Expert: The expert level skills would be expected to be developed by the end of a final year undergraduate or taught postgraduate programme.
Expert level skills are essential for Masters level study and beyond. You will be researching independently across topics of your own choice as well as studying modules with pre-set assignment questions.
You should be developing skills that enable you to:
- Search independently and systematically across a broad range of resources and information sources.
- Understand why complex search strategies make a difference to the breadth and depth of the information you find.
- Use more advanced search techniques and database functionality, such as the use of nesting, proximity searching, limiting to specific data fields as well as using Boolean operators.
- Understand and use controlled vocabularies (where available) and use them to improve your searches on subject databases.
- Use citation searching effectively.
- Know when to revise search strategies according to the resources being used and the results being found.
- Use external resources and services to obtain materials from beyond the University library if required. For example, SCONUL Access scheme, Inter Library Loans, Jisc Library Hub Discover and the use of specialist collections and archives.
