Contents

Journals and e-journals

Conference proceedings

Standards

Patents

Product information

Technical reports

World Wide Web materials

Official  publications and statistics

Legislation

Visual images, maps and plans

Business and financial data

Information from professional bodies

Theses

Research in progress

Jobs and careers information

About this module

This module covers the primary sources used by engineers, including academic journals and conference proceedings, patents and standards, and a range of practice-oriented literature such as standards, technical reports and product information.

These sources are highly varied and there is often overlap between them. It's important to be as clear as possible about your information needs. 

This module is largely an information resource. You are not expected to learn and remember all these topics. Each unit explains what the information type is, why it is worth using, what its limitations are, and how to find such information. In some cases there are activities in which you can practice finding the information, and all units contain links to a number of WWW sites which give access to relevant materials. You can start browsing through the module using the Contents menu on the left of the page. There's a pop-up menu on all the other pages which allows you to go to any of the items in the contents without coming back to this page. 

Aims of the module

These are the module's teaching aims. Students should be able to:

1. Understand and evaluate the range of primary sources available to them

2. Access these sources