Module 2/Question 1

Describe your clinical problem and choice of electronic index.  How did the index facilitate (or impede) your ability to construct an efficient search?  How time consuming was your search?  Would there be barriers to using the index in daily practice?

I used PubMed to search for patients pain perceptions.  Pubmed is fairly user-friendly, however I do prefer to use CINAHL.  It was fairly time consuming because I had to change my search strategy a couple of times to get a big enough selection or articles to be helpful, but not thousands, which would be unmanageable.

The time consuming part of using PubMed is to figure out your search terms and then to look through the articles you find.  I like how there is an option to search for only full-text linked articles.  This is both user-friendly and time-saving.  I don't think I would use PubMed in my daily practice due to time constraints, but I would use it to look up topics that I may need more information or to write a research paper.  Of course this would be done after hours.  I like the up-to-date website for quick reference.  I use this in my daily practice for questions I come across and it has truly up-to-date information.

Module 2/Question 3

You used an electronic index, a guideline index, and a web search engine to retrieve information relevant to your clinical problem.  Compare and contrast your results.  Which resources were useful/not useful for your information retrieval task, and why?  Identify some alternative strategies for retrieving relevant information - would context relevant information retrieval be useful?

The guideline index was better at organizing the articles.  The electronic index was better at narrowing down, although EndNote does have the option to search through CINAHL, PubMed and Cochrane's Library, which is really helpful.  The web search engine isn't very helpful if you are looking for scientific information due to the fact that anyone can write whatever they want on the world wide web!  

I liked the options of searching from the electronic index and guideline index.  They both have their places and are both user-friendly.  I agree that context relevant information retrieval would be useful because it would allow you to search in a more specified context.  This would most likely be better and faster.     

Module 2/Question 2

What features in your chosen reference management software can be used to sort, classify, and otherwise organize references?  Describe software functionality that allows you to better organize and share information for efficient retrieval and use.

I used EndNote for my reference management.  I really like the option to have custom groups of topics that you can save in your library for future reference.  It also has the full text reference group, which is nice and the trash doesn't empty until you do it.  Which may come in handy if you were to inadvertently delete an article.  

The EndNote software is user-friendly and easy to manage.  It has a cite while you write function that automatically manages your bibliography when you insert a citation in a document.  This saves a lot of time and headache.  In the library, you can have very specific groups that you can easily reference in a pinch.