Skip to Main Content

ICT guide

This guide helps students and teachers to find information on subject areas in Information and Communication Technology.

Thesauri and subject terms

TOP thesauri and dictionaries in your field

Subject search

Focus the search with subject terms

  • In subject search, the agreed vocabulary terms, in other words, thesaurus is used
  • The search only targets words that describe the content of the publication in the database's subject field 
  • Accurate search if the relevant word you choose covers your topic well
  • Useful and effective in a wide range of data, such as a large article database.

Enable different vocabularies and thesauri and enhance your search. You can find thesauri online, as well as in the connection of some databases..

Information seeking is a smart use of appropriate words, not information technology!

  • find concepts related to your topic
  • look for exact terms as well as wider entities
  • also note other alternative or similar concepts

Watch the video: Find search words from thesauri

How to combine search terms?

Use Boolean operators:

  • AND (narrow) use when you want ALL search terms must appear in resulting publication or document. 

boolen AND-operaattori

For example,with terms students AND well-being you will find information on students' well-being .
 

  • OR (broaden) use when you want ANY of your search terms must appear in resulting publication or document.

    boolen OR-operaattori
  • For example, search query well-being OR "life quality" OR welfare broadens the search and produces many results.

     

  • NOT (narrow) use when you want to exclude word(s) from your resulting publication or document.

    boolen NOT-operaattori

    For example, search query students NOT "open university" excludes the last word from results.