CHEM 500: Research Methods

By creating an IEEE Xplore account, you can save searches, create alerts, and save your search history.  When researching a specific field over a period of time, these tools can save you time.

To create your account:

In the upper right corner of IEEE Xplore, click the “Create Account”

On the pop up window, click the big orange button with the text “Create Account”

Fill in the form.

Click the big orange button with the text “Create Account”

To get to the personalization options:

In the bar below the branding, click on My Settings for these options:

• Alerts: Receive table of contents for your favorite IEEE Journals
• Saved Searches: Access search strategies that you have saved from previous searches
• Preferences: Change your preferences for search, display, download, and the email address for alerts
• Search History: Record your session history, and access again it in the future
• What Can I Access? Gives you details of what content is available to you in IEEE Xplore

Google Scholar

Once you have found results for a well targeted Google Scholar search, you can set up an Alert so every time new content is added in your research area, you receive an email notice.

From the search results page, scroll down to the bottom of the left navigation bar

Click the Create an Alert link

To make sure the Alert will be going to the correct email address, Click the Change Email tab and enter your preferred email address.

The name of the email Alert sent to you will automatically be your search statement. Click in the box and edit if you'd like the Alert to be called something else

You have the option of checking a box so Google Scholar will include additional less relevant results, i.e. materials that Google Scholar found that are close but missing some of one or more of your search parameters. This has the potential to increase your Alerts, and include more extraneous results that you may not want.

Click the Create Alert button

PubMed

PubMed will require you to log into a secondary account (ORCID, Google, Microsoft, etc.) before you can set up Alerts or an RSS feed.

Once you have done a search in PubMed and have the results list on the screen, you will see buttons to "Create Alert" and "Create RSS" right under your search box.

To set up an Alert

To set up an RSS Feed

1. Click the Create RSS button
2. Your RSS feed will automatically be named for your search unless you give it a different name
3. Click the Create RSS button
4. Click the Copy button to copy the link, then put it into your RSS Feed Reader

SciFinder

Once you have a completed a substance or reference search and have a set of results, you can tell SciFinder to Keep Me Posted (KMP). SciFinder will periodically rerun your search then send you an email if it finds new articles.

To set up a KMP Alert use the "Save and Alert" button in the right of the top navigation bar

You will receive a SciFinder-n Alert Results for References email automatically to notify you via email when new records on your topic become available.

Science Direct

Within Science Direct, you will need to be Registered using your Boise State email address and logged in before you can set up an Alert or an RSS Feed for a Journal or for a database search.

Setting up a JOURNAL Alert / RSS Feed:

Once you have searched for and found your Journal, Click on the Articles & Issues tab:

In the menu that drops down, look for links to:

• Set up an Alert - Automatically sets up an Alert to be emailed to you when new content is published in the Journal. The link changes to "Edit My Alert" if you already have an alert set up
• RSS - Gives you a link to copy into an RSS Reader so you receive regular feeds of content.

Setting up a SEARCH Alert:

Once you have done a search in Science Direct that is well targeted for your research topic, look in the left navigation bar. Right under the number of records retrieved by your search you'll see a link with a bell icon labeled "Set Search Alert"

Give your Alert a descriptive name that will clue you in to the nature of the new articles when you see the Alert. Select the frequency of the Alert (weekly or monthly) than click Save.