Professional Development Collection User Guide

The Professional Development Collection provides educators with a highly specialized collection of electronic information especially for professional educators. This collection includes searchable full-text for nearly 440 professional journals in education as well as abstracts and indexing for nearly 530 well known professional development titles.

 BEFORE BEGINNING:

• List all ideas and concepts that describe your search topic.
• Narrow your topic.  Remember your goal is to get a manageable number of useful records.
• Think of as many search terms describing your topic as you can.

 ACCESS:

• Go to the UCF Libraries homepage at http://library.ucf.edu/
• Click on <Articles & Databases > and then on <Education> from the Discipline list OR click on the letter <P> on the Titles alphabetical menu, scroll down and
• Click on

 

• Select <Professional Development Collection> from the EBSCOhost menu.

 

 SEARCH:

• Select one of the search screens from the search screen toolbar for conducting the search.
• opens the Keyword Search screen. Enter a keyword, phrase or combined keyword search in the “Find” box and click on .
• offers multiple text boxes, Boolean search (AND, OR, NOT) capabilities and searchable fields that allow you to develop a well focused search.

• Type a search term or phrase in the <Find> field.

• Separate keywords with AND, OR, or NOT.  Expand the search with synonyms by connecting words with the word "or".  Narrow the search by adding more terms and linking them with the word "and".  Combine search techniques: i.e. discipline AND (secondary schools OR high schools).
  If "and" and "or" are both used, the words linked by "or" need to be in parentheses.
• Use the asterisk (*) to retrieve various endings. i.e. college* retrieves college OR colleges.
• To keep words in a specific order, use the (w) within operator, i.e. behavior w problems retrieves the word behavior always followed by the word problems.
• Click .

• Use when searching multiple entry fields, Boolean operators, field codes or multiple search terms.
• Click <Advanced Search> from the Search window toolbar.
• Enter your search terms in the “Find” box.   If you use keywords to search, leave Default Fields as your setting.
• Enter additional search terms in the optional text boxes.



• Use the pull-down menus to select Boolean operators to connect your search terms.
• Click

 

Selecting Search Terms Using the ERIC Thesaurus 

• From the UCF Library homepage, click <Database Titles A-Z>
• Select <E> from the alphabetic list at the top of the page.
• Click on < > from the database list.
• Follow the directions on the ERIC Search Wizard User Guide or

 SELECTING SEARCH TERMS  (Using the EbscoHOST Toolbar options)

• Allows you to look up subject terms using the subject authority file.
• Click on the icon to select search terms from the subject authority file.
• Select a category to search.
• Enter your search terms, for example mentors, in the Browse For field. To search for a person's name, use the following format: last name, first name. Note in this example, I typed mentors.  Scrolling down the list, I see Mentors in Education and would select that as my term.

• Click Alphabetical to list your search results in alphabetical order. Click Relevancy Ranked to list your search results according to relevance.
• Click Browse to view your term(s) as they appear in the Subject Authority File. A results list is then displayed showing terms retrieved.

• Click on subdivisions for further narrowing of the topic.

• Click on the appropriate term to view results or if you want to refine your search strategy either write it down or copy and paste it  in the find box on the Advanced search screen.

 

 REFINING YOUR SEARCH:

• Click on the <Refine button> on the top of the Results list   to narrow or expand the search further.

• Add additional terms to your search to help narrow or broaden it.

LIMIT THE CURRENT SEARCH:

• Check Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals if you want to limit your search to professional journal articles

• Use boolean operators  (AND, OR. NOT) when the search contains two or more aspects (terms)

classroom discipline AND  secondary schools (retrieves records that contain both terms)

secondary schools OR high schools (retrieves records that contain one or both terms)

teachers NOT principals (retrieves records that contain the first term but not the second term)

• Select limiters to narrow your search.

• Set expanders to broaden your search. 

• Publication type: include pamphlets, periodicals (journals), or book.
• Document type: allows you to limit your select to article, bibliography, book entry, book review, case study, course review, interview, literature review, etc.

 DISPLAY RETRIEVED RECORDS:

• Select <Preferences>  from the toolbar to customize the display of the results.
  What to display (how many records at once)
  Display records with title only, brief records, or detailed records  

• Click <Apply> to set options.
• View retrieved records by clicking on the citation/s you wish to view.

• View retrieved records by clicking on each citation you wish to view or add them to your folder to view later.

• Use the forward arrow, the back arrow, or the appropriate page number  to navigate through the citations.

• Use the Page number link to open pages in the results list other than the next or previous one.
• Display the full content of individual articles (including the full-text when available by clicking on
   
• Use the down and up arrows on the right side of the screen to scroll down or up the page.

 

INTERPRET the CITATION/S:

• Examine the article citation immediately above this section.
• The article title is: Hurry Up and Wait
• Cavanagh, Sean is the author of the article.
• The journal title is listed under Source as Education Week.
• Date of the article is November 5, 2003.
• V 23 is the volume number of this journal; n10 is the issue number.
• Article is found on pages 22+.
• Note: May not be owned by UCF. Check UCF Library Catalog means that you should check the UCF catalog to see if we subscribe to the journal.

• Note: May be owned by UCF.  Click SFX for additional links means that you must click on the to see if the article is available full-text in any of our subscribed databases.  If not, SFX will prompt you to check the UCF catalog.  If so prompted, click on the UCF catalog link.  Then follow the "library has" link to display available holdings.

MARK:

• Click on the folder  button to the right of each citation you wish to print or email.

PRINT:

• Click on the folder  button to save results to the folder once you have selected items or articles to save for printing.
• The add folder name will switch to the word  Added.     Select either Citation or Citation with formatted full text and then hit the print button.
• Click on the link near the tabbed toolbar at the top of the page to collect or manage search results during your session.  The Result List Items will display.  Remove any items you wish by clicking on Remove All.

• Select the <Estimate number of pages> link to estimate how many pages will be printed, emailed, or saved.
• Click on <File> on your browser toolbar.
• Click on <Print> and then click <Ok> to print items.  

EMAIL:  

• Click on  to email item records to yourself.
• Choose the format you want to receive: citation, citation with full text

• Type in the email address to which the citation/s or articles are being sent and a subject (if desired)
• Click on <Send> .

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