Professional Practice
Skills
PPS-24 Self-Directed Learning
Locating and Filtering
Information
(Adapted from MPS 36,
Pre-class assignment
What is It?
Locating and filtering information
is the skill of being able to quickly find and select the useful nuggets of information
from the vast mountain of available information.
New Concepts
Why Do It?
Time is a
precious resource both on and off the job.
Information searches can be huge time sinks.
How to Do It
We start by
assuming that you are doing reactive learning (PPS-23) and have a topic in
mind. To learn what you need you
Where to Look?
First you
should know what types of information are relevant to engineering, and who
might have them. What follows are listings
of
Written Resource
Categories
|
Category |
Examples |
|
Codes,
Standards, Regulations |
ASME
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Mil Specs, FDA, UL, ASTM |
|
Handbooks |
Marks
Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Metals Handbook, Machinery Handbook |
|
Textbooks |
See your
bookshelves |
|
Journals
(Technical) |
ASME
Journals (not ME magazine) |
|
Journals
(Trade), Periodicals |
Machine
Design, Design News, DesignFax |
|
|
|
Producers/Publishers
of information
|
Source |
Category |
|
Governments |
Regulations,
Standards, Laws, Patents |
|
Professional
Societies (ASME, SAE, ASHRAE, ASM) |
Handbooks,
Codes and Standards, Journals, Conferences, Short Courses |
|
Trade
Groups |
Handbooks,
Trade Journals, Design Guides |
|
Vendors |
Design
Data and Design Guides |
|
Co-workers |
Expertise
specific to your company |
|
Publishing
Companies |
Handbooks,
Textbooks, Technical Journals, Trade Journals |
|
Schools |
Short
courses, On-line courses Books, Journals |
Compilers/Cataloguers
of information
|
Category |
Examples |
|
WWW
(World Wide Web) |
A
Meta-source or a place to find the other sources. Search engines such as Google or AlltheWeb
are usually the way in. Free after
internet access |
|
Libraries |
Collect
and distribute information in both hard copy and electronic form. Don’t forget your company library. Usually
free. |
|
Journal
Indexes/Abstracts |
These are
searchable compilations of mostly technical journals. Fee for service or use through a library. |
|
Thomas
Register |
Nationwide
catalogue of vendors. Electronic
version is searchable. Mix of free and
fee. |
|
Co-workers |
There is
lots of information in co-workers brains.
Sort of free. |
|
|
|
What are you looking for?
This
question addresses more than topic. It
also addresses depth and type of knowledge.
We’ll use four questions. The
answers to the questions help filter out entire categories of information. The questions are
What MUST I know to be
Safe, Legal, Ethical?
If we are looking for constraints (must criteria) on our
design, the first place to get information is the category of Codes, Standards,
and Regulation. If you are designing
boilers or pressure vessels, you will need to dive into the ASME Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code. It has been given
the force of law in many states. If you
are dealing with medical device, the FDA is the source of important
information. For a military customer,
Mil Specs are the standard. Many devices
need UL approval before a company is willing to put them on the market
(Deep-fat turkey fryers are an exception.
Caveat emptor.)
If you want to cover your legal/safety issues, you need to
research who writes standards for that item.
Your company or trade association is a place to ask about the relevant
regulatory bodies. The Web is a good place
to find companies who sell copies of the standards.
Do I need a Teacher?
Alternate phrasings of this question are Should I take and on-line course, short
course, or seminar to learn the material?
Arguments for
·
Teachers
organize the information/skills, present the information/skills, and assess the
learner.
·
Formal
courses can provide motivation, access to equipment, and access to expertise. Learning skills, such as use of software or
hardware, often works best in the medical residency approach of, See one, Do one, Teach one. For those kind of skills, a teacher who has
done this stuff before can be very helpful.
Arguments against
·
Formal
courses usually occur at times and locations that are inconvenient.
·
The
organization and presentation of knowledge probably doesn’t focus on your
specific needs. You can get generic
organization, presentation, and assessment from textbooks or published course
syllabi and notes.
·
People
in my organization may be able to demonstrate use of software or equipment.
What Depth of
Knowledge is Needed?
Consider a two day short course on a Finite Element Analysis
Software program presented by the vendor.
This is probably an excellent opportunity to get you up to speed on
using all the controls, but it will not make you an expert on the use of finite
elements. It would be like a two day
short course on how to fly a small plane.
When you try to solo, you’ll end up in the
Before starting, decide what level of knowledge or skill is
needed (Some discussion of depth of knowledge occurs in PPS-27 Assessing
Learning). We look at two categories,
·
Overview
Knowledge (when you are just starting)
·
Digging
Deep (latest and greatest)
Overview Knowledge (when you are just starting)
If you are just starting in a topic, you want to get a big
picture and know what the important topics are.
Textbooks and handbooks are a good place to start for this. Neither is that much fun to read, but both
tend to provide you with a good overview of the topics in the area.
Handbooks and textbooks tend to provide solid unbiased
information, especially if they are published by professional organizations or
major publishers. None of them is
perfect, and the data that they print should only be used for preliminary design
calculations.
Textbooks and handbooks are poor sources of the most current
information. They also tend to present all topics at the same level, so you may
not be able to tell which topics represent common practice and which of the
topics are more specialized or fringe areas.
To get closer to current and common practice information, you head
toward publications by trade groups, publications by vendors, or current
technical journals.
Digging Deep (latest
and greatest)
Once you have the big picture and want to delve more deeply,
you can graduate from textbooks to journals.
It is time to turn you bullshit filter to high, since publications by
single authors, trade groups, or vendors are likely to be incomplete or have
significant bias.
Trade journals are published by people who are promoting
something. They may be published by
trade groups (collections of companies in the same business like Metal Powder
Industries Federation or the Nickel Development Institute) or by publishing
groups who make their money from advertisers (Machine Design, DesignFax).
Publications by trade groups or trade associations tend to
be solid collections of information about their field, but they aren’t going to
tell you many positive things about competitors (they may not even mention or
competing products).
Magazines like Machine Design or Design Fax print
interesting and timely articles that both review current practice and introduce
the latest technologies. Some of the
articles are barely modified news releases by manufacturers, some are how-to
articles by experts and some are reviews by magazine staff. You are unlikely to see anything that would
offend an advertiser.
Technical Journals are referred (pre-checked for worthiness
by peers) and are reasonably reliable with respect to honest intent. Many are highly specialized, very detailed in
a narrow facet of the field, and difficult to read by the novice. Much of the information goes beyond current
practice into the area of possible future practice. Occasionally, a good “review article” appears
that summarizes the current state of the field.
These review articles are wonderful for the learner who is transitioning
from books to technical journals. You
may luck into one on your own (especially if it has review in the title), but
this is a good time to ask an expert in the field if you know one.
Vendors are often selling the latest and greatest. They can be excellent (though biased) sources
of design data, design techniques, and skill training. They are often the least expensive forms of
education, since they want your business.
If you are getting all your information from one vendor, your viewpoint
is probably distorted.
How to Look (Practical Aspects)
When
starting an information search, many college students start by logging onto the
Web and going to a search engine like Google or AlltheWeb. This is a good place to go, but sometimes you
miss things.
Many people
use search engines at a low level. If
you go to the advanced search area of an engine like AlltheWeb, you can use
Boolean logic to improve your search.
Even without formal instruction in Boolean operators, most engineers
quickly adapt to use of AND, OR, NOT commands to help narrow searches.
The
compilers/catagoguers of information are another logical starting point. For example, the Library Home Page at
Rose-Hulman (http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Library/)
can get you to search engines, journal indexes, on-line textbooks, and on-line
journals. The journal indexes are
particularly useful for in-depth information.
Finally,
the table below shows some good compiler/catagloguers for particular topics.
|
Topic |
Place to Start |
|
Codes and
Standards |
HIS sells
print and electronic copies of many standards http://www.ihs.com/index.html , http://global.ihs.com/ |
|
Patents |
The |
|
Vendors |
Thomas
Register is a nationwide “yellow pages” for vendors http://www.thomasregister.com/ |
|
Journal
Index |
Compendex
(via ei-village) using Rose library |
Some
producer/publishers are good sources for specific topics, especially those for
which you want to find vendors.
Professional societies and trade groups usually have written resources
and links to vendors are on their sites.
In-Class Exercise
Exercise 1
Form into groups of 2-4
Exercise 2
Form into groups of 2-4
Exercise 3
For the surviving hypotheses from
Exercise 2
Feedback Form
Name _______________________
1.
At
the outset of this unit, place a “B” in each category to indicate your self
assessment of your initial, or baseline skill level.
2.
At
the end of the unit place an “A” in each category to indicate your self
assessment of your skill level after practicing the skill. Be prepared to provide documentation for your
assessment.
|
Novice (less successful) |
Beginner (shows few expert behaviors) (1-2) |
Good Start (some expert behavior) (3-4) |
Getting There (many expert behaviors) (5-6) |
Almost There (mostly expert behavior) (7-8) |
Expert (shows all expert behavior) (9-10) |
Expert (more successful) |
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Reflection of the Listener
What did I
learn from this?
Which of
the skills do I do pretty well? (List
Evidence)
Which skills could use some work?
(List Evidence)