Welcome
Welcome to the ECE Senior Design subject guide. This guide covers resources available to you for researching the technical literature. Some tabs also give some tips for searching library databases.
Freely Available Article Databases
This database is provided free of charge to all (it is not limited to Boise State University students, staff & faculty), though the full-text content may depend on your institutional access, and your location.
- Google ScholarThe purpose of Google Scholar is to help researchers find scholarly information on the Internet. Google is working with several publishers to access their databases of publications, plus searching sites known to include scholarly literature. Results include journal articles, theses, books, preprints, technical reports, and other publications. The results may lead to the full-text of a resource, or to an abstract of a resource. Availability of the full-text of some sources is dependant on the institution’s access to that publisher’s material. The search engine also extracts citations from works cited in the resources indexed, leading to references that are not available full-text online. Under Scholar Preferences you can enable the Boise State University Albertsons Library "Find it" link.
Article Databases
Periodical Articles and Conference Papers
New developments and current research are often first presented as conference papers and/or periodical articles. You will also find product reviews, descriptions of methodology, or information on innovations in or applications of particular processes, systems and devices. The following are indexes, abstracts or full-text repositories which access this literature:
- ACM Digital Library A repository of materials published by ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, this database includes the full text of journal, magazine, transactions, and conference proceedings titles; ACM materials will display the ACM logo to the left of the citation.
- Applied Science and Technology Full Text (1983-current w/abstracts since 1994)Best source for finding product reviews and news related (engineering) information. Indexes articles in 800 English-language periodicals. The print version, Applied Science and Technology Index, is available from 1958-2000 at TA 1 .I5, with an earlier title, Industrial Arts Index, available 1913-1957, with some missing issues.
- Compendex and INSPEC (1896-current) Both indexes are good sources for current and past research.
INSPEC covers over 4000 serials on topics in electrical engineering, physics, computers and control, and manufacturing. Although periodical articles and conference papers (1896-current) are the primary materials covered, some books, dissertations and reports are also included.
Compendex covers periodical articles and conference papers for all engineering disciplines, from 1969-current. Over 5000 serials are included.
Compendex, INSPEC and GEOBASE are searched jointly on the Engineering Village Platform.
Reviews: Using the QuickSearch interface, there are options for limiting your search below the search text boxes. First, uncheck the box on the left of GEOBASE. From the "Treatment Types" limit box, choose "General Review". - IEEE XploreThis repository contains full-text materials published by IEEE, the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, and IET, the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) includes full-text access to IEEE Society-sponsored transactions and conference proceedings, IEEE/Wiley books, IET proceedings journals, IET conference proceedings and IEEE Standards.
- ScienceDirect (1997-current)Contains articles from over 1700 journals published by Elsevier. Although the content is multi-disciplinary, the primary focus is science, engineering and medicine. Table of contents information is available for publication years before 1997.
Reviews: Select Advanced Search and the Journals tab, scroll past the search boxes to "limit by document type", check the box to the left of "Review Article". - Web of Science (1900-current)This index includes article information from approximately 8,500 journals in sciences, engineering, social sciences, arts and humanities. A unique feature of this index is the cited reference search, which searches for the articles that have cited a particular author’s work, or a specific article.
Reviews: On one of the lines of paired boxes, choose "Document Type" from the drop-down menu on the right. This brings up selections in the box to the left; select "Review".
Dissertations
Although not an "article", dissertations usually contain extensive literature reviews which place the topic of the dissertation into a historical context and/or give the state of current research in the area. These literature reviews are a rich source of articles and other published materials relating to the dissertation topic and related areas.
- Dissertations and ThesesProvides coverage for 2.4 million dissertations from colleges and universities around the world, and some coverage of master’s theses. Full text is available for titles dated 1997 and after.
Your Librarian |
 Beth Brin Contact Info Reference/ Instruction Librarian Albertsons Library Boise State University 1910 University Drive Boise, ID 83725-1430 Office: L 217C Phone: (208) 426-3136 bbrin@boisestate.edu Send Email Links: Profile & Guides |
ECE 480 Activity docs
- ECE 480 Google Doc for Acivity 1 & 2Activity to explore the characteristics of databases with engineering content.
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