HOW TO USE THE OVID DATABASES
ACCESS TO THE OVID DATABASES
Go to the Health Professions Division (HPD) Library homepage. The URL for the HPD
Library homepage is www.nova.edu/cwis/hpdlibrary. Click on “Electronic Databases”
(see the arrow below). The drop-down menu reveals the different ways to access the
databases. Click on the words “Listed Alphabetically,” as this is one of the best ways
with which access the databases leased by NSU from Ovid Technologies, Inc.
You will be asked to provide your last name and your social security number in order to
get to the list of databases. Afterwards, click on the “Submit” button.
In the box that appears, click on “Yes.”
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On the next screen, click on the “O” for “Ovid.”
The list of databases whose names begin with the letter “O” will appear. Find and click
on the words “Ovid Web.”
You will then be brought to Ovid’s “Choose a database” page. Some of the databases that
NSU leases from Ovid can be seen in the image below.
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SELECTING A DATABASE TO SEARCH
You will notice a long list of Medline databases. This list comprises different time
periods of the same database. Ovid has chosen to divide its vast database of well over
11,000,000 records into groupings, each representing a smaller number of records to
make searching quicker. Going from top to bottom in the illustration below, the first
arrow shows you the “Premedline” section. These are records that have not as yet been
fully processed, but are there for people who want to see the new publications as soon as
possible. The next arrow down points to the most current set of records, that are fully
processed, from 1996 to May of this year. The final arrow indicates the most
comprehensive of the sections. It is actually the entire database. It starts in 1966 and
continues to the present time.
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Most of the time, you will want to enter the most current set of records (middle arrow).
By clicking on the underlined name, MEDLINE, you will enter the “Main Search Page,”
the site on which you will do all of your searching. You can see that the first search term,
“depression,” has been typed into the query box. Once you have placed the search term in
the box, you need to implement the search process by clicking on the rounded box with
the words “Perform Search” inside.
THE MAIN SEARCH PAGE
The page you see below is the access point to a variety of functions. The very top line
shows you in what database you are presently searching and what dates are represented in
this segment of the database. Here, it is 1996-2002. Below the line is what is termed the
“Icon Bar.” You can choose to do a search on an author’s name, or on the title of the
article. You can restrict your search to a particular journal, search specific fields, limit
your search using various filters such as language, date of publication, type of
publication, full-text, articles with abstracts, and a host of other things. The icon bar also
gives you the option of changing databases with the same search parameters used in the
present database. Finally, you can logoff after the search session has been concluded. To
invoke one of these functions, you need to click on the appropriate image.
Below the icon bar is the “Search History” box. Here, a record of each search that you
have done is kept for further manipulation. Under the Search History box is the “Query
box” in which you type the search terms, and under that you will see a very small
selection of the limiters available to you to find the most current and relevant articles.
The Main Search Page is indeed packed.
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THE MAPPING DISPLAY AND SUBHEADINGS
The next page that is brought into view is called the “Mapping Display.” It is here that
you select the most appropriate term for your search. The Ovid search engine gives you
options. For our purposes, the top bolded term is the most appropriate one to choose. All
of the other choices are off the mark or too specific. Notice at the bottom of the list of
terms that “depression” is repeated, but in lower case letters. This is what the Ovid
designers call the “Keyword.” In Ovid parlance, a keyword is the layman’s term, not that
of the professional. The former is called “natural language,” the latter “controlled
vocabulary.” In many cases, the layman’s term, natural language, is exactly the same as
the term used by the professional, controlled vocabulary. Sometimes, the layman’s term
is the better choice. That is because there is no professional term that is general enough to
serve your searching needs.
To select a term, click in the box to the left of that term. On the right hand side of the
page, you can see boxes under the rubrics “Explode” and “Focus.” Exploding on a term
means that all related terms, those listed under that particular term in the hierarchy of
terms generated by the National Library of Medicine, are also included in the search.
Most often, you will want to avoid exploding on a term and opt for the “Focus” function.
You get far fewer records that are irrelevant, because it forces the search engine to
eliminate all records that do not refer explicitly to the term you have typed in the query
box. To the far right, are round buttons with the letter “i” displayed in them. These
buttons open to the “scope note,” to the explanation of the term. After selecting the
appropriate term and focusing, click on the “Continue” button to go on.
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You will now be introduced to what Ovid’s database designers call the “Subheading
Display.” Subheadings represent the focus point of the article. Some authors are more
interested in the “diagnosis” of a condition and write about that topic. Others may choose
to concentrate on the “Drug Therapy” that is used to control the condition. For some
search terms, there are literally dozens of subheadings. For others, only a few are present.
The term “depression” is discussed from many points of view.
In the image below, you can see that no one particular focus point has been selected.
Instead, all subheadings are included in the search. There is a good reason for this choice.
Many times, a search includes two interrelated terms or two terms that correlate. A good
example might be “smoking” and “lung cancer.” There is good evidence that smoking
can cause cancer in the lungs. If you want to find articles on the subject of smoking and
its connection to cancer in the lungs, you do not know where such articles may be found,
whether under “Etiology” or some other subheading. To be safe and not miss potentially
useful articles, it is best to select all subheadings.
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After you have made your selection of subheadings (you can choose more than one), or
after you have chosen to include all subheadings, you must click on the “Continue”
button again. You will find this button on every screen. The words displayed in the
button may change, but the function remains the same: clicking on it executes the current
command.
The results of the search are then shown to you on the Main Search Page to which you
are brought. You repeat this process for every term that you want to research. Below, you
can see the results of the search on depression and on the correlated term “employment.”
You can also see that another term has been entered in the query box, namely, “jobs.”
The Mapping Display for “jobs” provides an example of the use of a “keyword.” It has
been selected because there is no other term on the list that conveys the meaning
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accurately.You should not hesitate to use natural language when you have no other
choice.
Below, you can see all of the terms on separate lines in the query box.
BOOLEAN LOGIC AND BOOLEAN OPERATORS
There are three Boolean operators: “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT.” If you place “AND”
between two search terms, that forces the search engine to find articles in which both
terms are present. If you place “OR” between search terms, that makes the search engine
assemble articles in which either or both of the search terms are present. Placing “NOT”
before a search term excludes that term from the search.
Now comes the last step in the search that we have been doing above. You have to place
the terms in relation to each other. There are two synonymous terms, “employment” and
“jobs.” If you want to place these two terms together in correlation to the other search
term, “depression,” so that the search is conducted in one step, you must place the
synonyms in parentheses with the Boolean operator “OR” between them. Then, you can
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put the correlated term on the same line with the “AND” operator between them as seen
in the image below. The result of the search is 16 articles.
You could have performed the same operation in several steps: first placing an “OR”
between “employment” and “jobs” on one line, and then placing the result of that
operation with the “AND” operator between that result and “depression” on another line.
What is shown in the illustration below is the operation in several steps. Now, whether
you use the one method or the other, the result is the same.
LIMITERS
In our search, we came up with only 16 articles. There is in consequence no reason to use
limiters. However, in many cases a search will result in hundreds of articles, far too many
to review in the time that you have to spend doing a search. We will go over the use of
limiters, even though with this particular search, they are not necessary.
The first set of limiters can be found directly below the query box. Below, you can see
that three have been selected: English language, articles with abstracts, and those
published between the years 2000 and 2003.
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The result of applying the three limiters can be seen in the illustration below. By
imposing the language, articles with abstracts, and limiting the date of publication of the
articles to 2000 to 2003, we have reduced the retrieved articles by half. This may not
seem significant in this particular search, but when you have hundreds or even thousands
of articles to go through, it is definitely to your advantage to use limiters.
There is yet another page where you can select limiters, many more than those already
shown. To get to this page, you need to click on the bulls-eye with the arrow in the
center. See the arrow pointing downward in the image above.
You are offered not only the limiters below the query box on the Main Search Page, you
are able to use many more that involve age groups of the persons in which your are
interested, journal subsets, and publication types. You can even select a language other
than English in which to read your articles; and if you are doing animal research, you can
choose the type of animal involved in the research.
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DISPLAYING THE CITATIONS
To see the citations of the retrieved articles, you must click on the “Display” box in the
column to the extreme right side. Below, you have some of the citations that were
retrieved. At first glance, you do not see how much information is present on this page;
not just the author(s), titles of the articles, names of the journals, and so on, but also
whether the citation is for a journal article or some other type of publication such as an
editorial, letter, or case study. In addition, you can see if the article comes with or without
an abstract and in what language the article was published. The brackets after the article
titles show you the type of publication. All of the articles are in English. Other languages
are indicated in brackets. Under each citation in the illustration, you can see that all of the
articles have abstracts.
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MOVING FROM PAGE TO PAGE
At the top or bottom of each page of citations is a bar that allows you to move either
forward or backward. Below, you can see the bar at the bottom of the first page of
citations. As usual, you click on it to execute the command.
SELECTING ARTICLES
To select articles, you need to place check marks in the boxes to the left of the citations.
THE CITATION MANAGER
After selecting the articles that you want to keep, you have one more operation to
perform and that is making use of the so-called “Citation Manger.” Below, you have an
illustration of the Citation Manager. It appears at the bottom of each page. In the leftmost
panel, you choose whether to make a selection of articles by clicking in the boxes:
Selected Citations; taking the citations on one page, or taking the entire set of retrieved
articles. The default is selected citations which means that the articles in whose boxes
you click are retained.
In the middle panel, you choose the format you want the selected articles to appear. You
can opt to see them printed in citation form, with the abstract, with the abstract and
subject headings, or the whole reference. The latter choice does not mean that you will
get full-text, that is, articles in their entirety.
The final panel, all the way to the left, is the “Action” panel. Here you can display the
retrieved articles in the format that you have chosen, see what the pages that are to be
printed look like, email the set, or save the articles to disk. Because it saves paper, the last
option is highly recommended, when you have more than a few articles.
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ORDERING ARTICLES NOT IN THE NSU LIBRARIES
If you find that an article you want is not in one of the university’s libraries, you can
order it through the Interlibrary Loan Department. You need only click on the “Order”
button at the bottom of the Action panel. A page will appear on which you need to
provide the information required to process your request. The article(s) that you order are
automatically placed on the Interlibrary Loan Department’s website. You do not have to
type out the citation again. It is a very convenient way to get what you need. Be sure,
however, that you do not order an article published in a journal that the NSU libraries
holds. Below, you can see the form that you are required to fill out.
CHANGING DATABASES
Ovid allows you to change databases, retaining the same search parameters you used in
the current database. To effect the change, you need to click on the appropriate icon. In
this case it is the triangle with the words “Change Databases.”
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The “Choose a database” page will reappear. On this page, you click on the database to
which to you would like to transfer. Let us suppose that we need more than 16 articles
and date of publication is not an issue. We would then consider using the entire database:
from 1966 to the present date.
The “Change Database” screen will now come into view. You have three choices, but
because you want to retain the search parameters used in the previous database, you
ignore the bottom two and select the one at the top: “Open and Re-Execute.”
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The next screen will open in the new database with the new results of the search awaiting
your scrutiny. You can tell that you are in the new database by looking at the dates under
the database name. By switching to the full database, you have almost doubled the
results.
SEARCHING IN MULTIPLE DATABASES
Ovid allows you to search more than one database at a time. The way to do so is to start
at the beginning, in the “Choose a database” page. You will notice that at the top of the
list of databases there are two folder tabs. The one on the left is the default mode. It
allows you to search in one database at a time. The tab on the right, the darker one,
allows you to search two or more databases at the same time. Just one caveat should be
noted. Many of the fine-tuning that you are able to do in searching one database will be
turned off.
To begin searching two or more databases simultaneously, click on the tab on the right at
the top of the page.
Again, you will see the “Choose a database” screen, but this time the databases have
boxes on the left side of their titles. As usual, you make your choices by clicking in these
boxes. For this demonstration, two databases have been selected: Current
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Contents/Clinical Medicine and Medline, 1996 to May, 2003. After selecting the
databases to search, you need to click on the bar to the left of the database titles.
The Main Search page will appear showing, at the top of the screen, the two databases
selected for the current search. The search terms for this portion of the tutorial have
already been added and the results retrieved.
REMOVING DUPLICATES
Most often, there is some overlap in journal literature between databases. In consequence,
it is necessary to remove the duplicates, especially if the search results are high. You
begin the process of removing duplicates by clicking on the button just below the
“Results” panel. The arrow above is pointing to this button. Below, you can see the page
that is brought up. You do not have to make any adjustments, so just click on the
Continue button.
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If there are duplicates, these will be removed. In our case, no duplicates were found.
The search engine provided by Ovid Technologies, Inc. is by far the most powerful and
accurate of all those provided by the information vendors who lease databases to NSU. It
is often used at the beginning of a search. If Ovid’s Medline does not meet your
expectations, then you can always go to other databases such as those provided by
EBSCOhost or MD Consult, a product provided by Elsevier Company.
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