Extreme Googling.2: Discovery Tools (online learning course)

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Extreme Googling.2: Discovery Tools
(An Infopeople Online Learning Course)

January 10, 2006 - February 6, 2006

Want to take FULL advantage of Google's many search features? Even experienced Googlers can improve their results by learning more of Google's secrets. Extreme Googling.2 will equip you to use the Google family of databases and services to respond to questions in ways ordinary web searching cannot. For example, you will learn when and how to use Google's specialized databases; where to obtain quick math answers, equivalent conversions, stock performance comparisons, patents, parcel tracking, vehicle ID numbers, airplane ID numbers; how to probe web pages' history, ownership, usage, and links.

Extreme Googling.2 builds on the skills learned in "Extreme Googling.1: Google's Way of Thinking." If you have not taken Extreme Googling.1 before taking this course, please take the "Googling Skills Self-Assessment Quiz" at the end of this course announcement.

Workshop Description: This is the second of two online courses that together cover, at a pace geared to let you absorb and experiment, what the all-day, in-classroom Extreme Googling course covers. In Extreme Googling.2 you will do many short exercises alternating with brief explanatory readings, take quizzes, participate in online discussion, and answer "live" questions.

Preliminary Course Outline:

  • Module 1: Finding Information on a Subject
    • Lesson 1: Searching for specialized directories, link lists, and databases; Google's Directory
    • Lesson 2: Google as encyclopedic glossary
    • Lesson 3: Finding and using weblogs and newsgroups
  • Module 2: When and How to Use Google's Special Databases and Shortcuts
    • Lesson 1: The Images and News databases; the unique usefulness of the Froogle and Catalogs databases
    • Lesson 2: Google Local
    • Lesson 3: Shortcuts for quick answers
  • Module 3: Google Special Services
    • Lesson 1: Translate, PageInfo, and investigating URLs
    • Lesson 2: A "hack" and search for retrieving pages from within a country
    • Lesson 3: GAPS proximity search using a Google API key
  • Module 4: When Google Doesn't Work
    • Lesson 1: Google is always evolving
    • Lesson 2: Alternatives to Google and useful bookmarklets
    • Lesson 3: Thinking in sync with search engines and websites; Books for keeping up-to-date

Online Learning Details: This four-week course will be taught online using the web. When you register, you will receive a registration confirmation, which will include the URL to get to the course, as well as a username and password.

Every student proceeds through the online learning modules at his or her own pace. However, students should expect to commit to spending a minimum of 2 to 2½ hours per week on this course in order to be successful. You can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night. However, you will be expected to log in to the course each week to do that week's assignment. We ask that you log in sometime during the first week of the course to begin the course work.

Your instructor will be available for limited consultation support for two weeks after the official end date of a course, and the course material will stay up for an additional two weeks after that, to give those who have fallen behind time to work independently on the course. However, you will be expected to accomplish the majority of the course in synchronization with your peers during the first four weeks.

Who Should Attend: Like Extreme Googling.1, this course is suitable for anyone in the library community who tries to hunt for information on the Web. However, this is an advanced course, building on the skills covered in Extreme Googling.1. If you have not taken or do not plan to take Extreme Googling.1 before taking this course, you can gauge your readiness for Extreme Googling.2 by taking the "Googling Skills Self-Assessment Quiz" at the end of this course announcement.

Prerequisites:
A. This course is taught over the web. You must:

  • Have an Internet connection and Internet Explorer 5 or higher (some of the quiz functions do not work properly in Netscape).
  • Be able to save Microsoft Word .docs or Adobe .pdf files to your computer and print them out. (For .doc files, a free Word Viewer is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. Search for "Word Viewer." For .pdf files, a free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html).
  • Be comfortable navigating on the web and navigating back and forward on a website that uses frames.

If you are not comfortable with any of the above, please consider taking this course with a colleague who does meet these requirements.

B. Completion of Extreme Googling.1 or possession of equivalent knowledge of Google search techniques is required in order to participate fully in and understand Extreme Googling.2. If you have not taken or do not plan to take Extreme Googling.1, please take the self-assessment quiz below.

Googling Skills Self-Assessment Quiz
INSTRUCTIONS: Write down your answers to the following ten questions.

  1. List all of the following punctuation marks which Google does NOT ignore in web searching.
    , ; ? [ ] ( ) - < > # @ " " ' /
    comma semi-colon question mark brackets parentheses hyphen less/greater than pound sign ampersand double quotes apostrophe slash


  3. What does Google do if you perform the following search: to be or not to be


  5. What is stemming? How is stemming different from truncation?


  7. List two ways you can turn off stemming in Google.


  9. If you perform two searches in Google, one for grass snake and the other for snake grass, and then compare the first 20 results from the two searches, what are some differences you can expect to see? Why?


  11. What symbol is used to instruct Google to search for synonyms?


  13. When you limit Google results to pages "last updated" in a specified time period, which best describes the date Google uses?
    1. The most recent date the web page's author changed the page
    2. The most recent date Google's crawler visited the page
    3. The most recent date Google's crawler visited the page and detected changes?


  15. Describe the difference between these two Google searches:
  16. site:infopeople.org search
    inurl:infopeople search
  17. Is one of the factors in Google's ranking of search results (PageRank™) how much webpage owners pay Google to obtain a high-ranking position?


  19. What is the maximum number of keywords (excluding OR) that Google will perform a search on?

SCORING: After writing down your answers to these questions, click here for the answers. If you do not understand or if you have incorrectly answered two or more questions, you should take Extreme Googling.1 before attempting Extreme Googling.2.

Course Start: This 4-week-long online learning course starts on January 10, 2006.

Available for contracting: 
No