Off The Shelf

Try Proquest Education Journals. There is some overlap  between journals in  ERIC  (Education Resources Information Center) and Proquest Education Journals, but for the most part the journals in this database are unique. That means you may find other articles on your topic.

If you are doing a comprehensive literature review on a topic in either K-12 or Higher Education it is essential you search both ERIC and Proquest Education Journals. Having trouble finding peer-reviewed journal articles on your topic? Don’t struggle - use the resources that are included in your tuition payment - Ask-a-Librarian!  

Robin

Often times I get calls from learners who want an overview of a topic or perhaps a theory. They are inclined to turn to journal articles.  However journal articles tend to focus on very specific questions and often do not have the broad overview you may be looking for.  So where do you turn?

The Library has a database called Gale Virtual Reference that has many subject specific encyclopedias in areas such as education, psychology, business, criminology and many other areas. The articles in these encyclopedias are often lengthy and written by experts in the field. For example if you do a search under the words “research methods” (putting the words in quotation marks to search as a phrase) one of the many articles that comes up is from the Encyclopedia of  Education.  It is 18 pages long and gives a good overview of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research.

So if you are having trouble understanding a concept and need an overview or definition this is a great place to start. Reading the article will also give ideas for other words that describe the concept and that you may want to use in searching for further information.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

If you have other questions about this resource Ask-a-Librarian.

Robin

If you have a specific title in mind, you can always check Journal and Book Locator and search for that title.  But did you know that you can also run a search to find all the journals in the library that have certain keywords in their titles?  For instance, if you want to see if we have journals about sports psychology, you can run the following search:

Journal and Book Locator search

(sport* will search for any word that starts with the word sport: sport, sports, sporting, etc.)

 You will get the following four results.  Note that two of them are not located in databases that you can find on the Articles, Books and More page:

Journal and Book Locator Results

This brings me to another method you can use to find articles from our stand alone journals:  Search databases with the Full Text box unchecked.  Most databases actually index more journals than they include full text.  By searching with the full text feature off, you will get additional results.  In fact, if you’re a doctoral learner working on your dissertation, we recommend that you always search the databases with the full text limiter turned off to make sure that you are conducting a thorough search of the literature.

When you run a search without limiting to full text, you will then naturally get some results that will not have a full text link.  Instead, some of the results will say Check Article Linker or Linked Full Text (Ebsco databases) or Link to full text (ProQuest).  Simply click on the link to see if the article is available in either another database or from one of our stand alone journals.

To continue with our sports psychology theme, you would pick an appropriate database for your topic, in this case PsycINFO, and then run a search such as the one below, making sure to uncheck the full text limiter:

PsyINFO database search

Now, even though PsycINFO doesn’t include the full text for the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, we can pull up results for it (and other stand alone journals) because PsycINFO does index it.  Simply click on the link to get to the full text:

PsycINFO search results

As always, if you have questions about article searching, Ask a Librarian! 

 -Kim 

I don’t know about you but databases and Web sites  that store statistics always intimidate me. One of the best sources of education statistics  is the National Center for Education Statistics  (NCES) which is frequently updated by the US Dept of Education and Institute of Education Sciences. I recently found a tool on this site, that makes navigation of the wealth of  information available more manageable.  Its called Data Search Tools, you can access this information by clicking Help – Search Guides from the first page of the Web site or click here

Here are a couple of examples of easy searches for the following information:

Public School and School District Search – Obtain the correct name, address, phone number, NCES ID number, and other student and teacher characteristics of a public school or public school district anywhere in the nation.

Data State Education Profiles- Search for statewide information in elementary/secondary education, postsecondary education and selected demographics for all states in the U.S.

Check out the other options.  I know finding this help reduced some of my “anxiety”  related to finding information on this site.

Need further assistance finding statistical information in Education or any other discipline? Check out the Library Research Guides for Specific Schools,  each has a section of statistical resources.

Or Ask-a-Librarian

Robin

For those of you who will soon be wrapping up at the Jacksonville colloquium (or have attended any other colloquia), here are some of the guides and tutorials the librarians talked about at the library sessions.

Nearly every guide mentioned at the library’s colloquia sessions are included in a special section of our Guides & Tutorials page. To get to that section, just follow these steps.

1) From the Library Homepage click Guides & Tutorials.

2) There are several bulleted links at the top of the page that link to different sections. Click Resources for Doctoral Learners to jump to the section that includes the guides you heard about at Colloquia.

3) From here you can select a guide that piqued your interest at the colloquium!

Got questions? Ask a Librarian!

-Sommer

The Chronicle of Higher Education provides the latest news in Higher Education. Capella learners, faculty and staff all have access to this resource.  Here are some instructions to setting up an email alert for the highlights of the daily issue and how to access the full text of articles that interest you.

To set up an email alert (this alerts you to the contents of the most current issue): 

Click the Journal and Book Locator link on the Library Web site through iGuide and type the Chronicle of Higher Education in the search box. Several access options come up, make sure you click on the Publishers Site link for the most current issue. 

To sign up for the daily e-mail of highlights from the Chronicle, scroll down on the page and click the link for Chronicle e-mail alerts (see below).  After you sign up you will get the daily email.

Once you have the email and you want to see the full text of an article (or anytime you have a citation for the Chronicle and want to see the article), go again to the Journal and Book Locator on the Library’s Web site, search for the Chronicle and click the Publisher’s Site link. The picture below highlights the links to the current and back issues.

 If you have any questions Ask-a-Librarian!

Robin

As with every new quarter, the library’s been getting a lot of questions about accessing textbooks and course readings. Exactly one year ago today we posted to the blog a FAQ about these common questions.

The answers are still the same, so if you have a question about what to do about your required readings, take a quick look at our post:

Course Readings & Textbooks

- Erin

The Capella Library has just added the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. It contains scholarly articles about the use of mixed methodology in research, and includes reviews of books on methodology. If you are using mixed methods for your dissertation, this is a great resource for you.

To access this journal you’ll want to use the link above or Journal Locator and search by title. For help using Journal Locator, see our library tutorial.

For more information about research methodology, check out our Ebook list on Research Methodologies.

-Erin

We have added new guides to the Library’s Guides & Tutorials page

What are Peer-reviewed Articles & How do I Find Them? (Flash with audio)

a link to…Reading Strategies
This resource is designed to help you build skills and strategies to make your reading as efficient as possible.

Course-specific Guides
Course-specific research guides are tailored to course content and include techniques such as developing search strategies, finding materials on specific topics, evaluating results and more.

Undergraduate

• PS3600: Principles of Public Safety Investigation (u01d1)
• PS3900: History of Violence in the U.S. Society (u09a1)
• MAT2050: Statistical Literacy (u05d2)
• BUS3040: Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

Graduate

• Psychology First Courses
  • First Library Search
  • Scholar Practitioner Assignment
• HS5002: Survey in Research in Human Development and Behavior (u07d2)
• PSF8631: Case Studies in Critical Incident Management
• PSY7220: Child Psychology (case study)

Is there another guide you would like to see? Let us know.

-KateP

A: We get many phone calls and emails from learners who are having trouble looking for articles but after a few questions we realize the trouble often lies with the topic. When your topic is too broad or too narrow it can make finding articles difficult.

For a few tips on Defining and Narrowing a Topic click through our tutorial or PDF with an example topic grid.

Topic Grid you can fill in is on the PDF:
-KateP