Reflections: EBSCOHost and Books24x7

Generally, EBSCOHost is an good example of invisible database, whereby users can search for journal articles and documents, which is normally cannot be retrieved by  using standard search engine. On the homepage of EBSCOHost, there are 4 categories with different functions. In my cases, I decided to use "Find Journal Articles" tab to search for related articles on the research topic. 

Homepage of EBSCOHost

In the search query, I typed in the search term using Boolean Operators. By the way, EBSCOHost provide full Boolean Operators support for search query. It's much more easier to type in the search term.

Search query on EBSCOHost, with full Boolean Operators support.

From the search results, I found that the keywords match are very little and not really relevance to my research topic. For example, article " Some simple economics of GM food", talks about the profits and economics side of GM food and how they affect the global economic.

Search results page, indicating the number of results matched.

Below is the chosen article. I think this article is relevant because it states that how to improve confidence of consumer through GM food labeling, allow consumers to have a piece of mind while consuming GM products. The article also aims to promote GM foods and further elaborate on the impact of GM food labeling impositions on the overall viability if GM foods.

Chosen article that is relevant to my research topic

On the other side, in Books24x7, which is a library targeted at IT stuff and technology related books, the search results was very disappointing. None of the results was found when I typed in the search term in search query. 

Homepage of Books24x7

No results found related to the search query......disappointing!!

Therefore, I conclude that not all internet facilities are useful and relevant when come to research, users have to define the topic and filter out the area that the topic belongs to. In order to have a more comprehensive research, users have to try out with different search facilities and analyse it before compiling them together. 

Reflections: Evaluation of STOMP

I think STOMP is a very good examples of citizen journalism, whereby readers can get info and watch local news, gossips and daily activities of people around us. The website have very comprehensive contents and different source of information are available for readers to read and enjoy.From the group activity, I found that the STOMP website has a lot of great feature which is worth to mention.

Homepage of STOMP

On the homepage of STOMP, there are different tabs on the top bar, with specified categories. For example, S'PORE SEEN showing recent top cases and news happened in Singapore; while DIY VIDEO contains video clips that was personally shot and then uploaded to STOMP.

Different tabs on homepage of STOMP

The most popular and 'must see' news was featured on the STOMP's Top 8. This is where the first article catch our attention during the group assignment.

STOMP's Top 8

Other main features of STOMP was:

Chinese support and What's the
BUZZ? : Hot topics being discussed
 in TalkBack was listed on homepage

The recent murdered case was featured
on STOMP and provide up-to-date news

Next, I will move on to the article that was chosen by our group. Our chosen article was the recent hot topic "Downtown East Murder: Victim's Friends Get Online Challenge To  A Fight". Attached below was the screenshots of the article featured on STOMP.

Article chosen for the group assignment.

A Mood Meter bar was included to allow
readers give ratings to the corresponding article.

Videos and pictures were included as well for
readers to have alternative option besides
read through the whole article.

 From the results shown, this article receive more than 88000 views,
which means that a lot of people had read this article.  Besides that ,
 readers can also leave down comments in response to the article.

Reflections: Discussion Forum - sgForums

For the discussion forum activity, I decided to join sgForums to post threads on the topic regarding GM foods.

Generally, sgForums is a poular forum based in Singapore. Users can comments, uploads or post topics about their daily life activities and any “unusual” thing that happens around them, that is potentially to  be a hot topic. Hosts forums such as Chit Chat, Bar, Aunt Agony, food, babes, politics and a marketplace. Users can havemore options and posts their comments or start a new topic on the correct category. sgForums was ranked 151 in Singapore worldwide network traffic, according to Alexa.com. The fraction of visits to Sgforums.com referred by search engines is approximately 34%, and it is based in the UK.

Although it wasn’t the first time I visits the forum ( it was way back to secondary school  I think!), but I still roughly remember the functions and tabs on the homepage of sgForums. On the homepage, different categories of forums are available for user to visits. Besides that, recent posts and top forums will also be available on the homepage of sgForums. A shoutbox is located on the top right hand corner for user to voice their feelings and thoughts over sgForums.In order to gain different perception and views, I have started 2 different threads name with similar meanings on 2 different categories, Foods and Speakers Corner. 

Homepage of sgForums

First I posted under Foods category because it was the primary category where it belongs to, but the views and replies are not very satisfying. Over 80 viewers has viewed the thread, but in the end only 4 replies altogether (2 reply were from the same person and the other 2 was from me).

Thread: "Believe It or Not! GM Food cause cancer" under Food category

On the other hand, the second threads, which I posted under Speakers Corner category, was quite popular and has even featured on the homepage of sgForums.

Thread: "Sure anot!! Consume GM Food = Higher chances of cancer?"
                under Speakers Corner category

Below are some replies extracted from the thread:

No lah, GM food = General Manager's food ie rich people's food

Poor people in 3rd world countries eat organic food.

Actually, rich people in Singapore are afraid of dying now, so they now like to eat the poor people's food ie organic food only.

When they buy vegetables, chicken and drinks, they asked "Is it organic ?"

What an irony. – by Devil7030

Genetic modified food.

Yes, I came across such reports.

Mainly due to the uncertainty on how newly modified genes express themselves.

As much as molecular science has come so far, there is still little knowledge on how genes interact and communicate to switch one another on and off.  – by 4sg

this question has always been a debate...I've got no comments.

Most of the food that we consume have chemicals added during their growing process..

If you guys really wanna be safe, stick to organic food which is rather expensive.

Otherwise, be a vegetarian. – by dangerboi

Well, there are reasons why the food industry has resisted GM-labeling in most countries. In Singapore, it isn't practiced. Obviously, there are huge money interests at stake here and CASE is not doing their job.

While research on GM-food has not been widely publicised, they have been linked to birth defects, here and here, long-term sterility, are toxic to mammals. In fact, they have been found to have no effect on yields as most proponents like to assert. Most GM-foods have been engineered either to be resistant to certain herbicides/ pesticides, like Monsanto's Roundup-ready products, or engineered to last only 1 generation so that farmers cannot save their seeds and have to go back and buy seed from MNCs like Monsanto.

And it's obvious that such a tactic has only the company's profits in mind, not the food security of any country or the world in mind- profit maximisation through food monopoly. More often, getting involved in GM crops cost farmers more money in terms of the herbicides/ pesticides used, water usage, expensive, patented seeds that there is huge stress caused by the financial burden.

I think the west is going for transgenetic crop in a big way. Starting from the UN sponsored crops in Africa. – by freedomclub

From the replies, most readers agrees with that point and provide their point of view on this matter. Some of them have no comments while freedomclub has provided detailed information that how the progress of GM foods being develop.

As a conclusion, through forum discussion, we can have different perception and feedbacks from different readers, therefore provide more information and statistics on how well the acceptance of public on this topic. In this case, public acceptance is quite an important factor because the targeted consumer for GM foods is human. They need to gain trustworthy from user before they can proceed with developing the products.

Reflections: Meta Search Engine and Subject Directory

Today, I was introduced to 2 new search facilities, meta search engine and subject directory. This was a whole new experience for me as I had never used them before. I chose MetaCrawler as meta search engine and Google Directory as subject directory.

VS

For MetaCrawler, I found out that the homepage interface was quite clean and easy to use. All the search functions and tabs are clearly stated and properly arranged. The special function of this website is the Popular Searches tab, whereby user can just clicked on the most popular keywords being searched. This function is significant different because it was absent in Google Search and other search engines. From the search results on MetaCrawler, I found that the search results is not that useful for my topic. Other than that, the main drawback of MetaCrawler is the ads on the search results . From the search page, about half of the results was purely advertisements found on Google, Yahoo! And Bing. The results was quite disappointing. Another weakness of MetaCrawler is the limited amount of text on search bar. Actually I wanted to use Boolean Operators method for this search engine in order to compare the results retrieved more effectively. But due to the facts that there are text input limit, I have no choice but to use the research topic without any brackets and Boolean Operators.

On the other hand, the Google Directory was the new database that I found besides Google search engine. I realised that in the homepage of Google Directory, there are this extra colum below the search bar that shows different categories and topics. I think this feature is very nice because users and readers can just click on their desired category In one click or perform more precise searches within that category. Besides the search bar and the category column, there is a small green column at the bottom of the page. Web owners can submit their webpage to Google Directory in order to be featured in here. There are other function such as becoming an editor of Google Directory and learn more about the open directory project. On the search results, the results that matched the keywords was quite little and below hundreds. In my cases, most of the results are from official organisation and government related agencies.

As a conclusion, I think meta search engine can gives users more perception or information that cannot be found by using single search engine. Meta search engine can helps to generate more pages or results from different search engine and therefore contribute more information in research process. Whereby subject directory like Google Directory is for users who wants to look for exact information and statistics data. This is because through searches in Google Directory, I found that most of the websites are official organisation and government-related agencies, which means the original source of information. 

Reflections: Facebook Discussion and Blogging

Today, we started topics discussion on Facebook, one of the most popular social networking website. For this assignment, our tasks are to join DPA-EIR group on Facebook, which is founded by Ms Farida Noor, our lecturer and Nur Taqinah Kamsari, which is the creator of the group. On DPA-EIR group, Ms Farida started to posts a new topic, “Internet brings more bad influences to our youths than good influences. Do you agree? Why? Suggest one way you can use Internet for the benefits of youths today.” Most of the students in class had replied their own opinion regarding to the topic. Some agreed that internet does more bad than good, while some said that internet bring more disadvantages to youths. Other questions such as “Most of you agree that it depends on youths themselves to be influenced. As Internet is very pervasive in our lives today, what can be done if youths have been badly influenced and get affected adversely?” and “Can parental control be as effective as self-control in helping youths balance their usage of Internet and not let it run their lives?” .Different point of view was clearly pointed out  and explained through words. As a conclusion, I think started topic discussions on social networking sites is another new and fun way of e-learning, whereby students can make full use of internet facilities to chat and discuss topics.

From the blog activity, I think it is quite efficient and useful because through blogging, students can update the information and what they learnt in school on their personal blog. Meantime, blog can be acts as an online diary, students can update their status and daily activities on the blog.  Besides that, frequent posts and update on their learning activity in school can help to monitor the developments and track progress on their studies, therefore allow students to remember what they have learnt and apply them for future purposes.