Library Guides: ITC571 Research Skills Guide: Using journal databases

Information Technology Databases

ACM Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Incorporates two resources: one a full-text collection of publications of the Association for Computing Machinery; the other a collection more than 750,000 citations from 3000+ publishers, including the ACM.
ACM Library is a large collection of citations and full-text items from the Association of Computing Machinery.

The resource has two components:
* The ACM Digital Library, a repository of papers published or co-published by the ACM;
* The Guide to Computing Literature, a collection more than 750,000 citations from 3000+ publishers, including the ACM.

It is the ACM Digital Library that is the full-text resource. Our subscription includes access to more than 320 publications, including journals, magazines, newsletters, transactions, proceedings, and publications by affiliated organisations.

ACM Library offers not only searching and browsing but also personalised services such as saving results and queries, and setting up Table-Of-Contents (TOC) alerts.

Coverage is from 1947 - current, and updating is weekly.

Note: ACM journals which we previously subscribed to in print have been converted to online access and are available in this collection.
Computers and Applied Sciences Complete This link opens in a new window
An EBSCOhost database of citations, article summaries, and full-text articles which covers computing and technology and includes more than 1000 full-text periodicals.
Computers & Applied Sciences Complete (CASC) "covers the research and development spectrum of the computing and applied sciences disciplines". It provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2100 publications, including academic journals, professional publications, and other reference sources.

Searchable cited references are included for key journals.

Subjects covered include: engineering disciplines; computer theory & systems; and the impact of, and the social and professional context of, new technologies.

This database is one of many available in EBSCOhost. Once on the EBSCOhost search screen, you can change databases by clicking on the Choose Databases link above the search boxes. All EBSCOhost databases can be searched individually or in any combination.
IEEE Xplore Digital Library This link opens in a new window
A full-text database of publications from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its publishing partners, including the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). These organisations are the world's major electrical and electronic engineering authorities.
Subject content includes electrical and electronics engineering, computer science, and associated topics such as aerospace engineering, biomedical sciences, geosciences, physics, medical imaging, digital animation and media, and telecommunications.

The main content that you have access to in IEEE Xplore is the IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL), which includes access to full text articles published since 1988 (and select content published since 1893) from:
* more than 150 IEEE journals, transactions, and magazines;
* 25 IET journals and magazines;
* proceedings from more than 1000 IEEE and IET annual conferences;
* more than 2,100 approved and published IEEE standards in key technology fields;
* the IEEE Standards Dictionary Online.

You also have access to:
* the VDE VERLAG Conference Proceedings, which include AbstractPlus records and select full text published since 2005 from more than 20 annual conference titles. [VDE Verlag is a European technical/scientific publisher]; and to
* individual online journals, including access to all AbstractPlus records and full text published since 2005 from IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology and from IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.

Updating is weekly, and more than 25,000 new IEEE/IET articles are added each month.
ProQuest Computer Science Database This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Computer Science Database is one of many databases available in the ProQuest platform. It includes more than 450 titles, with more than 350 of these available in full-text. Sources include scholarly journals, trade publications, and consumer titles.
Subjects covered include: artificial intelligence; computer games, graphics, networks, programming, security, and systems; database design; database management; e-commerce; electronic data processing; hardware; information science and information theory; information systems; internet; intranets and extranets; LANs and WANs; software; software development; and website development.

Once you are in the ProQuest platform, you can change to any other ProQuest database by clicking on the hamburger menu at the top left of any ProQuest screen, then on Change databases. Other IT-related ProQuest databases include the ProQuest Telecommunications Database. All ProQuest databases can be searched individually or in combination.
ProQuest Telecommunications Database This link opens in a new window
A ProQuest database of more than 140 journals, magazines, and newsletters, with more than 115 available in full-text. It covers telecommunications, data communication, data transmission, and electronic media.
Specific subject content includes computer applications, data transmissions systems, electronic data processing, information science, information theory, radio, television, and wireless communications.

Once you are in the ProQuest platform, you can change to any other ProQuest database by clicking on the hamburger menu at the top left of screen, then on Change databases. You can search all ProQuest databases individually or in any combination. Other related databases include the ProQuest Computer Science Database.
SpringerLink This link opens in a new window
A database of journals and eBooks published by Springer, with much available in full-text. The journals tend to be from the scientific, medical, and scientific disciplines, while the eBooks cover biomedical & life sciences; computer science; earth & environmental science; humanities, social sciences & law; and medicine.
Charles Sturt Library does not subscribe to all the items in this collection.

You can tell which results are available to you in full-text because those that are NOT available are marked with a padlock icon.

You can't limit a search to journal or book material, or to full-text content only, at the time the search is run. But you can refine your results by Content Type and/or by unticking the box for Include Preview-Only content. There are other refining options for Discipline, Subdiscipline, and Language.
Wiley Online Library This link opens in a new window
A database of eJournals and eBooks published by John Wiley & Sons. Subjects covered range across all disciplines: Business; Education; Law; Medicine; Science; Social Sciences; the Humanities; and the Arts.
Charles Sturt Library subscribes mainly to eJournals in this database, but in 2011 commenced subscriptions to eBooks, so results of searches might include eBook results.

Charles Sturt has access to most of this collection in full-text. It is not possible to limit a search to full-text-only results, but in the results-list the full-text items are denoted by an unlocked-padlock icon.

Users can search the collection using a simple or advanced search, and can browse by publication or subject area.

The dates of journal coverage dates vary from journal to journal.

Topic or subject alerts

Subject alerts allow you to be notified when articles are published that match your subject criteria. After you have developed a search strategy and executed the search, you set up an alert to be notified of any new articles that get added to the database that match your search strategy.

A search alert will be sent to you after you have saved a database search that you run periodically.

The following databases support Table of Contents (ToC) and search alerts.

EBSCOhost
- How to use Journal TOC alert
- How to use Search alerts
ProQuest
- Create a Publication alert
- Create a Search alert
ScienceDirect
Taylor & Francis Online
Web of Science (WoS)
- Journal alerts
- Citation alerts
Scopus
Research Professional

Searching in a database

IEEE Xplore Search tips

Capitalization: IEEE Xplore searches for items regardless of capitalization.

Punctuation: IEEE Xplore ignores most punctuation. For example, if you search for solid-state, IEEE Xplore looks for "solid-state", "solid state", "solid_state", and any other occurrences of "solid state" with punctuation between the two words.

Special characters: Most special characters are ignored by IEEE Xplore, including non-alphanumeric characters such as %, -, @, etc. The only special characters recognized by IEEE Xplore are &, +, and /.

See more IEEE Xplore search tips.

Setting up Content alerts

Wiley Search Tips

Boolean operators AND (also + or &), OR and NOT (also -) can be used within search fields. These operators must be entered in UPPERCASE to work.

Wildcards:

Use a question mark (?) in a search term to represent a single character (wom?n finds women or woman).
Use an asterisk (*) to represent zero or more characters (touris* finds tourist, tourists, tourism).