Library:MIT OpenCourseWare Search Plan

From UBC Wiki

MIT OpenCourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Search results are populated in a shared Google spreadsheet where faculty can approve content useful for courses.
Links to faculty approved learning objects can be found on the Bioflex Content Curation site

About

  • MIT OpenCourseWare is openly available for anyone to use.
  • Content is open access and is under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, which means content can be shared as long as it is used for non-commercial purposes, credit is given to its author, and any remixes made are licensed under the same CC license.

Biology 112

Unit 1: Cells

"cell structure" + (lipid OR "nucleic acid" OR protein OR carbohydrate OR phospholipid) = 11 results HTML only = 3 results
"cell membrane" + (lipid OR "nucleic acid" OR protein OR carbohydrate OR phospholipid) = 180 results HTML only = 15 results
macromolecules + ("cell membrane" OR "phospholipid bilayer" OR phospholipid) = 42 results HTML only = 4 results
phospholipids + (structure OR function). Sorted by Date = 147 results HTML only = 16 results

Unit 2: Genes to proteins

DNA + RNA + protein + transcription AND “central dogma” = 102 results HTML only = 18 results
DNA + RNA + structure + function + “central dogma” + (transcription OR promoter OR regulation) = 81 results HTML only = 17 results
promoter + regulation + (eukaryote OR eukaryotic OR eukarya) = 58 results HTML only = 17 results
gene + regulation + “lac operon” + (bacterial OR bacteria OR bacterium) - tryptophan = 58 results HTML only = 41 results

Unit 3: Metabolism

metabolism + “cell growth” = 17 results HTML only = 6 results
“cell growth” + (metabolism OR metabolic OR catabolism OR anabolism) = 27 results HTML only = 8 results

BIOL 121

Pyramid of Productivity

“trophic level” + (pyramid OR productivity OR biomass) = 42 results HTML only = 2 results
“food web” + (trophic OR consumers OR producers OR heterotrophs OR autotrophs) = 62 results HTML only = 7 results

Genetics

“Mendel’s laws” + (meiosis OR meiotic) = 17 results HTML only = 6 results
meiosis + “cell division” + (haploid OR diploid OR chromosome) = 43 results HTML only = 13 results
meiosis + (haploid OR diploid OR chromosome) -mitosis = 82 results HTML only = 13 results

Evolution

“population genetics” + (evolution OR evolutionary) = 129 results HTML only = 102 results
evolution + evolutionary + “population genetics” = 47 results HTML only = 25 results
adaptation + “natural selection” + (evolution OR evolutionary) = 37 results HTML only = 14 results

Note: Searches were completed July 2014

Search Efficiencies

Background

  • The learning outcome concepts were defined by the Biology 112 and 121 faculty.
  • These higher level concepts were broken into units within each course creating a list of topics
  • Additional related terms were added by the research assistant to create more search options
  • Adding Boolean operators to the terms created the search strategy.

Conducting a Search

  • The preferred method for an MIT search is to use the Advanced Search, allowing for more control over how wide or narrow you want the search
  • There are multiple ways to browse MIT courses. Browse by Topic > Subtopic > Speciality is one example of browsing courses. View results by Undergraduate and Graduate levels and limit results by format

Limit your search

  • Apply limits after the initial search and from the results page. Based on testing various searches, applying limits in the Advanced Search window did not retrieve many results and in many instances did not retrieve any results.
  • To find videos, select HTML only from the results page. This removes the PDF files. This will remove book chapters, lecture notes, quizzes, problem sets, etc., and more readily retrieve video content in full lecture or excerpts.

Notes & Tips

  • AND is implied between words
  • OR is implied in the With at least one of the words search box. Enter synonyms in order to find all relevant materials
  • Plurals are understood. Example: cell will also search cells
  • No need to use “quotation marks” around phrases – the advanced search has an exact phrase search box
  • Each search scans through all of the content and not just the title and description

Other search options

  • The basic Search box will handle keywords, but cannot combine concepts as well as the Advanced search
  • The Highlights for High School tab often contains edited versions of video lectures, which means students only need to watch a small section of video on a specific topic
  • Google’s “site” command can also be a jumping off point. Enter the terms along with the site’s url into a Google search box. Example:“genetic drift” site:ocw.mit.edu

Sample Search

Example of Biology 112 Unit 1 search using the best practices outlined above:

  • Concept: Cells
  • Unit 1 Topic: The cell’s utility of biomolecules and organelles
  • Terms: biomolecules / major macromolecules (lipids & phospholipids, nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates)
  • Related Terms: fatty acids, DNA, RNA, amino acids

Entering the broader terms biomolecules and/or macromolecules retrieves a large set of results. To retrieve a narrower set of results, more specific terms related to the learning outcomes were selected and combined.
Example:

  • cells AND organelles AND (lipids OR “nucleic acids” OR proteins OR carboyhydrates)

This search can be entered into the generic search box as is; however, MIT’s Advanced Search simplifies the task.

Advanced Search

With MIT the more related terms you can provide the Advanced Search fields, the more relevant the results.

On the MIT Advanced Search page here is how the above search would be entered:

MIT Advanced Search.jpg

With all of the words places the AND operator between words
With the exact phrase acts as “quotation marks” around a phrase
With at least one of the words places OR between concepts
Without the words acts as the NOT or minus sign that might be used to eliminate concepts or terms


Library:Biology 112/121 OER Search Plans

As part of the BioFlex project, this page is intended to assist with searching MIT OpenCourseWare and was created by Sarah Parker