is available to students and staff of Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences.
You will need different kinds of information and different sources of information for your studies at the university of applied sciences. Your information needs determine the type of information you need, the type of publication, and the type of information source. When evaluating the results of your information search, consider not only the content, but also the type of publication and the publisher of the information.
| Type of information | Type of publication | Publisher of information | Search tool | Currency of information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professional information | Non-fiction books, textbooks, handbooks, manuals, professional magazines and professional news and blogs | Universities of applied sciences, commercial publishers, organisations, local and state authorities | SEAMK-Finna, Finna.fi, Tiedejatutkimus.fi |
Some information remains unchanged, some quickly becomes outdated |
| Research-based information |
Dissertations, peer-reviewed research publications, reports, peer-reviewed articles in edited volumes |
Universities, universities of applied sciences, research organizations, state authorities | SEAMK-Finna, Finna.fi, Journal.fi, Valto, databases for different fields |
Some information remains unchanged, some quickly becomes outdated |
| Official information | Laws, legal acts, development programmes, reports, standards and regulations | State authorities, the Finnish Parliament and Ministries |
Finlex, SFS Online, Valto |
Some of the information is changing, updating quickly |
| Statistical information | Statistics, key figures, indicators and comparative data | State authorities, research organizations, non-profit organization, Statistics Finland | Statistics Finland, Statista, Sotkanet |
Some of the information is changing, updating quickly |
Read more about information evaluation in the guide section Evaluation and use of resources.
If you wish to succeed in finding information, it's crucial to know the best sources and find good search terms.
Information seeking process includes several phases, which overlap each other depending on the topic and its degree of complexity.
| SeAMK-Finna | Databases | Google Scholar | Microsoft Copilot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use when |
you are looking for a good starting point for your information search. searching for books required for courses at SeAMK and other materials selected from the perspective of teaching and research at SeAMK. searching for printed or electronic material from the SeAMK Library's collections. you need professional or scholarly information on your topic. you want inspiration for your topic. |
searching for Finnish or international reliable and peer-reviewed material, such as e-books, e-journals and their articles. you want to conduct systematic information retrieval and utilise the rich search features of databases.
|
searching for scholarly articles, for example. searching for open access scholarly publications online. searching for the most recent information that may not be available elsewhere. |
you want to orient yourself on a topic. you want ideas on a topic or to formulate it.. you want to generate ideas for keywords and to find synonyms. you want to search for databases relevant to your topic. |
| Note that |
you should learn the search features of the search service to get better search results. SeAMK-Finna also contains open online material.
international e-material search will find a large number of full-text articles and other open access material, but also references where full text is not available. |
databases generally require user rights. the databases purchased by the SeAMK Library can be found in the E-library and SeAMK-Finna and are accessible by SeAMK students and staff members. there are general databases and subject-specific databases. databases are suitable for systematic information retrieval. databases generally provide full text access to articles and other material. you should learn the search features of a database so that you can use it effectively and get better search results. |
the result also includes articles behind the paywall.
when using Google Scholar outside the SeAMK computer network, you should add SeAMK Library links to your Google Scholar settings. This will allow you to see full-text links to articles that are available through e-resources at SeAMK. Log in to your Google account and select settings from the hamburger menu. Click on Library Links, type SeAMK in the search box and select ReadFullText@SeAMK. you can have results for both peer-reviewed published articles and non-peer-reviewed manuscript versions, and it can be difficult to distinguish between them. the search language affects the search results, for example, searching in Finnish will return mostly theses and dissertations. |
there are usually several versions of the same article available. the corporate version of Copilot is available for the students and staff at SeAMK. The use of the corporate version of Copilot is recommended at SeAMK, as it does not share the data provided and protects corporate information. The corporate version of Copilot can also be accessed via the Edge browser sidebar. the Semantic Scholar, Elicit and Keenious AI tools presented in this guide are particularly suitable for searching academic articles. the search results are the outcome of a large dataset, so they can include material ranging from discussion groups to research articles. information sources provided by AI should always be checked. large language models are mainly trained on English data, so they may contain culture-specific values, opinions and biases. AI may not be able to find the most recent information because it is not included in its data. AI is constantly being developed and is evolving rapidly, so it is necessary to check whether, for example, new features can be used in teaching, learning and research. you should always follow the teacher's instructions on the use of AI in your course. you are always responsible for the accuracy, copyright and ethics of any content you create using AI. you must express your use of AI in your presentations and written work. |
