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Academia's big guns fight 'Google effect'
education.guardian.co.uk — Apparently Academia is the one place where the Google effect can be defined as 'a trend towards mediocrity"
jflowers45- 390 diggs
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- prakashpv, on 04/22/2008, -18/+1mmmm
- eminiguy, on 04/22/2008, -23/+3Good article.
Unfortunately, Google does trend towards mediocrity, which is why I like to use Yahoo too. In fact, Yahoo gives you sharper results without all that crap that comes from the SEO manipulation that Google has been exposed to for quite a while.- yodaj007, on 04/22/2008, -4/+2What? A search engine without SEO manipulation?
AMAZING!
- yodaj007, on 04/22/2008, -4/+2What? A search engine without SEO manipulation?
- JesusJazz, on 04/22/2008, -15/+4If it ain't broke, don't fix it
- thekms, on 04/22/2008, -0/+8In the words of Mr. Ron Burgundy, that doesn't make sense.
- troye, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Exactly, Google sells an internet appliance that companies can use to index their data and let their employees search such data.
These Universities and organizations can buy Google's appliance that uses Google's wonderful search algorithm (that is better than theirs) to index their info, thus the students can now search for the data on those online libraries and get better results via the Google algorithm and problem solved.
- mach32, on 04/22/2008, -15/+5now begins the coming months of google bashing
i'd love it if google would buy digg and "bury" it - you digglets would lose your minds - thelastcivilian, on 04/22/2008, -3/+27I use Google Scholar because it aggregates results. I don't want to have to use 6 or 7 different journal search engines to find what I'm looking for.
- geneusutwerk, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5I love google scholar. If I can't find a journal article off another site that doesn't have the full text I normally just search the title on google scholar and usually can get the full text of it.
- danarama, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1you should if you want a better search. diversify as they say.
- ByteGuerilla, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1What I love about Google Scholar is that if I VPN in my university's network and search from there, it will provide me with 'Find it on JRUL' (John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester) links so that I download the paper. I don't know what it provides other universities (i.e. their own libraries, JRUL, or perhaps no such service for smaller universities), but I find that invaluable.
- dMinor04, on 04/22/2008, -3/+4I'm sure some one could come up with something better, but google is relatively simple and quick so I am content.
- MurphyWatson, on 04/22/2008, -14/+29Thats all *****. The reason these guys don't like google is the same reason teacher's don't like wikipedia; its simple to use and effective.
They probably feel like the new generation is collectively telling them they are inefficient dinosaurs. Yeah you get lame results with google and any search engine, but could you imagine if you HAD to go to the library.
Today's information world moves too quickly to use outdated methods.- TinternAbbot, on 04/22/2008, -2/+13That's not the reason teachers don't like it. They don't like it because there's no accountability, and Google doesn't discriminate based on quality, only on popularity. These are not ideal situations.
- goffy59, on 04/22/2008, -4/+5How are teachers and their material accountable? Who says the book is allowed to be used in schools? Ever read American History at a public school? (Its ***** *****)
- fkr3, on 04/22/2008, -1/+9Google's search results are not perfect and they're definitely not perfect across the board. They're lacking in foreign languages and in English they're inundated with spam, useless doorway pages trying to get people out on an ad click, unnecessary doorway pages like digg submissions which rank very highly for a massive range of terms while the actual url we're discussing is much further down the results.
Look at this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=buying+software
#1 - buy.com, good choice
#2 - spam page on a spam site
#3 - microsoft.com gateway page leading to dell, hp, etc
#4 - microsoft.com gateway page to windowsmarketplace.com
#5 - an article about buying open source software
#6 - shopping.yahoo.com, good choice
#7 - secondary link to shopping.yahoo.com for Palm software
#8 - one of those free article sites with a widely regurgitated piece on things you should know about buying software
#9 - an mit article about buying vs. building software
#10 - kelkoo price comparison site
If you think they've achieved perfection your standards are too low.- flashback99, on 04/23/2008, -1/+4Somebody needs to learn themselves some Google advanced search parameters...
- goldfishey, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6and wikipedia is also often wrong! which is I think the main reason teachers dont like it.
- kckern, on 04/22/2008, -5/+6Although, inaccuracies in wikipedia articles could very well be blamed on these high-and-mighty academics who are too full of themselves to make the needed corrections. If you see an error on wikipedia, you have no one but yourself to blame if the error is still there when you leave the page.
- druakara, on 04/22/2008, -5/+2You neglect that articles in a standard encyclopedia are inaccurate or blatantly incorrect almost as often as wikipedia. The reason it isn't approved by academics is that it can be edited by anyone.
The benefit to wikpedia compared to standard encyclopedias is that the information is more up to date, and the citations are often linked. I have managed to convince several professors that wikipedia is acceptable, but only if the article includes citations. The ones I can't convince, I just find as many of the wiki citations as possible, and use them as my primary sources.
- spinaltap87, on 04/22/2008, -2/+4Too true. "Academia" is frustrating.
- JointVenture, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4Did he just try to justify Wiki as a legitimate source?
Hey kid, tell me what your next report is going to be so I can go edit what I want you to know. - danarama, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1not really google can bring a generic group of results leading to a much more narrow understanding of the info that's out there. acedemics and various profesional feilds need more specialized tools. A scientist is NOT going to google the latest research papers, she's going to use something that specializes in her feild and the papers she needs.
- specialK16, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1HE* is going to use something that specializes in her field* and the papers HE needs.
- TinternAbbot, on 04/22/2008, -2/+13That's not the reason teachers don't like it. They don't like it because there's no accountability, and Google doesn't discriminate based on quality, only on popularity. These are not ideal situations.
- gcman94, on 04/22/2008, -5/+7Google is a great website with great tools and should not be put down for helping the world and doing what it wishes.
- kubien, on 04/22/2008, -3/+12Google Scholar newb!
In my time of having to write research papers for college, I always found the academic search engines for college to be terrible, because about half the time when I found an article I want, it would link to a site that wanted me to pay upwards of 10$ or more to download/view the pdf 1 time only and 100s if not 1000s for unlimited access. I found a lot of my best results was using the academic search engine to get the title of an article, then using google to find that article somewhere for free.- adwarereport, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5Just did this last week. Google scholar redirected me to 3 sites trying to charge me between $29 and $110 for the articles I needed. Worthless.
- druakara, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Only 3 sites? keep looking - you will eventually learn to identify pages that want payment before you click the link. Also using some of google's advanced features can help eliminate that, such as 'filetype:pdf" followed by your query is an excellent way to find 'only' pdf files.
No tool is worthless, only worthless users of the tool who can't figure out how to use it correctly. - danarama, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1exactly google is FIRST a business, second a search engine.
- druakara, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Only 3 sites? keep looking - you will eventually learn to identify pages that want payment before you click the link. Also using some of google's advanced features can help eliminate that, such as 'filetype:pdf" followed by your query is an excellent way to find 'only' pdf files.
- adwarereport, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5Just did this last week. Google scholar redirected me to 3 sites trying to charge me between $29 and $110 for the articles I needed. Worthless.
- explikate, on 04/22/2008, -3/+6Google is used for 2/3rd of web searches for a reason - it is easy to use, fast and the results are usually relevant.
I love Google and all the products they come up with. Click on more... or even more... from Google's website to try out a wide variety of free software.
I agree that if it works well, why use anything else? - zenerdiode, on 04/22/2008, -2/+13Before google, Encyclopedia Brittanica and World Book were supposedly responsible for the rise of mediocrity in academia. After google, I'm sure something else will be blamed.
Personally, I feel some of the blame is in the lazy student and researchers who blindly copies everything from google as if it were the hitchhiker's guide. Then some of the blame should be placed in the teachers and the advisors who don't properly punish their students and researchers when they turn in reports/journals based on bad googling.- vckeating, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Being a teaching assistant at a university, this is a big problem - the lack of consistency across all markers towards penalizing the use of (non-journal) internet sources. Almost every decent course will have a long list of sources for papers, both books and journals, but instead of engaging with the material - even though the research on finding the sources is done for them already - students take the easy way out with mediocre (at best) internet sources. Then they complain to me about why they aren't getting the marks they expect.
- bbliss17, on 04/22/2008, -7/+2Google is awesome and should not be bashed. It is hands down the best web engine available and if you do not believe that you are in great denial!
- TinternAbbot, on 04/22/2008, -0/+8Google is good for finding popular results, not necessarily "good" results. For academics and students, Google is helpful but hardly perfect. Likewise, academic search engines are often cumbersome but provide the most useful information. I use tools like L'Annee Philologique for research and while it allows me to find exactly what I need, it's tough to use. If other search engines could become as simple as Google, it would be awesome.
- druakara, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1The problem with academic search tools is the lack of decent search terms. Perhaps I'm too used to Google, but it seems that the terms I use to find helpful info in Google, return worthless results in academic search engines.
- ShempRider, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1I thought this was going to be about downloading term papers and stuff.
- specialK16, on 04/23/2008, -0/+3Speaking of mediocrity.
Lol, joking.- ShempRider, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1good joke, actually.
one of my roommate's in college had to get one his term papers from the best source at the time...an ad in the back of Rolling Stone.
I did my own term papers. I just hated the library.
- ShempRider, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1good joke, actually.
- specialK16, on 04/23/2008, -0/+3Speaking of mediocrity.
- kingUssop, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4You want to combat Google's sea of crappy amateur information returns, here's a hint: make some academic search engines free. I doubt that'll happen though.
- Napzilla, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Unless I know exactly what article I'm looking for and which journal database will allow me to access it, I use Google Scholar to find articles. If Google were to offer a tool to export the citation data in BibTeX format, I'd use that, too. On the other hand, I will admit that Google's web search does tend to return a lot of crap when your search topic is broad enough. This is inevitable in any forum where information is exchanged freely, however, and not necessarily the fault of Google. The responsibility lies with the person using the tool to learn how to use it properly (e.g.amphetamine OR adderall -"online pharmacy") and how to determine the trustworthiness of a source.
- DarkLaughingMan, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0While it doesn't help the whole situation I use Zotero. It's a use Firefox extension that can clip and record all the important information needed for a citation. It even makes a link to the file (or downloads the PDF). I use it for my research papers whether I'm using Google Scholar as my journal search, or whatever journal database it is.
It offers a plugin for OpenOffice's Writer or Microsoft Word so as long as you have Firefox open you can just import the sources. Or just generate the cite from there and paste it into your document.
- DarkLaughingMan, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0While it doesn't help the whole situation I use Zotero. It's a use Firefox extension that can clip and record all the important information needed for a citation. It even makes a link to the file (or downloads the PDF). I use it for my research papers whether I'm using Google Scholar as my journal search, or whatever journal database it is.
- dolemite01, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4Google makes life in uni easier. Say I'm in biology class (required class for all majors) i just google Biology filetype:.ppt site.edu or animal ecology lecture filetype:.doc site:.edu I find powerpoints, lectures, and even podcasts that almost always put it in ways I can understand it should I not like the professor or have trouble understanding something.
- Sinai, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2This article is not about you, it is about people who are writing papers in grad school and beyond.
- omikun, on 04/23/2008, -0/+2Biology is not required in electrical engineering at UT@Austin :)
- Sinai, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1What you fail to realize is that intro biology has a male/female ratio of 1:1, while your EE classes has a ratio of 5:1, and you better like Asians. Bio not beling a requirement is not to your advantage.
- omikun, on 04/23/2008, -0/+2Biology is not required in electrical engineering at UT@Austin :)
- Sinai, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2This article is not about you, it is about people who are writing papers in grad school and beyond.
- danielatari, on 04/22/2008, -2/+0You know how Charlie Brown's teacher sounds? This article reads sort of like that. Heh.
- z0l0pht, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1I use Google Books all the time for research; their collection of old books (the full books available for download) is outstanding.
- z0l0pht, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1I don't get why I'm being dugg down... the selection really is amazing. Check it out for yourself.
- stutimandal, on 04/22/2008, -3/+2I don't know what big guns in academia means. Here at EECS, UC Berkeley, most researchers use/ask us to use google/scholar search before working on any problem.
- Sinai, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Couldn't they just base the sort order by number of citations? Seems like the simplest way to get what's usually considered important in any given field.
- vlad43210, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1I don't think I've been disappointed by Google, once. In the worst case, it's a matter of narrowing down your search. And yes, I'm in Academia. I regularly Google for paper citations, formulas, algorithms, etc.
I've had some embarrassingly bad experiences with academic search engines (e.g. the ACM Digital Portal). The thing is subscription-only access; it's my portal to some of the most authoritative papers in my field; many, many a time I've *typed the exact name* of the paper in, and it did not bounce back as the top hit. Sometimes, it did not bounce back on the front page. That's bad.
Yeah, Google wins this one in my book. - giantdouche, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3Academia doesn't stop with describing Google as a "trend toward mediocrity." They consider the entirity of the Internet a springboard for mediocrity.
- unpolloloco, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3big reason that people don't look at academic databases: Google is free, academic databases typically are not (or at least the articles the reference are not)
- mrblonde554, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Google Scholar is a a great resource and yes academic databases cost money but If your library subscribes, its free to you
- warriorscot, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4What is the point of a search engine that tells you where you can find information that you don't probably have easy access or any access.
If it is catalogued and stored electronically in the Uni catalogue you probably wont be needing another search engine so why make one, if it isn't in your own institutions catalogue it won't be easy/free to get and will not be quick either way. They would be better trying to open access to all academic resources rather than search closed libraries which is useless for someone looking for facts quickly.
You have to pay ridiculous sums to read allot of papers its ridiculous, information should be free, when it comes time to do my own dissertation and any possible future papers I quite intend to make them available for free whenever possible, sure I doubt anyone would want to read my stuff but still its the principle.- Labourer, on 04/23/2008, -2/+1this is probably what academia is worried about. unfettered free access to the information , journals and all the rest of it that they , their publishers and organisations control and profit from is not something they want.
- johnsenkly, on 04/23/2008, -2/+0Check your sources...there is little to no profit involved in journals and conferences. Do you think it is free to publish a journal? A LOT of people prefer getting a magazine in the mail every month or two which tells them the important contributions in a field. That physical medium + a website + editors for the journal cost $$$. Furthermore, your comment about academia worrying about unfettered free access to the information is absurd. I can tell you this, every single person in academia wants solely to make a name for him/herself. They did not get into this game for the money. Nobody has a problem with information access being free.
- mrblonde554, on 04/23/2008, -0/+2Really? work for a journal publishing house by chance? The articles are free to the publishers. Profs fall all over themselves to get published in the most prestigious journals. Just do a google search for "scholarly communication crisis" and you'll see journal prices especially in the sciences rise by around 8-10 % a year depending on the discipline. Elsevier has been sued in Europe for unfair trade practices. As just an example see http://www.lib.uconn.edu/about/publications/journa ...
- johnsenkly, on 04/23/2008, -2/+0Check your sources...there is little to no profit involved in journals and conferences. Do you think it is free to publish a journal? A LOT of people prefer getting a magazine in the mail every month or two which tells them the important contributions in a field. That physical medium + a website + editors for the journal cost $$$. Furthermore, your comment about academia worrying about unfettered free access to the information is absurd. I can tell you this, every single person in academia wants solely to make a name for him/herself. They did not get into this game for the money. Nobody has a problem with information access being free.
- Labourer, on 04/23/2008, -2/+1this is probably what academia is worried about. unfettered free access to the information , journals and all the rest of it that they , their publishers and organisations control and profit from is not something they want.
- icouncill, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0For computer science folks there's CiteSeer and the new CiteSeerX (still alpha, but quite serviceable) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/. It's free and there are over a million papers there (and growing).
- rickz, on 04/23/2008, -1/+0Yes. I use it and like it a lot. A vast improvement over the legacy CiteSeer system.
- Pegritz, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1I work in academia, and let me tell you: academia is filled to the brim with Luddites and argumentative jackasses who will quite literally make a big brouhaha over ANYthing just so they can use the resulting controversy to leverage themselves into tenure tracks or maintain publish-or-perish guidelines or--even worse--push their ridiculous sociopolitical agendas. Can anyone honestly believe that there are still *Marxists* in many universities poli-sci, sociology, and (especially) Liberal Arts departments? It's sad, but true. The Ivory Tower has basically become an asylum. Thank the Other Gods I'm just a lowly composition teacher: I actually *teach* something of value--the means to properly communicate.
- johnsenkly, on 04/23/2008, -0/+0I agree with your point, and suggest that you also look at your own opinion which is doom and gloom for academia. We're all a bunch of argumentative jackasses, including you.
- binaryloop, on 04/23/2008, -1/+1Puhhhhleeze. Academia itself is "a trend towards mediocrity"
- Myztry, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Mediocrity in the form of conformity.
"Flowers are red young man, and that's the way they'll always be."
- Myztry, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Mediocrity in the form of conformity.
- junestag, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1whatever, google is the best publically-available search engine available for research.
- thewaxgrid, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1UCLA has been offering some interesting lectures about the pros and cons of Google in the academic arena: http://www.dailybruin.com/news/2008/apr/22/emgoogl ...
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