Overview:

This course is designed to expand attendees’ database research skills. It covers thesaurus searching which is another technique to search databases. Combining both keywords and thesaurus techniques is recommended to ensure a comprehensive search strategy.

Target audience: 

All Barts Health NHS Trust staff who have attended the Database searching (Intermediate) course or meet its learning objectives, and want to expand their research skills, especially those embarking on a systematic review which requires a comprehensive search strategy.

Requirements:

Participants are required:

• to have either attended the Finding the Evidence (Intermediate) course or be confident in searching databases using the keyword technique, including truncation symbol, Boolean Operators, exact phrase searching, nesting, and limits setting.
• to have an OpenAthens account.
• to be a member of the library. Please register with the library here.

Learning objectives:

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• apply proximity operators and nesting
• use the thesaurus when searching databases, including understanding majoring terms, the exploding feature, and including subheadings
• combine both keyword and thesaurus searching to ensure comprehensive and precise retrieval of information
• search multiple databases effectively, enabling thorough literature reviews and research
• create Alerts to stay updated on new research developments and literature relevant to specific topics