Digital Learning and Teaching

Literature search

Literature search is fundamental to every academic work – be it a presentation, a term paper or a thesis. In this online course, participants will familiarize themselves with the most important strategies and tips for literature search.

The first chapter introduces the topic of academic work and literature search and offers a technique to assess the quality of literature sources. The second chapter highlights two search strategies that differ according to the starting point of a search (specific bibliographic information or a topic). The third chapter focuses on different search spaces for a specific search (Internet, library catalogue, subject database). It is followed by the chapter four, which introduces a variety of search strategies and valuable tips for an efficient search, e.g. truncation, snowball method, or the use of a thesaurus. The final chapter answers the question „what do I do with my search results?“ It offers various tips for ensuing steps as to how to proceed with the information retrieved, e.g. the use of reference management programmes, data back-up, time management etc.

The course „Searching like a pro“ is divided into five chapters of approximately 20-30-minute length each. The content of the course is delivered in the form of videos and short texts accompanied by quizzes that help to revise the material in a fun way. Course materials are also available for download. Participants are free to organise the sequence, pace and intensity of the learning process themselves. Thus, they can complete all the chapters one after the other or focus on their chosen content instead. Participants can also take the final test at the end of the course and receive a confirmation of participation.

This course is incorporated in the ILIAS Learning module on Stud.IP and can be found at „Angebote der Universität zum Selbststudium“. The course is also available for non-members of the university at the OpenILIAS-platform „Angebote der Universität zum Selbststudium“ and may be used under the terms of the licence CC-BY-SA, 4.0.