems to be of worth, but for it to be useful to a student, I believe that student must search thoroughly through the site to find information relevant to what he or she needs. This is because there is a vast amount of information and not all of it seems to flow in a logical order. The design of the page, while a little busy and hard on the eyes, is easy to follow.
Overall Worth – I believe this page would be worth visiting for somebody researching the 1960s. What is unique about the site is that it offers such a large amount of poetry about the 1960s. There also does not appear to be any mistakes where grammar or spelling is concerned.

Readings
There was a notice on blackboard that informed students that the readings for week 8 were not compulsory. Because of this, I chose not to do them so as to pay more attention to my group assignment.