Information Technology
Outcome 3: The Internet
[INTERMEDIATE 2]
About this section
Part 1: Introducing the Internet
Part 2: Searching the Web
Part 3: SAQ answers
3
5
15
25
Acknowledgements
No extract from any source held under copyright by any individual or organisation has been
included in this learning pack.
All screen images are copyright of the Microsoft Corporation.
ABOUT THIS SECTION
INTRODUCTION
What this section is about
This section contains information about electronic data sources and how to carry out
searches to find relevant information.
You will learn:
• how resources are organised on the World Wide Web
• how to use search tools correctly
• how to look for information.
Aims and objectives of this section
The aim of this section is to introduce you to electronic data sources and how to search
them for relevant information.
By the end of this Study Section you will be familiar with:
• Internet information sources
• search facilities available
• search techniques.
Approximate study time for this section
This section will take approximately 7–8 hours to complete.
Other resources required for this section
To complete this section you will need:
• access to a computer system with a connection to the Internet
• pen and paper.
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ABOUT THIS SECTION
Assessment information for this section
How you will be assessed for this section
The assessment for this section is about how you select data sources and carry out searches
to locate, extract and present information.
When and where you will be assessed for this section
Assessment for this section is carried out at the end of the Study Section.
Your tutor will observe you carrying out two searches to extract and present relevant
information on two occasions. Your performance during these tasks will be recorded on a
checklist. You will be told when this is happening.
What you have to achieve for this section
You must carry out at least two searches involving different data sets or different forms of
information. You will present the information as a paper or electronic copy.
Opportunities for reassessment for this section
Opportunities for reassessment will be provided where necessary.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
PART 1
Introducing the Internet
Everyone uses computers these days. They are used in homes and businesses to store,
organise and communicate information. The equipment used to do this is known as
information technology (IT). There has recently been something of an information
technology revolution and the result is the Internet.
1969
The Internet began as a US Department of Defense funded project called ARPanet.
It was designed to connect together the Department and various bodies involved
in research.
1972
The first public demonstration of ARPanet. The first electronic mail is sent.
1973
Norway and the UK are added to the network. It is now an international network.
1974
The details of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) are published. This was to
become one of the technologies that defined the Internet.
1977
The first company Internet site is created.
1984
The US National Science Foundation takes responsibility for ARPanet. The
system for assigning names to computers on the network is developed.
1990
ARPanet is switched off. The Internet takes over.
1991
The first program designed to retrieve information from servers on the Internet is
developed.
1992
A Swiss research organisation called CERN releases the code for hypertext. This
is a software concept that leads to the development of the World Wide Web.
1993
The release of the first web browser, Mosaic. Others follow the lead and surfing
is born.
1995
Growth of the Internet is phenomenal – six million servers are now connected to
the Internet.
1996
The Internet and the Web become household words around the world.
And the rest, as they say, is history!
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Networks
A network is two or more computers connected together to allow them to exchange
information. Networks can be local or wide area. The computers in a local area network
are within a short distance of each other, usually within the same building. Wide area
networks connect computers around the world. Networks use a variety of communication
methods to link together, ranging from normal telephone lines to dedicated optical fibre
links.
Client/server systems
This is a structure for connecting computers together on a network. The client is usually a
PC while the server is a bigger, more powerful computer used to store information and run
programs for the network.
The Internet
The Internet is a huge network of computers built on client/server structures. The Internet
(INTERnational NETwork ) links together millions of computers in hundreds of countries and
is growing daily.
World Wide Web
This is an easy way for people to find their way around the Internet. Web software allows
links to be put into Internet documents to point to other documents. These links are known
as hypertext. When you click on one of these you are connected straight to the computer it
refers to. Hypertext is usually shown in blue and is underlined.
Internet Service Providers
The Internet provides a vast range of information resources, which can be accessed by
anyone who has access to a computer attached to a telephone line, communications
software and access to an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
An ISP is a company that provides links to the Internet. You dial into this link to make your
connection to the Internet. Some examples of ISPs are AOL, Freeserve and Compuserve.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Information on the Internet
Anyone who has an ISP connection can use almost all of the Web pages. These pages
provide information about companies' products, places to visit, famous people, world
affairs, travel, sport, music, films ... in fact, almost anything you can think of. The
information on most Web pages is free, and all you have to pay for is the telephone
connection. But some information is only available to subscribers who pay for it.
This information has been placed on the Web by millions of different users around the
world. Much of the information is useful. Some of it is very exact, detailed and informative
but a lot of it can be wrong or inaccurate information. Care must therefore be taken when
using information from the Web.
Websites and Web pages
Information on the Internet is shown on the screen as pages, just like in a book. These pages
are created by people all around the world and stored on their servers to allow others to
access them.
Anyone who has access to the World Wide Web can publish their own pages. Individuals
and organisations often publish a cluster of pages and store them together. This is known as
a website.
The first page in a website is called the home page. This page normally contains
information about who has published the website and acts as a link to the other pages.
Each website and every page within it is accessed by means of a unique address. Let's look
at how these work.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Web addresses
Every web page has its own unique address, just like a postal address. This address tells
computers on the system where information is held.
A web address is made up of the name of the computer network holding the information and
the name of the web page. A web address is usually known as a Uniform Resource Locator
(URL).
Look at the URL below.
bbc is the
domain name
www tells us this
is a World Wide
Web page
co is the type of
site ie company
UK is the
country
www.bbc.co.uk
Other types of site
Other examples of countries
org
ac
gov
fr
au
ie
=
=
=
organisation
academic
government
=
=
=
France
Australia
Ireland
?1
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is a server?
What is the WWW?
What do the letters URL stand for?
What is a URL used for?
Check your answers with the ones given on page 25 at the end of this Study Section.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Web browsers
A Web browser is the software application that interprets Internet documents and displays
them as Web pages. Browsers are designed to read HyperText Markup Language (HTML),
the language used to write Web pages.
Two of the most popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
One is not better than the other. Like other types of application packages, each of these has
its own set of features and it is usually a matter of preference which one someone uses.
For the Activities in this Study Section we will be using Internet Explorer version 5 (usually
shortened to IE5).
A1
Using Internet Explorer
Starting Internet Explorer
Start up your computer in the normal way. To load IE5, click on the Start button, then on
Programs, and choose Internet Explorer.
Alternatively, click on the icon on the Quick Launch toolbar.
The Internet Explorer screen
Your screen will look similar to the one below.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
What you see on this first screen depends on how Internet Explorer has been set up. It will
probably have been set up to show the home page of your school or college. If you are
working somewhere else the page shown will probably be the home page of your Internet
Service Provider. The actual page shown makes no difference at the moment.
Let's look at what the various parts of the screen show.
Title bar
The blue bar at the top of the screen is called the Title Bar. This shows the name of the
page currently open. On your screen it will show that Yahoo! is open. The three buttons at
the right-hand side are the normal minimise, restore and close window buttons.
Menus
The menus give you access to the various commands and options available within IE5.
Each menu has a list of options which will ‘drop down’ when you point to the underlined
letter and click the left mouse button.
Standard toolbar
The most frequently used commands also appear on the toolbar. You can change the order
of these buttons or even remove the ones you don't use.
Back
returns you to the most recently viewed page.
Forward
moves you forward through pages already viewed. You won't be able to
do this until you have used the Back button.
Stop
halts process of downloading a Web page.
Refresh
reloads the page you are viewing.
Home
returns you to the home page set to load when IE5 starts.
Search
opens a window on the left-hand side of the screen to allow you to search.
Favorites
lets you build a list of your favourite websites.
History
keeps a list of all the sites you have visited.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Mail
connects you to Microsoft Outlook Express so you can read email and
newsgroup messages.
Print
prints the current page.
Edit
allows you to edit the current page.
Getting help
IE5 comes with built-in Help. Let's look at this now.
Ø Click on the Help menu.
Ø Click on Contents and Index.
Ø Click on Taking the Internet Explorer 5 Tour in the list on the right-hand side.
Ø Click on start the Tour.
You will see a welcome screen like the one below.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Let's start by working through the first section.
Ø Click on The basics.
There are two short topics under this heading, Basics of the Internet and Basics of Internet
Explorer.
Ø
Read through the information under both of these topics then
close the tour down by clicking on the Close box.
Opening a Web page
To open up a particular page you type in the URL in the Address bar. Let's have look at the
BBC home page.
Ø Click anywhere in the Address bar.
The address of the current page is highlighted in blue. When you start to type in the
address of the page you want it will replace this address.
Ø Type in bbc.co.uk then click on Go.
This will take you to the BBC Online home page. The contents of this page change daily to
give up-to-date news about what is happening at the BBC.
Using links
Anything that is blue and underlined is a link to more information. As you pass the mouse
over these links the pointer will change to a small hand with a pointing
finger. When you click on one of these links, a new page will open.
For example, down the left-hand side of the screen there are lists of
links, as illustrated here. These links will take you to pages containing
information on the subjects listed.
Ø Try clicking on Education.
This opens the Education home page which has other links to take you
to more pages with an educational content.
Ø Click on a few of the links that look interesting, using the Back
button to bring you back to the Education home page each time
Graphics can also be formatted as links.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Printing a page
Ø Use the Back button to take you back to the BBC Online home page.
Ø Click on the News link under Categories on the left-hand side of your screen.
Ø Open the File menu.
Ø Choose the Print option.
You will see a dialog box like this one.
The Print range and Copies options are set to default to one copy of all pages. If this is not
what you want you will have to enter the information in the boxes.
Ø Check that All is checked under Print range and that Number of copies is set to 1.
There are two options at the bottom of this box:
Print all linked documents prints the page you are viewing and every page that has a link
from it. Be careful of this one as it could mean printing hundreds
of pages.
Print table of links
is a much more useful choice as it prints a table showing all the
links from the page you are viewing.
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INTRODUCING THE INTERNET
Adding to Favorites
A useful option within IE5 is the ability to build a list of favourite sites.
Ø Click on the Favorites button on the toolbar.
A window will open on the left-hand side of your screen.
Some sites are automatically added to your Favorites list
when you install IE5 and this is what you can probably see
now. However, anyone else who has been using the
computer you are now using could have added other sites
to this list.
The picture shows a typical list of favourites.
To add a site to your list:
Ø Go to the website you want to add.
Ø Open the Favorites list by clicking on the button on the
toolbar.
Ø Click on the Add button at the top of this list.
To go directly to a favourite site, simply click on it on your list – there's no need to type in
the address each time.
Closing Internet Explorer
There are two methods to close IE5 down.
Either
Ø Click on File and choose Close.
or
Ø Simply click on the Close window icon on the top right of your screen.
Choose one of these methods now and close down.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
PART 2
Searching the Web
The Internet is like a huge library with millions of books in it. When you want information on
a particular topic, you don't know which books you need. It would be impossible to visit
every site that holds information on a given topic. What you really want is a way to find only
those sites that have information about the topic you are interested in.
If you had a librarian to go and find the information you want and bring it back for you, all you
would have to do is say exactly what information you want. On the Internet the librarian is
replaced by a search tool. Two kinds of search tools are directories and search engines.
Directories
These are catalogues of resources available on the World Wide Web. You are presented
with a list of major categories with some broken down further into sub-categories. You
work through each list clicking your choice until you get to what you are looking for.
Examples include
• Yahoo
• Infoseek
Search engines
Search engines are computer programs that search for Web pages that match with
keywords. You type in the words you want and the search engine explores the Web for
pages that match your request. Some of the most popular include
• Excite
• Lycos
Meta search engines
Meta search engines themselves search multiple search engines and show all the results at
once. Examples include
• Dogpile
• Metacrawler
• Web Locator
Using directories to find information
Directories work on categories. You need to think carefully about what category the
information you are looking for would be stored under. This is not as easy as it sounds. You
will have to make guesses to start with and work through the sub-categories to get to what
you want. The more specific you can be the quicker the process.
Similarly with search engines – the more specific you can be the more quickly you will find
useful information on your chosen subject.
Let's try this out using Yahoo!
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SEARCHING THE WEB
A2
Searching for information
For this activity we will be using Yahoo! – firstly as a directory and then as a search engine.
Ø Start up IE5 by clicking on Start, Programs then Internet Explorer 5 or by clicking on the
icon on the Quick Launch toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
Ø Type www.yahoo.co.uk
This will take you to the home page for the UK search engine.
Yahoo uses fourteen initial categories. Every page is categorised somewhere under these
fourteen categories so they are very general. Each category is further defined into a number
of sub-categories and as you work through the hierarchy you will find they become more
and more specific.
The initial fourteen categories are listed on the home page.
Let's try a simple search using these categories. Please remember that the contents of the
Web change all the time and the information given here, although correct at the time of
writing, may not be exactly the same as you see. Don't let this put you off. The Internet is
an exciting place and you will find lots of useful information by trying things out for yourself.
If you feel lost keep using the Back button until you get back to a page you recognise, or shut
down and start again.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
Searching by category
You can expect to go through at least three or four Yahoo! categories before you find
specific information on a given topic. This can be demonstrated by trying a simple search for
information on searching the Web.
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Click carefully on WWW underneath the category Computers and Internet.
Scroll down and look for Searching the Web.
Click on this link.
Scroll down again and click on Search Engines and Directories.
Click on the Directories category.
Scroll down the page until you see About Web Search.
Click on this link.
Under Essentials click on Web Searching Tutorials and then click on Choose the Best
Search Engine.
On the resulting page you will find lots of useful information about searching the Web.
Ø Explore a bit and then go back to the Yahoo! Home Page.
Searching using keywords
Yahoo! can also be used like any other search engine. You type in a keyword or words and
the program goes away and finds you pages to match your requirements, listing them in
order of relevance. The challenging bit is finding the right keyword or words to get you the
information you want.
At the Yahoo! Home Page there is a search box where you type in your keyword or phrase.
This is also where you select how much of the Web to search through.
Let's try it out by carrying out a search for information on Star Trek.
Ø Type Star Trek in the search box.
Ø Click on UK only.
Ø Click on Search.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
Yahoo! searches its databases of Web information and returns the results to you. These
databases include Yahoo! categories, news stories, websites and Web pages. You can
choose which of these to view by clicking on the appropriate tab as shown.
Use these tabs to display results
In this particular search you will find approximately 50 categories, 1,000 websites, 35,000
Web pages and 200 news stories. This is far too many to allow you to view every single
one. If you are more specific in your keywords and phrases you will get a shorter list of
results that are more relevant to what you are looking for.
Refining your search techniques
You can use more sophisticated search techniques. There are options available to refine
your search to focus on the most relevant information.
At the Yahoo! Home Page beside the search box where you type in your keyword or
phrase, there is an option to carry out an advanced search.
V
Let's try it out by carrying out another search for information on Star Trek.
Ø Go back to the Yahoo! Home Page.
Ø Click on the Advanced Search link.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
You will see a screen with the information shown below.
The options here can be used to limit and refine your search.
Intelligent default
allows you to use double quotes to force a search on a
phrase rather than a word and the use of plus (+) and
minus (–) signs to include or exclude specific terms
Exact phrase match
is used where your keyword could be part of a longer
word; for example, searching for part will also find
partner
Matches on all words (AND)
presents results that include all your key words
Matches on any word (OR)
uses keywords as alternatives and presents results that
match any one of them.
You can also limit your search to categories or sites that have been added within a certain
time. The default is 3 years but you can change this to 1 day, 3 days, a week, a month and
so on.
Let's try a refined version of our Star Trek search using some of these.
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Click in the search box and type in ‘Star Trek’.
Click the exact phrase option.
Click on the time box and change it to 1 month.
Click on the Search button.
You should find the results are now limited to a few of the previous results.
Ø Explore a few and then return to the home page.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
More searching techniques
Yahoo!’s online help includes lots of information to help you get the best results from your
searches.
Ø Click on the Help icon at the top right of the home page.
Ø Click on the big picture link.
Ø Browse through some of the sections, particularly
Searching Yahoo! and Browsing Yahoo!.
A3
Trying out your new skills
Try out your new searching skills to find out the following information:
1. Today's weather
2. What's on TV tonight?
3. Who is the current President of the United States of America?
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SEARCHING THE WEB
A4
Useful information sources
Commonly used information sources
Here are some useful sites for you to visit. Each one can be used when looking for particular
types of information. Visit them and have a look at the kind of information you can find
there. Complete the form on the next two pages while you are surfing.
Have fun!
Search tools
Excite
Lycos
Infoseek
Dogpile
www.excite.com
www.lycos.co.uk
www.infoseek.com
www.dogpile.com
Newspapers
The Scotsman
Daily Record
www.scotsman.co.uk
www.dailyrecord.co.uk
Entertainment
BBC
ITV
CH4
www.bbc.co.uk
www.itv.co.uk
www.channel4.com
Travel
Virgin Atlantic
The Automobile Association
The RAC
www.fly.virgin.com
www.theaa.co.uk
www.rac.co.uk
Other
Yellow Pages
www.yell.co.uk
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SEARCHING THE WEB
Search results
WEBSITE
List three types of information available
The Scotsman
1.
2.
3.
Daily Record
1.
2.
3.
BBC
1.
2.
3.
ITV
1.
2.
3.
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SEARCHING THE WEB
CH4
1.
2.
3.
Virgin Atlantic
1.
2.
3.
The Automobile Association
1.
2.
3.
The RAC
1.
2.
3.
Yellow Pages
1.
2.
3.
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SAQ ANSWERS
PART 3
? 1: Answers
1.
A server is a bigger, more powerful computer used to store information and run
programs for a network.
2.
WWW stands for the World Wide Web, a worldwide network of computers.
3.
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.
4.
A URL uniquely identifies a Web page and is used as an address to find it on the
WWW.
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