When using general internet sources, it is especially important that you evaluate them for credibility and authority. In general .gov and .edu sites are restricted to the U.S. government and institutions of higher education, respectively. Unfortunately .com and .org sites can be used by almost anyone. Be sure to check for a website's publisher or sponsor. Also pay attention to the types of ads on the site. Check out page 4 of this guide for more help.
When you are affiliated with a higher education institution, you have information privilege. That is, you have access to Library-subscribed scholarly content that is not freely available on the open web. Little known fact: this access usually ends when you graduate.
Led by academic libraries and information activists, the Open Access (OA) movement provides an alternative: a bridge to to open scholarship, no matter your institutional ties. OA expands the content that is available across access barriers, and is gaining ground in the scholarly community.
OA resources will be available to you after you leave IUPUI. For more information on open access at IUPUI see the Center for Digital Scholarship website.
As you engage in your research, explore the following OA repositories:
BASE is a vast cross-disciplinary international metasearch for OA content.
The Directory of Open Access Journals covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals and aims to cover all subjects and all languages.
OpenDoar is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. From University of Nottingham, UK.
ROAR provides up-to-date visual access to a huge database of open access repositories.
When you search Google Scholar on your personal computer, you can configure your settings so that IUPUI Library resource links appear in your results. Then you can click the Find It @ IUPUI Link to access a library item.
(TIP: If you're at a temporary computer and don't want to activate these settings, you can access Google Scholar via our Databases page (Library Home Page > Databases > G > Google Scholar). You'll be prompted to login with your IU Login, and then you'll see the Find It @ IUPUI links as well.)
To configure your Google Scholar Library Links, go to Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) and click on Settings, in the left-hand column.
Then select Library Links and search for "Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis." Check the box in the search select and click "Save."
