Session
INTERNET HOUSE
[REPORT OF ACTIVITIES]
2007/2008 session
Internet House (IH)
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
FACULTY OF SOCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT)
FOR LEARNING IN M. M. YUSUF CLASSES
REPORT OF ACTIVITIES
BY
INTERNET HOUSE 2007/2008
HAMZA MARAFA
UMAR DANJUMA
ADAMU ISMA’IL
ZAINUL ABIDEEN JIBRIL
HABIB SANI
DAIFURU KABIR
OCTOBER, 2008
FOREWORD
During the last five years, without any official support and recognition I have single-handedly introduced ICT in all my classes, for teaching, learning and research. When I started it is only devotion and love of silent revolution I’m making which encouraged me to continue as there were no official facilities available. Only private business cafes on the university campus and outside.
My interest in this grew as I have seen the collapse of university education and participated in many organisations including the Academic Staffs Unions of Universities to revitalize it and realized that an individual could make his own contribution.
When we started I have done many pulling together-writing instructional papers on how to use internet, E-mail, and E-journal library for teaching learning and research. Giving similar instructions in classroom lectures and making it compulsory that each student must in each week use the ICT system and report. When official facilities become available at the beginning of each session I organised brief orientation for my student in ICT section of the main library.
It does not stop there. In order to make the students take it serious, in the first two years of introducing this package for learning, in every examination I set whether of political economy or of politics of development and underdevelopment, there is a compulsory section on issues of the ICT.
Perhaps, the most exciting is that, each academic session I select students who formed a classroom association which we variously called Cyber Club or Internet Partnership Association. In 2007/2008 it is called Internet House.
This report grew out of the activities of Internet House 2007/2008 academic session. Similar reports of Internet Partnership Association 2005/2006 and Cyber Club still 2005/2006 are also available.
M. M. Yusuf
November, 2008
2007/2008 INTERNET HOUSE REPORT: ACTIVITIES, STRATEGIES AND SUCCESS
Today, it has become a reality that internet has changed everything in teaching, learning and research, and so the House was established by its instructor Mallam M. M. Yusuf to keep in pace with those changes. In particular it was clearly stated that the House’s primary assignment is enhancing the internet potentiality of the class.
It is in recognition of this, that the House meets every Thursday at 10:00 am in Rabi’u Kwankwaso common room to carryout the above mentioned task. And since the inauguration of the House, the members become available for 24 hours service-ready and technically equipped to help our colleagues tackle problems that may arise when using internet in learning and research. The names, phones numbers and E-mail address of each member of the House were circulated to make contacts easier.
The House realized that one essential element in carrying out the task and achieve the goal effectively lies in the understanding of how some students acquires and use their knowledge in learning and research, and why others fail. Based on this, and considering the performance of the House and the target audience, the house felt the need to map out a strategy towards heightening the capability of executing and accomplishing the primary assignment of the house. Thus a success route toward this was devised and laid out in this way:
· Surveying the target audience
· Taking a sample population
· Sourcing information from the sample population (mainly through interview)
· Processing the information
· Planning and implementation
Using the above route, three seminars were selected for preliminary exercise. The learning and research method of those seminars were identified, areas and issues handicapping them were fished out, and remedial measures were devised and prescribed. Some of the problems identified include:
o Improper arrangement in the course of learning and research
o Most students pays people or staffs in charge of internet cafes to source them material from the internet
o In cases where the material are source by students, some of the sources are not scholarly e.g. wikepedia
o Some students download online materials without the name of the author or copyright
o Improper citation of the online materials
Therefore the House through teamwork embarked on teamwork culture training as well as technical or practical training in order to address the problems identified above. Indeed an orientation was given to the three selected seminars covering the following areas:
o Time management and success skills in learning and research
o Techniques of writing successful research essays including small research project
o Techniques of sourcing scholarly internet materials
o Ethics of sourcing the materials as well as the way of referencing the online materials (attached to this reports is a paper prepared on this and third item).
Two weeks later the impacts of these become obvious as the exercise soon covered more seminars. And for simplicity, the subsequent exercise were conducted inform of phases. These include:
Phase I
1. seminar of Hamza Marafa
2. seminar of Umar Danjuma
3. seminar of Adamu Isma’il
4. seminar of Zainul Abideen
Phase II
1. seminar of Isma’il Galadima
2. seminar of Auwal Abubakar
3. seminar of Tijjani Isma’il
4. seminar of Sani Isma’il
Phase III
1. seminar of Tasi’u Magaji
2. seminar of Umar Kabir
3. seminar of Aminu Saleh
However the House felt the need to focus solely on new generation seminars, as the previous exercise only covered seminars that were in existence since level two or three. This is to help them catch up the potentiality of the first and second generation seminars. These seminars include:
1. seminar of Aliyu Zubairu
2. seminar of Muhammad Gambo Saleh
3. seminar of Kashim Jere
4. seminar of Jamilu Sabo
5. seminar of Ramato Momoh
Moreover the House is working to liaise with British Council, Kano Center to receive a broad training on internet learning and research for all the seminars. This will also give the Internet House Members an avenue to partake in British Council membership registration so as to have access to the council’s internet and library resources, symposiums as well as other educated programmes and materials.
Thus, the House succeeded in keeping in touch with sixteen out of twenty two seminars. Hence the House succeeded in imparting and sustaining knowledge and skills needed for learning and research.
It is in the light of this experience that the House offered the following recommendations:
o In next pol4301 class, the criteria for selecting new seminar members should included internet fluency.
o It should be mandatory for all seminar leaders to be active partners or members of the House. Hence they should serve as intermediary between the House and their seminars.
o They should also ensure the circulation of new ideas, skills for internet-based learning and research.
o It should be mandatory for all students to source at least one internet material for every topic of Pol4301, so as to further sustain and or improve internet research culture.
Finally, with these, will come more internet competent students, and would emerge a force rebuilding as well as re-strengthening teamwork structure and spirit. Indeed, would come team of seminars learning together, researching together and succeeding together in pursuit of common goal.
THE HOUSE MEMBERS
Hamza Marafa Chairman
Daifuru Kabir Secretary
Umar Danjuma Coordinator
Zainul Abideen Jibril technical Assistant I
Habib Sani Technical Assistant II
Adamu Isma’il member
Isma’il Galadima member
Auwal Abubakar member
Sani Isma’il member
Umar Kabir member
Tijjani Isma’il member
Aliyu Zubairu member
Riya’udeen Z. maitama member
Farouk Ibrahim member
SOURCING SCHOLARLY INTERNET MATERIALS
Internet is valuable research tool because it provides access to information in the computers of educational institutions, business, government bureau, and non profit organisations all over the world.
Information and communication technology (ICT) make this possible, quickly and cheaply. And thus, ICT refers to the digitization of data as well as integration of computers with the method of collecting, analyzing, sharing and dissemination of information. It makes information driven, on which knowledge flows constantly, back, forth, across an ever changing web. Indeed every second, massive volume of information is routed through it.
To find scholarly information we have to make use of global search engines. Search engines are a website or computer program that provides quick access to information on the internet. It provide a text box into which you type keywords associated with the information you want, it then respond to your query by displaying a list of documents that match your request. One of the best online sources for help with internet is the library of congress resource page, at
1. WWW search engine Under this category, you can search the web with engines such as Yahoo!, Alta Vista or Goggle Etc. Yahoo! Is a searchable, browsable directory: Alta vista is a powerful search engine, while Google is the most comprehensive search engines.
o Yahoo! (
o Alta vista and Google does a through full-text search of documents for key words. If you put a fairly general key word into Alta vista or Google you will most likely to receive hundreds or thousands links of pages, form which you can select the specific ones.
Others engines in this category includes, excite engines at
2. Meta Search Engines: This is search engines that search a number of other search engines at one time. For example on Dogfile (
Ethics Of Sourcing Online Materials
When doing your research on the internet, the information is expected to be reliable. To ensure this, Hodges, Keolla, and Keen (2001) suggest that the following questions should be at the mind of researchers while surfing the internet.
o Who is the author or sponsor of the page? In a situation where a page is created by a person or organisation that doest provide this information, such information is not a good source to cite. In such cases, delete the last section of the URLs and reload the browser again.
o Are there observed reason for bias?
o Is content information provided?
o Is there a copyright symbol on the page? If so who hold the copyright?
o What is the purpose of the page?
o How well organise is the page?
o Is the information on the page primary or secondary?
o Can you verify the information?
Documenting Online Info
Different discipline has specific formal convention for documenting sources in scholarly writing. In humanities the most common style is that of Modern Language Association (MLA), whereas in physical, natural and social sciences the American Psychological Association is often used.
To document changeable online sources the APA style is recommended. And it consists of author’s name, date of most recent revision, title of the source, date of access, and identification of the type other document. In place of publisher is the complete URL. Suppose you access this paper online, the reference will be in this format:
Marafa H. (2008 April 9), Sourcing scholarly internet materials,[online] (second editon URL retrieved May 27th, 2007 from world wide web: http://www.internethouse2008blogspot.com/essays/html
References:
Hodges J., Koella J. C., Keen M. (2001), guides to internet for student of humanities, version 2.0, Mayfield publishing company, mountain view, California.
Internet explorer (2004), the professor teaches internet explorer 5, [CD] individual software.
Internet House
2008
A REPORT OF INTERNET HOUSE EXERCISE TO LEVEL TWO STUDENTS
As one of the House’s primary task, the internet House extends its programs to level two students of Pol2204. The exercise was conducted on the 23rd September, 2008, in M-block old site. The class chosen and recommended by the House’s director Mallam M. M. Yusuf was the foundation of the political economy class.
The exercise was titled “guide to internet for students of pol2204”. It attempts to aid the flow skills on internet-based learning and research. The introductory aspect of the exercise focused on three fundamental questions of the House: Who we are, what we do and how we do it.
Who we are: we are the internet house. It is the learner’s house of learning working together as a team to become independent learners.
What we do: our task is enhancing the internet potentials of the target audience by charting and directing the flow of new ideas, new skills and new strategies on internet-based learning and research
How we do it: this is simple, we sit down, list what we know and what we don’t know concerning internet-based learning and research. Then we set out to search for relevant information. Once we found what we want, we analyse and discuss it, and make sure we have understood and master it. Finally the House shares the new ideas and skills acquired which gives us the platform for giving out training, technical assistance and advice to the target audience.
However the main body of the lecture comprised or covers the following areas:
1. The computer system and the internet, presented by Hamza Marafa
2. Accessing and sourcing materials on the internet by Umar Danjuma
3. E-mail for learning and research by Adamu Isma’il
4. E-journals for learning and research by Habib Sani
5. Techniques of browsing: common problems and solutions by Zainul Abideen Jibrin
(Full text of these is attached to this report)
However, an ‘interactive session” was held on comments, suggestions and questions.
Finally, the exercise has become an ongoing process, many students of the class are daily contacting the House for advice and technical assistance on internet-based learning and research particularly with regard to their small research projects. The House appreciated the cooperation of the class during the exercise. In the light of this, we recommend the following students of the class to be part of the internet House:
o Basiru Musa
o Aminu Salisu
o Surajo Yahaya Muhammad
o Hamisu Idris
o Binta Muhammad Kurmawa
o Maryam Suleiman
GUIDES TO INTERNET FOR STUDENTS OF POL.2204
Introduction
Today, educational policy makers, teachers, researchers and students are preoccupied with the task of transforming teaching, learning and research into internet-centered, internet-based and internet-oriented, as precondition by this era of knowledge and information technology. And as the product of such giant stride, the Internet House attempts to aid the flow of new ideas, new skills and new strategies for learning and research on the internet to the students of Pol.2204 so as to improve their competence in facing the dynamic nature of modern knowledge and learning.
COMPUTER SYSTEM AND THE INTERNET
by
Hamza Marafa
The computer system and the internet have become the necessary ingredients of learning and research in this era of knowledge and information technology. And today a common mistake among students is referring computer system as an internet, which is quite mistaken idea, because the terms are only complimentary to each other.
Computer is an electro-mechanic device that accepts, process, store, and output data at high speed, and according to the information given to it. Computer system comprised of hardwire and the software. The physical computer and its components are known as hardware. They are those devices that can be seen, touched and used by the operator, like CD-ROM, disk, diskette, floppy disk, flash disk, key board, and the space bar. others includes the memory that stores data and program instructions; the central processing unit (CPU) that carries out program instructions; the input devices, such as a keyboard or mouse, that allow the user to communicate with the computer; the output devices, such as printers and video display monitors, that enable the computer to present information to the user; and buses (hardware lines or wires) that connect these and other computer components.
On the other hand, the programs that run the computer are called software which is designed to perform a particular type of task like writing a letter, or to display and modify a photograph, or to direct the general operation of the computer (Snyder, 2007). Hence they can only be used by the operator, unlike hardwire they might not be touched, and they include browser, buffer, cursor, database, directory etc. Therefore, the computer system is made up of input, output and storage apparatus.
The computer apparatus
However, the integration of this computer system with the method of collecting, analyzing, sharing, and dissemination of information brought what has been termed information and communication technology (ICT). Internet has been the chief contemporary examples of ICT.
The Internet is a global network of computers, their interconnection, and information that travels between them. It is global web of computer networks, and that is why in the early stages of its development it was described as ‘the internetworking of networks’, internet for short. It was created in 1969 as ARPANET by the US department of defense, as a means of communication in the event of a nuclear attack. This was because it had no single central location that could be destroyed by a single nuclear blast. In the 1970s the basic internet infrastructure was established, and conveniences such as e-mail were developed to broaden its appeal in 1972. It was the invention of WWW by British physicist and computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee in 1989 that brought the benefits of internet into a mass audience (Price, 2001).
However, each of internet networks may link tens, hundreds, or even thousands of computers, enabling them to share information and processing power. The Internet has made it possible for people all over the world to communicate with one another effectively and inexpensively. Indeed, an individual who has Internet access can communicate directly with anyone else on the Internet, post information for general consumption, retrieve information, use distant applications and services, or buy and sell products (Comer, 2007). Internet stores information in different format, the most popular is the web page. A web page consists of variety of elements such as texts, pictures, animation and hyperlink. A group of related web page is called web site, while collection of all web site is called the World Wide Web.
There are network apparatus used in linking computers to internet, these are:
o Two or more computers
o Network card
o Modem
o Internet service provider, and
o Network media
Once you connect to internet, you would probably come across terms that are specific to the discipline. Now let look at the meaning of such terms:
Online: this is when a computer is connected to the internet
Offline: this is when a computer is not connected to the internet
Browser: this is computer program that enables a computer to locate, download, and display documents containing text, sound, video, graphics, animation, and photographs located on computer networks.
Browsing: this is act of searching information on the internet by frequently changing the sites. In other word, it is the act of viewing and moving about between documents on computer networks.
Search engines: These are web sites that provide quick access to the information on the internet.
Home page: this is referred to the web page that your browser is set to load each time it start up.
Web page: this is the information that is displayed on the screen by loading a single HTML file.
Hyper Text Mark up Language (HTML): this is mark up language used for creating a document on the WWW
Hypertext: is a topic that links information on the internet
World Wide Web (WWW): this is known as ‘W3’ or ‘the web’, it is collection of all HTML document stored on public servers on the internet
Universal Resource Locators (URLs): this is universal resource locators of web pages. It is string of characters that identifies the type of a document, the computer the document is on, and the name of the document, e.g. http://www.mmyusif.blogspot.com the http means that the document is on the WWW, mmyusif is the information, blogspot is the database or the name of the organization that manage the database, .com is the domain name.
Domain names: These are names for specific sub networks and organisations that are parts of the internet. It generally consists of two parts separated by a period. For example att.com, the left part of the period is usually the name of the organisation itself, the part to the right of the period is the general description of what king of organisation the domain refers to. There are currently five of such extensions:
o .net part of community that design and governs internet
o .gov government institution
o .org a non profit organisation
o .com a commercial profit making organisation
o .edu an educational institution
Download: this is act of taking a file off a remote computer and bringing it down to your personal computer, where you can view, save, or print.
Upload: this means sending information from your personal computer to the internet.
These and other internet features helps in dissemination and or sharing up-to-date information, with exhaustive materials on arts, science, as well as research materials for students, and coverage for recreational entertainment, sports, shopping. It also provides access to almanacs, dictionaries, as well as encyclopedia, public and college libraries, to mention but a few.
References
Microsoft (2004), The professor Teachers Internet Explorer, [DVD] individual software, Microsoft Corporation.
Internet House, (2008a), Sourcing Scholarly Internet Materials, internet House 2007/2008
Price W. (2001), Internet and Business, McGraw Hill/Dushkin, first edition, USA
Comer, D.E., (2007), Internet, [DVD], Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation
Snyder T. L., (2007), computer, [DVD], Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation
ACCESSING AND SOURCING MATERIALS ON THE INTERNET
By
Umar Danjuma
Internet is computer-based global information system which composed of many interconnected computer networks that allows massive volume of information to travel between it constantly. This makes the internet a large repository of information. And today the amount of information on the Web continues to grow rapidly, as does the number of users around the world. This is why many students are puzzled with ‘how do I access the internet?’ and or ‘how do I source information on the internet’
How Do I Access Internet?
§ Click on start button
§ Point to programs
§ Click on internet explorer
§ A home page will automatically be launched
Or
§ Double click the icon labeled internet explorer from the desktop environment, and the home page will automatically be launched.
Alternatively, from the desktop environment
§ Right click on the icon labeled internet explorer
§ A drop down list will appear
§ From the list select open home page and it will be launched.
How Do I Source Material From The Internet?
Once the home page is launched, you may observe that it contain many bars: the standard bar, formatting bar, tool bar, address bar etc. So focus on the address with the search engine you want search with like the Google, yahoo! MSN Search, Alta Vista, Lycos, Hot Bot, info seek etc. Thus you can follow the following steps:
§ Click on the address bar
§ On the address bar, write WWW.Google.com
§ A Google website will appear
§ On the Google string, write either the title of the material, the name of author, or the subject matter you are looking for.
§ The Google will respond to your request by displaying a list of documents that match your search query.
This is a simple way to search materials on the net using the World Wide Web search engines. Finally once you find a relevant material, the information is expected to be reliable (see Internet House {a} 2008).
References
Microsoft (2004), The professor Teachers Internet Explorer, [DVD] individual software, Microsoft Corporation.
Comer, D.E., (2007), Internet, [DVD], Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation
E-MAIL FOR TEACHING LEARNING AND RESEARCH
By
Adamu Isma’il
Historical Background
E-mail predates the inception of the internet and was in fact a crucial tool in creating the internet. E-mail started in 1965 as way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate. It was quickly extended to become network e-mail, allowing users to pass messages between different computers by at least 1966. But it was fully developed in 1972 as a resource to broaden super light way.
What Is E-Mail?
Electornic Mail is often abbreviate to e-mail. it is a store and forward method of writing, sending, receiving and saving messages over electronic communication system. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses in what is referred to as mailing list. It also allows for the sharing of information form one computer system to another system.
What Do I Need To Send And Receive E-Mail?
Basically you need three (3) things to and received e-mail.
1. Internet connection
2. E-mail account
3. E-mail software package
E-Mail Account
To sent and received messages, you must have an e-mail account or e-mail address. An electronic mail address is an allocation space on the internet, it is personalized for one’s use and enables one to receive and send mails to other locations on the internet. You can open a free e-mail address in the following websites: www.yahoo.com, www.hotmail.com, www.hi5.com etc.
Signing Up An E-Mail Address In Yahoo
Before you sign with yahoo, make sure you write down your ID, that is the e-mail address you wish to use, e.g. al-amin@yahoo.com;
Al-amin is the user name and yahoo.com is the server name. Then your password which you will use to open your e-mail box, the password should be personal to you alone.
Step To Follow When Signing-Up An E-Mail
i. Go to yahoo default home page\
ii. Click on e-mail button
iii. Click on sign-up
iv. Type in the required information
v. Type the word displayed in the given space
vi. Click on submit
vii. A congratulation message will be displayed as this (volume to yahoo e-mail, with ID telling you that you have successfully signed up e-mail account with yahoo).
Important Of E-Mail To Learning And Research
1. E-mail helps in sharing and exchanging of ideas among colleagues or student.
2. E-mail allows us to know about the publication of new information by registering to some relevant organization e.g. World Socialist Website (WSWS) and third world travelers.
3. E-mail helps in storage of books, journals and article that are been source from the internet.
4. Lastly, it allow for the sharing of materials within the group of student e.g. like within our friends we used to share relevant materials sourced from the internet.
Disadvantages Of E-Mail
1. Spread of technological terrorism i.e. virus and e-mail scam
2. Issue of privacy, before message reach its destination, the message must reach to the internet service provider.
3. Fraudsters used e-mail for internet fraud.
References
Alverno (2003) e-mail an Overview
http://depts.alverno.edu/eil/mod2/emailwork.html
Wikipedia.(2008) e-mail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/e-mail.
Yusuf M.M (2006) A lectures not on e-mail week for teaching learning and research
Untitled material (ND) e-mail as one of the research of the internet.
E-JOURNALS FOR LEARNING AND RESEARCH
By
Habib Sani
Introduction
E-journals technically mean electronic journals. It is an electronic versions of Academic journals. In fact it is an alternative and parallel method for the delivery of paper journals in the sense that it is published and access on line.
E-journal is an electronic archive, as a digital repository, it provides for long term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world.
A full text journal articles are available via a flat form that provide both browsing and searching and also library users can access e-journals on library website within the campus networks or via remote networks.
Over the last decades, e-journals have become increasingly popular and have begun to oust paper journals as the normal mechanism for delivering papers on academic research to the community. This was as a result of rapid growth and development in computer electronics as well as information technology which accompanied 21st century.
E-journals are supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers and foundations. Its collections have an enormous scope, consisting of research materials on must subject and it has always contained a variety of materials. they are distributed and access via the internet usually to those individuals or organization that voluntarily registered to received them. Example of e-journals are Ebsco-host, Hinari, Jstor e.t.c
Accessing E-journals
In order to have access to e-journals, 3 basic requirements are needed
ü Computer
ü Access to internet
ü An account with e-journals organization or site.
This may be accomplished by
ü Entering an internet address and retrieving a page directly.
ü Browsing through pages and selecting links to move from one page to another
ü Searching through subjecting directories linked to organized collection of web pages
ü Entering a search statement at a search engine to retrieve pages on topic of your choice
Searching E-journal
There are three modes of searching for an e-journal:
1. Search by Title: you may select from the A-Z list to retrieve journal by title; or input journal title or part of the title to the search box and click “Go”. You may check the radio buttom to set
2. Search by Subject: choose subject e.g. “African studies”, then select again in the sub-category such as “Colonialism in Nigeria” and press “Go” then a whole list of e-journals under this subject sub-category will be retrieved. You can then click the Link to view your selected e-journal online.
3. Advanced search: from the advanced search mode, you can search e-journal titles by criteria (contain words / begins with/ exact match), by collection and by subject.
Importance of E-journals for learning and Research
1. E- journals provides people with access to the information they need for learning and research.
2. It helps student to supplement and enhance their classroom experiences to learn skills in locating sources of information and to develop good reading and study habit.
3. It provides student with the ability to access vast new sources of information via the internet.
Tips on How to Access Jstor E-journal
ü Turn on your system
ü Open your default browser, on the Address Bar, type the J-stor website address (i.e www.jstor.org),and wait for seconds for webpage to display.
ü On the Jstor webpage, click the link “Log In” which is at the top-right corner of the page, this will automatically display login option.
ü From the Login options look for “Accessing jstor using Username and Password” and click enter.
ü Fill the two boxes by typing your Username (Bayero) password (nepomovo) and click login below or press Enter button on key board. This will lead you to “Basic Search Box”
ü In the Search Box or Search Bar type your searching words or concept and click “search” or Press Enter button.
ü If the Search Results displays, Scroll and read in order choose or pick the best articles that best suits your search. You need to exercise patient and care in picking search terms.
ü Click on the article that go well with your search terms.
ü A first page of the picked article will display.
ü You should note that, for the full article to display, you need to look for PDF version which is at the top right corner of the page.
ü Click the Link PDF to Open the Full text of the article.
ü Now the E-journal is ready to use.
Tips on How to Access EBSCO HOST E-journal
To operate this website: EBSCO HOST, the following procedures are followed:
o Double click the internet explorer icon from the desktop
o In the address bar write the address of the website i.e. http://searchebscohost.com
o However you can access the EBSCO HOST e-journal library thorough this address: http://epnet.com. Which is EBSCO HOST access provider.
o A dialog box will appear requesting the user I.D and the password
o Fill the box appropriately with the User I.D, and the password.
o click on enter/login
EBSCO HOST home page appears with different categories of search, ranges from Academic search premier to Business search premier.
o Then click on Academic search premier, then click on publications, and type the journal of your choice e.g journal politics, journal of international law, journal of humanities etc and click search.
o A window will pop up displaying different publication of the journals that marched your query.
o Click on the highlighted journal to view the abstract containing name of the journal, title, publication, bibliographic record, ISSBN, year, volume issued etc.
For you to view the PDF-full text, select the year e.g 2006/2007 and if PDF refuse to open keep selecting ht year until it open. Once you open the PDF-full text you can read, download or print the article from the journal. This is how you access and operate EBSCO HOST e-journal library.
Note:
Some ISPs do not provide unlimited accounts, so people may tend to be stressed when surfing because they know the clock is ticking. Often, the best websites are so large that sitting and reading all of the materials is simply not possible in a single session. It is possible to save something for viewing at a later point in time to lessen the impact of non-online surfing.
References
Umar, H.A. Lecture note on internet and web design CIT, BUK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/e-mail.
http://Jstor.com.com
www.e-journalsiteguide.ametasource.org.
HOW TO SEARCH FOR RECOURSES USING HINARI
By
Zainul Abideen Jibril
The Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries.
HINARI was launched in January 2002, with some 1500 journals from 6 major publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley, following the principles in a Statement of Intent signed in July 2001. Since that time, the numbers of participating publishers and of journals and other full-text resources has grown continuously. Today more than 100 publishers are offering more than 5,500 journals in HINARI and others will soon be joining the program.
On your web browser’s address bar, type http://hinari-gw.who.int/ and hit Enter key
You are expected to see the page shown below
Enter the following:
User name: nie002
Password: 49318
Click on the logon tab.
A page will show in which you are to select from the categories of journal by subject displayed on the page.
After selecting, for example “social sciences (general)”, all journals related to social sciences will be displayed. Such as:
In this case, “annual review of political science” is selected.
The picture below show us how the annual political science review should be. Our next task is to enter what we are looking for in the search box. In this case, ‘political economy’ is entered. Click the search button to display the result. See diagram below
After the result is displayed, select the relevant among them and click on the title written in RED Colour. In this case, “THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE” is selected. After that, an abstract of the selected material is shown as in the diagram below
Click on the link ‘PDF’ to get the pdf version of the material or ‘full text’ to get HTML version.
Now it is left for you to print or save the material
TECHNIQUES OF BROWSING: COMMON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
BY
Zainul Abideen Jibril
A browser is a program on your computer that enables you to search ("surf") and retrieve information on the WorldWideWeb (WWW), which is part of the Internet. The Web is simply a large number of computers linked together in a global network, that can be accessed using an address (URL, Uniform Resource Locator, e.g. http://www.buk.edu.ng/ for Bayero University, Kano), in the same way that you can phone anyone in the world given their telephone number.
URLs are often long and therefore easy to type incorrectly. They all begin with http://, and many (but not all) begin with http://www. In many cases the first part (http://, or even http://www.) can be omitted, and you will still be able to access the page. Try this with http://www.cnn.com.
URLs are constructed in a standard fashion. This may be of use to you. Take, for example, the address of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost
The page you have accessed is called “Glasnost”, and it resides in a folder on the server called "internet", which is in the folder called "wiki". If the URL that you type does not work, and you have typed it correctly (no mistakes are allowed!), the reason may be that the host has renamed the web page, or moved it to another folder on the server. Try removing the text of the URL stepwise from the right-hand end in the example above, until you reach the main page, which in this case is: http://en.wikipedia.org. It is possible, in many cases, to find your way back down through the hierarchy to the page you were interested in.
You don't need to know how the telephone network functions to be able to make a phone call. However, you ought to know how to use your telephone apparatus and the finesses (software) it contains. Your computer is the equivalent of the telephone, and a browser is the equivalent of the software that modern telephones contain. (A browser can also be used to handle electronic mail, create, and edit information on the Internet, as I have done here, and to contact discussion groups. This presentation is limited to the use of browsers to surf the WorldWideWeb).
Searching The Web
If you don't know the telephone number of the person you wish to ring to, you need a telephone directory. The Web provides two methods of searching for pages providing information:
Ø Sites presenting web pages sorted by category and subcategories, e.g. Yahoo (several sites, including http://www.yahoo.com and http://www.yahoo.co.uk)
Ø sites offering search engines that return lists of web pages containing text that matches a search word or string, e.g. Google (http://www.google.com), AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com), Accoona (www.accoona.com) and FAST Search (http://www.alltheweb.com).
Many web sites offer both, or a combination of, these alternatives.
Before you conduct a search, it is important to consider, among others, the following points:
1. Is your choice of search term is adequate, too restrictive, or too general?
2. Is the search you have planned to undertake most suited for a search engine that categorizes web sites, so that you can browse through appropriate subcategories when the first results are returned?
3. Are you more interested in using a search engine that merely returns all the web pages it has found containing the search term?
4. Have you read the Search Help pages that most search pages offer? These will tell you how the search engine conducts the search, and therefore how you ought to plan your search.
5. Bear in mind the fact that engines differ in their coverage of the Internet, their speed and whether they are largely compiled manually by people or automatically by 'robots' that scan the Internet.
A search strategy must include knowledge of how the search engine you have planned to use handles Boolean Logic and other similar search terms, e.g.
Ø • Political AND economy will find all pages covering Political Economy, but not pages that only mention political Philosophy
Ø • Political NOT Economy will return pages on all fields other than Economy.
Ø • "Political Economy" will find pages that contain the phrase "Political Economy", i.e. where the words are adjacent in the text, but will not return a page containing the text "Political Theory, including Economy", for which Political NEAR Economy would be necessary
Ø •political* will return occurences of any thing political (thereby increasing your chances of finding pages you are interested in), but will also return pages featuring the word politics', which is probably not what you were looking for
It is important to note that not all search engines support all these options, some support many more, and all of them have a "default" function (e.g. AND or OR) which you must check before you start.
To illustrate the enormous implications that this may have for your search results, try out the following search strings in the AltaVista engine and note the number of web pages returned for each alternative:
ü Karl Marx
ü "Karl Marx"
ü Karl and Marx
ü KARL and MARX
ü Karl* Marx
ü Karl*Marx
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATED TO WEB BROWSING
1. "The Page cannot be displayed" error
You may experience problems when you attempt to open a webpage by using your Internet browser where you receive the following message:
- The page cannot be displayed
- The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The website might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
- Error: Cannot find server or DNS Error
Solution
This problem can come about due to a number of reasons, some of which are addressed in the following steps:
Check that you are connected to the internet and test the connection on a few different websites such as http://www.google.co.uk and http://www.bbc.co.uk. If you can access another website address, the problems lie with the page you were trying to visit and you should contact the site owner directly to pursue this matter.
Delete your temporary Internet files and cookies. To do this, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and then click Control Panel
- Double-click Internet Options.
- Click the Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button.
- Then click the Delete Cookies button and confirm this decision by clicking Yes at the next prompt.
- Next click the Delete Files button and confirm this decision by clicking Yes at the next prompt.
- Click OK to apply these settings.
- Now shutdown and restart your computer and test your connection to see if this has resolved the problem
2. Web browser crashes, fatal errors
Solution
Unknown, possible improper configuration of browser settings or software conflict
- If using Microsoft Internet Explorer, use an alternative web browser such as Mozilla, Opera
3. slow connection, connection times out.
Solutions:
- Stop downloading/uploading while surfing and see if there is an
improvement
- If speed connection is slow, contact your provider
4. Cannot enlarge pictures, open messages and any type of pop-up window
Solution:
Software, toolbar or a Windows Service Pack feature prevents pop-up windows from opening
- If using SP2 (Windows XP Service Pack 2), change parameters
- Check if an anti pop-up software or toolbar does not prevent pop-ups from opening.
Disable them one by one and see if there is any change, modify settings accordingly
- Check your firewall settings
5. “Your browser does not accept cookies”
Solution
Security settings are set too high and the cookies are considered as potentially unsafe by your web browser/antivirus software/firewall
- Set the cookie security settings to medium or low
- Disable your firewall/antivirus software and see if any change occurs. Modify settings accordingly
- Try another web browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera etc.
6. Cannot attach/upload images
Cause: wrong file format, image too big, slow connection
Solutions:
- Only supported files can be uploaded, check and make sure the format of your picture is supported.
- Use image editing software to change file format and reduce size
7. Impossible to log in, wrong password, access denied etc.
Solution
This can be Cookie problem (see « Your browser does not accept cookies ») or wrong password
- Make sure you are not using capital letters
- If your username and password are already stored on your computer and you do not need to type them to log in, delete all your cookies from the Internet options of your web browser.
REFERENCE
Umar, H.A. Lecture note on internet and web design CIT, BUK
http://oslovet.veths.com/teaching/internet/basics.html
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/help/broadband/nowebpage.html
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