The Internet can be a powerful tool in your effort to develop and implement IT solutions for your business problems. Whether you want news about the latest privacy policy or e-commerce applications, a comparison of available software packages, or contacts in other government agencies, the Internet is the place to look. Developing your ability to quickly and easily search the Web will allow you to tap into its vast resources. Search the Internet to identify other organizations 0that are solving problems similar to yours. Try to take these examples apart to see if the way you are thinking is on track. Compare the example with your project. Look for dissimilar organizations with similar problems, as there is often a lot to be learned here. Finally, think about the technologies or management methods that might be useful in your project and search for organizations that are known to use them well. This kind of investigation is designed to leverage your research effort with known experience from a variety of other places.

Using search engines. Web searching involves using Internet search engines to locate pertinent information about a given topic. Using various key words and phrases, these sites search the Internet for Web sites, publications, listservs, and other resources about your topic. The Internet is also a valuable source and may actually yield more useful information than a library search in terms of identifying people and organizations working on IT implementations or specific business problems. Information found on the Internet may also be more current than those journal references that have gone through a lengthy review process. Many Web pages often provide direct e-mail access to the source of the information, making it easy to contact them. The search capabilities of these engines are constantly enhanced. Take advantage of what technology has to offer and let the Web work for you.

Listserv searches. A listserv is a subscription-based electronic mailing list where individuals who share similar interests can post and respond to messages. Relevant listservs and their respective subscription instructions can be identified through Web-based searches. A posting to a listserv asking for information on a specific business problem or technology is a very effective and low-cost way of reaching a large targeted audience. If you are unfamiliar with the codes of conduct in using listservs, either subscribe to the list and watch for a while before your first posting, or refer to one of the many resources available that discuss "netiquette."

Finding best/current practices. Use the Web to find out how other organizations dealt with problems similar to the ones you want to solve. Groups like to publicize their successes. Online magazines, newsletters, and journals often contain success stories and case studies.

Identifying contacts. The Internet is a good way to locate other government and IT professionals who can be great sources of advice and inspiration. Use search results to identify knowledgeable people you should talk to. Most web sites include contact information. Get in touch with these professionals by e-mail or phone and interview them about their experiences.

Information technology options. All kinds of hardware and software are available to fix business problems. By conducting a Web search, you can get information about all the different technology options available to you. You can arm yourself with the knowledge to make informed choices.

Write a good query. The information you get out of a Web search is only as good as your query. You must write a targeted and well-defined search query in order to locate relevant resources.

Variability of results. Since search engine databases vary in size, frequency of updates, and search capabilities, using different engines can lead to results that vary considerably.

Information quality and accuracy. Anyone can create a Web site and fill it with whatever content they wish. It's important to make sure you know the source of information you access on the Internet. Try to find data from recognized and respected institutions, such as universities, corporations, government agencies, media publications, and professional organizations.

Formulate your query. Take a few minutes to think about your problem or goal. Try to break it into key elements or sub-topics. Write down a series of words or phrases that describe your topic using different synonyms. Also think about issues that are associated with your goal. This will help you develop a more comprehensive picture of the issue that has some reasonable limits.

Conduct a broad Internet search. Start by accessing some of the major search engines and use different keywords and word combinations. Once you have searched a topic, narrow your results by searching within the search results or formulating a more advanced query. Remember how easy it is to follow link after link as you pursue a lead until you have forgotten where you started. Have a pencil and paper handy to keep track of the sites you visit. Use the bookmark feature of your browser to easily return to the most useful ones later.

Search within discussion groups. Don't forget to search the discussion groups of main search engines to see if the issues you are interested in have been debated within these groups.

Join listservs. Look for a listserv corresponding to the subject you are researching. Subscribe to it and use this forum to ask who knows about or has had experience with your issue. Regularly monitor lists that seem to provide good ongoing discussion of your topic.

The results you get from a search on the Web are only as good as your query. By using the following tips to write a query, you may get more targeted and useful results.

Quotation marks. If you are looking for an exact phrase or group of words, such as American Marketing Association for example, make sure to use quotation marks: "American Marketing Association." Otherwise, the engine will search each word separately.

AND. Use AND (uppercase) when you want to make sure your results contain two terms. If you use AND in your query, the search engine will retrieve only documents that contain both words.

OR. Search your subject using different synonyms to maximize your chances of getting results. Using OR (uppercase) will allow you to enter several synonyms for the search engine to use as it will retrieve any of the words you typed.

+Sign. Some search engines will ignore short words included in a query, such as: in, of, a, out, with. Using the plus sign will ensure that all words are searched. For example if your search is: women in government, make sure to type: +women +in +government.

- Sign. Use the minus sign if you want to make sure your results won't contain a certain word. For example, if you are looking for information on marketing strategy but do not want to get results from consulting companies, you can type: +marketing +strategy --consulting.

* Sign. You can use the star sign to truncate a word. For example, if you are looking for marketing consultants or marketing consulting companies, you can type: +marketing +consult* and the search engine will retrieve results with any word starting with consult.

Combination. You can use a combination of signs or words to do your search by putting terms in parenthesis. For example, you can type (American or U.S.) AND presidency.

A detailed overview of how to conduct Internet research: http://www.tbchad.com/resrch.html [Accessed June 27, 2003]

We've found the following search engines to be particularly helpful:

Alta Vista: www.altavista.com

Yahoo: www.yahoo.com

Google: www.google.com

Hotbot: www.hotbot.com

Teoma: www.teoma.com

The following metasearch engines, which provide more extensive coverage by searching simultaneously in several of the largest search engines' databases, have proven to be useful:

Debriefing: http://www.debriefing.com

Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com

Profusion: http://www.profusion.com

Ask Jeeves: http://www.askjeeves.com