Library

For the web-wise student, lecturer or researcher, the Internet offers a vast database of information. If you haven't used the internet before, or merely dabbled, it is worth spending some time learning how to use it effectively.

TONIC is an easy-to-understand, practical guide to using the Internet produced by Netskills. Access is free, but register first to track your progress as you work through tutorials.

If you are familiar with the internet, but would like to improve your search skills, try the Intute Virtual Training Suite - this excellent site offers free online, interactive, tutorials which will help you improve your Internet information skills. What marks this site out from the crowd is the subject specific nature of the tutorials: Internet for Agriculture, Food & Forestry being one of numerous subjects covered.

Whilst using your newly acquired net-skills you will discover that there is a vast amount of information on the Internet: ranging in quality from the peer reviewed to the downright misleading. If you would like to equip yourself with the skills to sort the wheat from the chaff, set aside some time to try Internet Detective - an online, interactive, tutorial which will help you to develop skills to evaluate the quality of the information you find on the Internet.

One way of ensuring that the information you find on the Internet is of a high quality is to use a subject-specific Gateway. A Gateway is a catalogue of Internet resource  which have been selected by specialists in a particular subject area.  Intute uses a network of specialists to evaluate websites in all subject areas.

Finally, if all this surfing has given you an appetite to enter the world of Web authoring, useful resources and tutorials are provided at HTML Goodies.