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Open Scholarship

Discovery Tools

Federated Search Engines

Federated search engines like the ones below are discovery tools that allow you to search across multiple resources and formats. If you aren't sure what resource you need and want to get a general sense of what is out there, start here!

Using Educat+ to find Open Access Articles

The Gottesman Libraries catalog, EDUCAT+, the definitive record of library holdings at Teachers College. The video below will show you how to limit your search results. 

The video above illustrates the following step-by-step instructions on how to filter for Open Access articles in Educat+

  1. Enter your search term in the search box
  2. Click the magnifying lens in the right of the search box to begin the search
  3. Once your results are populated look to the left-side menu "Refine your results"
  4. Under the filter facet "Availability" click on the "Open Access" button
  5. Click "Apply filters" 

Browser Widgets/Extensions Etc. 

These tools modify your browsers to help you locate OA and OER materials. Try them out!

Search Tips

Constructing Searches

  1. Consider key terms: pick out terms in your topic that you think would pull up relevant resources. Also, consider synonyms or related terms you can try as well (for example the search term "attitudes" might have related terms of 'perceptions,' 'beliefs,' 'perspectives' etc.)
  2. Use punctuation: most search engines use a similar set of punctuation to help clarify your search terms. Here are some:
    • Quotations: using quotation marks allows you to search for an exact phrase i.e. "Teachers College" instead of 'Teachers' and 'College'.
    • Asterisk: adding an asterisk at the end of a word will capture related words with the same root or base, i.e. 'philosoph*' will capture philosophy, philosophical, philosopher etc.
    • Question mark: a question mark in a search has a similar function to an asterisk, but for only one letter i.e. 'wom?n' will capture woman and women.
  3. AND, OR, & NOT: these connectors called Boolean operators give the searcher more control over the search results. when using AND both terms searched must be present in a record. For OR either term can be present, and for NOT the chosen term must not be present.
  4. Use Advanced Search and Filters: to narrow your results even further, utilize fields that let you adjust the date range, resource type, location etc. If there is an 'Advanced Search' option, use that to manipulate these fields. Also, most search engines will show a "filter" area in the left column of the page once you have already searched--use this to narrow your results list.

 

Lincoln School Of Teachers College. Summer Demonstration. Recreation Program. (1939). Historical Photographs of Teachers College. Courtesy of Gottesman Libraries.