![]() ![]() The internet taunts most newcomers with incredible information but finding what you need comes slowly. There are ways to successfully search the internet but without some understanding of information structures, norms and search tools, finding the information you seek will always be particularly difficult. This is a short tutorial previously developed for government staff. The tutorial is pitched at novices but attempts to build a framework for staff to understand what they experience when they go online. Certain information has aged a little but this approach is rewarding for those partially familiar with the internet.
David Novak - The Spire Project
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The Internet - Alternative Descriptions:
1) The internet is the 5 million computers permanently in communication across a network of dedicated phone lines, fiber optic cables and satellite links spanning the globe. Millions of additional computers connect to this network for brief periods of time. 2) The internet is the virtual landscape, often called Cyberspace, of information and detail. A vast variety of information resources, services and what I will coin ‘information structures’. 3) The internet is the community of 150 million individuals (and an additional two million each month) who access the internet. Each individual tries to find, provide or accomplish something with these resources and in the process establish norms and habits others can follow. Just as a society is more than the cities and roads that connect them, there is more to the interne than the computer networks. As internet travelers, we must learn more about the way information is organized if we are to successfully interact and gain value from our time online. We must focus concretely on this last point: We must gain value from our time. Under many circumstances, you will conclude the internet has only a select few resources of value to you now. In time, the internet will have much more but temper your enthusiasm with a value for your own time.
The Physical Structure of the Network
At this end, there is the computer, the modem, the telephone line and the software. We turn on the power to the computer and modem, instruct the modem to dial in to a computer nearby and ‘establish a connection’ to the internet. The Information flows from your computer out through the telephone line, into the computer of your internet access provider, out through their connection to a network of communicating computers (the internet) and into the computer you designate. That computer acts upon your message, often sending information in the reverse path. This is incredibly inexpensive to use, reasonably fast and reliable enough to be worth the effort ... usually. ![]()
Quotation:
The Address - a tool for specifying location:
connection tool://computer name/directory tree
examples:
http://www.doc.gov/
Each address has a number of common elements: The portion of the address identifying the computer also tells us important information about the country and often the organization maintaining the information.
Take my old address of david @ cn .net .au
· The au means Australia - plaza.aarnet.edu.au is also Australian. uk, ca, de and jp are also common. If there is no designator, it is US.
Passingly familiar with the technology:
Netscape is called a web browser but can interact with a wide collection of resources with names like gopher, ftp, telnet and occasionally even news and wais. When you start Netscape, the web browser opens up a standard page. By changing the address to the destination you wish to visit, the web browser will establish a link to a specific resource, be it a list of files, a visually appealing page with text and graphics or something else. Most of the current developments on the internet are prepared with web browsers in mind.
There are a small collection of tasks you need to be familiar with: Pine (the system on your computers) is a simple, functional email program. This will enable you to send and receive mail, to attach documents to your messages and to save files for later use on other computers. While the Web is the fastest growing segment of the internet, everyone of the 50 to 70 million internet users have access to mail. Mail is also the most user-friendly system of delivering information, far more suited for use in inaccessible areas.
There are a small collection of tasks you need to be familiar with:
The internet as virtual landscape of information:
This landscape has a variety of different values and different topics are discussed in different ways in different location. Your understanding of how the information is arranged will ultimately determine the success you have in locating the information you want. One useful distinction to make is the apparent quality of information and the quality to noise ratio in these information structures. Newsgroups, for instance, typically have the lowest value to noise ratio as anyone can post to these groups. Moderated newsgroups can provide more quality than books and periodicals with very little noise. There are some very serious exceptions; the Clarinet newsgroups provide world class news and many mailing lists have too little discussion to be worthwhile. Let us visualize the information in the internet as a landscape. There are low areas of marginal quality like the newsgroups and chat. There are high plateaus of quality discussion like certain government web archives and established mailing lists.
![]() In some corners of this landscape, you must step very carefully lest the locals take offense, where as other regions permit almost anything.
Who puts the Information on the Net?:
- Well meaning individuals giving back to their community.
- New and old cyber-organizations
- Corporations
- Government pages
- Independently supported projects
- Network Related Resources
Finding the Address:
Finding addresses, unfortunately, is one of the most time-consuming tasks. This is not because addresses are difficult to find but rather because it is so difficult to find that specific address you need. There are several efforts in the near future attempting to catalogue all of the resources on the internet but do not expect this task to become easier.
1) What does Lycos and Webcrawler suggest?
The internet as community:
One sense of community is conveyed in various chat groups (behaving like international CB Radios). A more considered sense of community centers around mailing lists - one of the few locations in the Cyberscape maintaining a high value/noise ratio. In mailing lists, as within the greater internet, there are several norms and mores we should respect and work with. 1) Bandwidth is precious and should not be squandered. Think before you post 200Kb to a group of people who have no interest. 2) Wasting other people's time with irrelevant messages is bad manners. Try to post to the most suitable forum. 3) Advertising must not be blatant. Firstly this is likely to illicit mail bombing and secondly, overt advertising can waste time. - a lot of people time. Advertising is acceptable if you entice the individual to come to you. Never give advertising information not requested. 4) Share information freely. If you pull value from the internet, give back to the internet community by helping other people, providing directions or adding to the discussion. 5) Participation is highly desired. Forums in particular need discussion to develop and can fail without it. Never be afraid to jump in and add to a discussion. 6) There is no modem tax, no easy way to make a million and no good reason to post to every newsgroup and mailing list with your question or sales pitch. It is also considered bad form to believe Hollywood versions of the internet. The most involved sense of community, of course, is the friends you may develop and directly post to.
Pulling value from the internet:
· The internet is far more confusing than many first suspect · If you approach the internet to try to learn something about electronic publishing, you will find a mountain. Even electronic publishing law looks more like a hill. Once you have refined your topic, ask two questions:
Question #1: Is the internet the appropriate place to look?
A efficient approach to this is to ask "Who would put this information on the internet?" Would it be cyberpreneurs, government agencies, independently sponsored projects, well meaning citizens or corporations?
· Are developing resources worth viewing yet?
Question #2: What is the quality of the information I retrieve?
Usually the information you will find on the internet speaks for itself. It will come from well-meaning individuals or organizations who know more about the topic than you. There are, however, some further steps to consider. 1) Is the address the official address of a government agency? If the information is placed on a .gov web site, it comes from the government. 2) What internet structure (and what level of public access) are you using? Usenet and IRC are notorious for poor quality (qualify this statement) while closed moderated mailing lists are often far better than books and periodicals. 3) Is there money involved? Corporate information is very important to companies. Anyone who pays $1400 for a private address has invested something into providing you information. 4) Who wrote it? When? Much internet information include dates and author information. 5) Does is sound sensible? Use your experience to judge if the information is coming from a professor of legal studies or just some bystander expressing an opinion. Is the web page the result of a well meaning individual within her area of expertise or created by someone on battery acid? Pitfalls and Developments:
1) Email can be faked.
Publishing on the internet:
The opening and introductory message appearing on the agency web page. Family and Children's Services has two web sites: a private internal web site and a public external web site. Policy will shortly be cemented to allow for far simpler development of your external web site. Several large documents have already been converted and are electronically available now.
· Web page publication costs a fraction of ordinary publication,
In preparation for that day, please keep in mind publication costs can be dramatically reduced if you:
A little advice on using the internet quickly
· Look for a good FAQ for a knotty problem, or another similar compiled description. · Begin to develop an awareness of the information structures and information providers on the internet. | |||
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