INTERNET CONCEPTS

MODULE 1
An introduction to Internet concepts and using Internet resources.

1. Introduction to the Internet

This workbook accompanies the PowerPoint presentation intended to introduce you
to Internet concepts. The workbook will guide you through exercises whilst conne
cted to the Internet.
2. A Network of Information Networks
The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. The comp
uters and computer networks exchange information using TCP/IP (Transmission Cont
rol Protocol/Internet Protocol) to communicate with each other. The computers ar
e connected via the telecommunications networks, and the Internet can be used fo
r e-mailing, transferring files and accessing information on the World Wide Web.
Examples of information networks connected by the Internet include those of libr
aries, hospitals, research centres, government departments and universities. It
is possible to connect to local organisations as well as those on national and i
nternational networks. For example the WHO Library is an international organisat
ion with an internet address http://www.who.int/library/.

2.1. Development
The Internet was initially developed to allow computers to share scientific and
military information and was known as ARPANET in the late 1960s. Further develop
ment was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the 1980s to develop
internet communications to link several university computing departments. In 19
89 Tim Berners-Lee and others working at CERN proposed a new communications prot
ocol for information transfer. This technology was based on a hypertext system a
nd lead to the development of the World Wide Web in the 1990s.
2.2. The World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of internet servers that use HTTP (Hypertext Tran
sfer Protocol) to transfer documents formatted in HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Langua
ge). These are viewed by using software for web browsers such as Netscape and In
ternet Explorer. Hypertext enables a document to be connected to other documents
on the web through hyperlinks. It is possible to move from one document to anot
her by using hyperlinked text found within web pages.
The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the global address of documents and other
resources on the web e.g. http://www.who.int. The first part of the address indi
cates which protocol to use e.g. http. The second part of the address identifies
the domain name or the internet address where the information is located.
The address bar is the toolbar displayed at the top of the screen when you open
the internet browser.

Exercise 1
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Type http://www.who.int/library/ into the address box in the toolbar at the top
of the screen.
 Click on “GO” or hit the Return key.
The home page of the WHO Library should open.
Now type http://www.who.int into the address box.
Click on “GO” or hit the Return key
WHO website will open.

3. Navigating web pages

Most web pages contain links to further information or other web pages. Often th
ese links are highlighted in a different colour and may be underlined. Links can
also be displayed as pictures or graphics. You will notice that as you move the
mouse cursor over a link the cursor changes to a hand shape. If you select the
link by clicking on it you will be taken to a new web page.
You can navigate backwards and forwards to web pages that you have visited by us
ing the Back and Forward arrows on the toolbar.
There may also be navigation buttons or links running across the top and down th
e left-hand side of the web page you have visited.
The house icon on the shortcut toolbar will take you back to the default home pa
ge of the browser.
Exercise 2
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Now type http://www.who.int into the address box.
Click on “GO” or hit the Return key
WHO website will open.
Click on the link to Research tools in the left- hand navigation bar.
Click on one of the hyperlinks on the research tools page.
A new page opens. Use the Back button on the browser toolbar to get back to WHO
home page.

4. Searching the Internet

The Internet contains a vast amount of information covering a wide variety of to
pics. It hosts library catalogues, articles, news items, reports, multimedia, re
ference information, company information and personal opinions.
The information is created from many different sources including academic instit
utions, government agencies, professional organisations, commercial information
and individuals.
Some of the information found on the Internet may be organised in directories wh
ere the information has been designated to a particular category or file in a st
ructured way. For example this may be in a general directory such as those on ht
tp://www.yahoo.com or it may be in a directory which covers a specific subject
such as health.
4.1. Search engines
A search engine is a useful tool for locating information on the web. The search
engine program identifies and visits web pages on the World Wide Web. It gather
s information and automatically indexes the site. Any words found on the web pag
es visited by the search engine are stored in the search engine database. When y
ou search the web for a topic the key words are matched to the information found
on the web pages visited by the search engine.
Examples of individual search engines can be found at http://www.google.com or h
ttp://sp.ask.com .
Meta search engines use their own program and interface to search numerous searc
h engine databases simultaneously. They can give you a broad idea of which searc
h engines hold information on your subject.
Examples of meta search engines can be found at http://www.metacrawler.com or h
ttp://www.dogpile.com

There is also a part of the web which is not easily seen and indexed by search e
ngines - this is the invisible or deep web. It may consist of databases and info
rmation from institutions such as universities and research organisations.

5. Search techniques
It is possible to search World Wide Web using simple search interfaces or to use
more advanced features. Each search engine may have slightly different features
so it is always a good idea to check which are appropriate to the one you are u
sing.
It is possible to use full Boolean searching using the AND, OR , NOT operators.
The AND operator can be used to combine two concepts, to find items containing a
ll your search terms, or to narrow the search down and make it more specific e.
g. malaria AND parasite.
The OR operator can be used to keep the search broad and find information contai
ning one or other of your terms e.g. malaria OR parasite.
If you only want to find items containing one term and not the other term use NO
T to exclude these items e.g. parasite NOT malaria.
5.1. Advanced searching
The following advanced techniques may be used:
• Truncation- a symbol such as * or $ is inserted to find all alternative endings
of a word e.g. child* finds child, children, childhood etc. This can broaden the
search.
• Proximity searching- it may be possible to use NEXT or NEAR or parentheses e.g.
(malaria parasite) to increase the specificity of your search.
Case sensitivity- some search engines are case sensitive and will only find item
s spelled exactly as you type them e.g. if you use uppercase any items in lower
case spelling may be ignored.
5.2. Field searching
It is possible to search in specific fields such as looking for a title, date or
URL in some search engines.

6. Evaluating information found on the Internet or World Wide Web

Whilst it is possible to retrieve useful information from searching the Internet
it is also important to remember that anyone can write information and publish
web pages.
All information should be evaluated using criteria such as:
• Accuracy
• Authority
• Currency
• Coverage
• Objectivity
A useful link to evaluating health information can be found at http://www.nlm.ni
h.gov/medlineplus/evaluatinghealthinformation.html
7. Health Information on the Internet
There are numerous health information resources available on the Internet. There
are health directories such as http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/Medicine/ and search
able databases such as OMNI available at http://omni.ac.uk/ .
Many governments make health information databases available as do international
organisations such as WHO.

Exercise 3
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Now type http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hinfo.html into the address box.
Click on “GO” or hit the Return key
The National Library of Medicine database on the health information website will
open.
There is a search box in the right hand corner. You can search the site using th
is.

Exercise 4
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Now type http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl into the address box.
Click on “GO” or hit the Return key
The Highwire Press website with free journals will open.
You can access journals from the list.

There are other journals freely available on the Internet.

• Try typing in http://www.freemedicaljournals.com .This site lists journals sites
that make content freely available. Journals are listed by A-Z, speciality and
language.
• If you go to http://www.biomedcentral.com you will access the BioMed Central web
site. BioMed Central is an open access publisher; published articles are freely
available on the Internet as the author pays BioMed to publish them. The article
s may be scrutinised to evaluate the information published.
• PubMed Central is a free archive of articles deposited in the PubMed repository
and can be found at http://www.pubmedcentral.com .
The Internet also hosts many publisher sites for which you have to subscribe or
pay a fee in order to access published information. These include electronic jou
rnals, reference collections, databases and electronic text books.
8. Managing Internet resources
If you find internet sites which are interesting and useful you can use the book
mark feature on the browser tool bar in Netscape or add them to your “favorites” in
Internet Explorer. You can click on the tool bar button and you will be given an
option to save the website hyperlink. You can give the website a name and this
will be retained in a list for when you next visit the site. To revisit the site
you then click on the “favorite” or “bookmark” and you will be taken directly to the si
te.
Exercise 5
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Now type http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hinfo.html into the address box.
 Click on “GO” or hit the Return key
The National Library of Medicine database on the health information website will
open.
Now click on Bookmark or Favorites and you will be prompted to name it and add i
t to your list. Do this.
Close down the browser, then reopen it.
Click on bookmark or favorites and select the link: The National Library of Medi
cine should open.

9. Find out more!

You have now reached the end of this workbook and should be ready to progress to
the other modules.