Learning and Teaching: Finding Information: The Open Web

Introduction to the Open Web

The open web refers to the part of the internet that is publicly accessible to anyone with an internet connection, without requiring any restrictions or permissions. It consists of websites, web pages, and online content that can be freely accessed, shared, and linked to by users worldwide.

What can you find on the open web?

Open web sources are those that are available on the open web for free and are typically located via search engines like Google.

Click the dropdowns for information on the different sources you can find on the open web. This list isn't exhaustive; there are loads more sources that you could encounter on the open web. Can you think of any not included here?

When should you use the Open Web?

Open web resources can complement and supplement the resources you find from academic sources; ideally, you will use a mix of resource types in your work to support your argument. For example, you may want to academic content from books and articles accessed via the library with statistics or professional guidelines from the open web.

While the library encourages the use of Open Web sources alongside complementary academic sources, it is essential to exercise caution and evaluate the credibility of sources obtained from the open web. It is important to be mindful of the following drawbacks when searching for and selecting sources from the open web:

Quality and reliability: The open web contains a wide range of information, including unreliable, biased, or inaccurate content. It can be challenging to assess the credibility and trustworthiness of sources. For guidance on selecting appropriate sources, consult the following guide.
Lack of peer review: Unlike scholarly journals or academic databases, the open web does not typically undergo rigorous peer review processes. For guidance on selecting appropriate sources, consult the following guide.
Information overload: The abundance of information on the open web can be overwhelming, making it difficult to filter and prioritize relevant and high-quality sources. For guidance on selecting appropriate sources, consult the following guide.
Limited access to subscription-based content: Some scholarly journals or specialized resources require subscriptions or paywalls, restricting access to full-text articles or premium content. For guidance on accessing the full text, consult the following page.
Lack of organization and structure: The open web lacks a standardized structure or organization, leading to challenges in discovering and organizing information effectively.

Google

Should you Google it?

There are lots of times when searching beyond the library using tools such as Google is useful:

To fact-check information.
To develop a better understanding of a topic or consolidate your learning.
To consult known sources of information e.g., gov.uk
To find resources that simply aren't available anywhere else.

While the library encourages the use of sources obtained via Google alongside complementary academic sources, it's important that you understand the risks of obtaining your information this way.

Click the drop-downs below to learn more.

Making the Most of Google

As always, when it comes to searching, what you put in determines what comes out; the quality and relevance of your results will be determined by the appropriateness of your search terms and techniques.

Below are some simple top tips:

Select appropriate search terms. Not sure how? Check out our guide on Generating Keywords and Alternative Terms.
Use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine keywords strategically. Learn more in the Enhancing Your Search guide.
Try phrase searching, denoted by double quotation marks (“ ”). Phrase searching tells the search tool to look for your phrase (e.g., “graphic design” or “industrial action”) as one word. Learn more in the Enhancing Your Search guide.
Use Google Search Operators. These are special characters or commands that can be added to a search query to refine and enhance the search results. These operators can be used to specify the file type of results, exclude certain terms, search within a specific website, and much more. Consult the Google Search Operators guide for more information.
Click the "Tools" button. This provides users with additional options and filters to refine their search results and access specialised tools for specific types of searches. It is typically located under the search bar on the search results page.

Need a little more guidance? Click here to watch some of these tricks in action [6:42 minutes].

Alternatives to Google

While very popular, Google is not the only search engine available to search the open web. Why not try an alternative search engine, and see what results you get? They may even be different from those that come up on Google.

Here are just a few:

Bing: Bing is Microsoft's search engine that offers similar features to Google search, such as web search, image search, and news search.
DuckDuckGo: DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that doesn't track your searches or collect your personal information.
Ecosia: Ecosia is a search engine that uses its profits to plant trees. It offers web search, image search, and video search.
Carrot²: Carrot² is an open-source framework that clusters search engine results, organising them into thematic groups for improved information exploration and navigation.
AI Chats: alternative and increasingly popular search tools are AI Chats such as ChatGPT. New options are coming out regularly including from Google and Bing.

Google Scholar

Should you use Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is a free search engine developed by Google that allows you to search for scholarly literature including articles, theses, books, and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, universities, and other web sources. You can search by author, title, keyword, or subject, and can set up alerts for new research publications in your fields of interest.

You can use Google Scholar to find scholarly literature on essentially any topic. It's particularly useful when used to carry out scoping search es.

As with all search tools, Google Scholar has its advantages and disadvantages.

Click the drop-downs below to learn more:

Making the most of Google Scholar

Below are some simple top tips:

Select appropriate search terms. Not sure how? Check out our guide on Generating Keywords and Alternative Terms.
Use boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine keywords strategically. Learn more in the Enhancing Your Search guide.
Try phrase searching, denoted by double quotation marks (“ ”) and truncation, denoted by an asterisk (*). Phrase searching tells the search tool to look for your phrase (e.g., “graphic design” or “industrial action”) as one word. Truncation allows you to search for variant endings of a word simultaneously (e.g. child* will locate child, children, childhood, childcare). Learn more in the Enhancing Your Search guide.
Access full text with Library Links: Although Google Scholar provides links to many articles, not all of them will be freely available online. To see what you can access as a member of the University of Suffolk library, you can set up Library Links. Watch the video here (0.50 seconds) for guidance.
Use Advanced Search: The advanced search feature in Google Scholar allows you to refine your search by specific fields, such as author, publication, and date range. You can also specify the language, and publication type (e.g., articles, books, theses), and search within a particular journal. Watch the video here (2.52 minutes) for guidance.
Keep an eye on the "Related articles" section: The "Related articles" section at the bottom of each search result can be a great way to discover new research that is closely related to your topic.
Look at the “Cited by” information: Google Scholar provides citation information for each search result. This allows you to see how many times a particular paper has been cited by other researchers, which can be an indicator of its importance and impact in the field.
Use Google Scholar Alerts: Google Scholar Alerts allows you to set up email notifications for new articles or publications that match your search criteria. This can be a great way to stay up-to-date with the latest research in your field. Watch the video here (2.15 minutes) for guidance.

Alternatives to Google Scholar

Other open web search options are available for scholarly content. One example is Semantic Scholar, "A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature".

You can also search open-access academic content online:

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books)
arXiv: a free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics
bioRxiv: "the preprint server for biology"
medRxiv: "the preprint server for the health sciences"