Thing 7: Finding resources

Working through this Thing will help you find trusted, relevant and reliable resources online.

Open Badge Information

Open Badge: SSSC 23 Things Digital – Thing 7: Finding Resources

Counts towards: SSSC 23 Things Digital – Resource Hunter

Introduction

When looking for information and resources online the first port of call for most people is Google. Google searches are a great way of finding information quickly, however it’s not always the best way to find reliable, trustworthy material which is relevant to your learning and practice.

Instructions

a) Social Service Knowledge Scotland (SSKS)

The Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS) logo, which links to the SSKS website.

SSKS is a specialist online library provided for the social service workforce in Scotland by NHS Education for Scotland. It is an online library, where you can find articles, books, journals and other relevant documents to support your practice and learning.

Some of this material is accessible without logging in; however to read some academic journal articles, you need to create an OpenAthens account.

Follow the instructions on the SSKS Open Athens registration page to create an account for yourself.

b) Find a resource

The SSKS library can also be searched via the Care Inspectorate Hub Research Resources and Skills page.  Click on the “Social Services Knowledge Scotland Library” to open the search box, and find an article, document or other resource which is relevant to your practice or that you are interested in.

c) Google

If you do use Google to search for work-related resources and learning, we recommend trying an advanced search. An advanced search enables you to refine your results to only include results updated in the last day, week, month or year.

Remember that there are no guarantees of the quality, reliability and provenance of documents found via a Google search.

d) Blog

Write a blog post reflecting on using the SSKS website, the article or other resource you found and how it relates to your practice. Also include a reflection on your experience of using Google advanced search.

Image credit: Magnifying glass with focus on glass by Niabot is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.