Information search and analysis, Patents by Johan

Question 1

Explain what is meant by secondary research and exemplify the information sources that can be used

Answer 1

?

Question 2

Compile information about ad assess the state-of-the-art in a particular technological domain or application area

Answer 2

?

Question 3

what is primary information sources?

Answer 3

Information you gather yourself direct from customer, users etc.

1. interviews
2. observations
3. customer visits
4. focus groups

Question 4

What is secondary information?

Answer 4

Information gathered b someone else for another purpose but nevertheless useful for you

1. consus bureau statics
2. journals
3. company websight
4. trade magazines

Question 5

What is the aim of secondary search and how should it be performed?

Answer 5

Secondary information search aims to arrive at a conclusion about the state of knowledge on a topic based on a rigorous and unbiased overview of all the research that has been undertaken on that topic

It should be
— systematic
— rigorous
— repeatable

Question 6

What can well-performed secondary information search lead to?

Answer 6

1. better informed design decision or other decisions
2. improve the results from primary information search
3. saves money — In comparison with research carried out with primary information

Question 7

Pitfalls with secondary search?

Answer 7

1. Information skills demonstrated in other areas are not carried over to student project work
2. Too little time is spent on search and too low number of references are found
3. search keywords and sources are not documented in a systematic way
   —> can’t explain or repeat afterwords
4. Search is only performed once - not complemented during the project
5. good results are based on pre-knowledge
   —> if new to subject, need to redo searches
6. Many references are listed
   —> too little time spent analyzing

Question 8

Describe the information search and analysis process

Answer 8

1. set scope for search
2. plan the search
3. carry out the search
4. screen results for relevance and quality
5. analyze relevant, high quality publications

Question 9

How do you plan the search?

Answer 9

1. identify relevant information sources and search engines

2. identify search terms and questions
—> keywords
—> authors
—> fee text formulations
—> time period

3. identify interesting publication data
4. create literature data extraction spreadsheet
5. create a publication folder where you store your downloads

Question 10

Examples of written sources for secondary information?

Answer 10

1. books
2. Thomas register
3. ulrish.eppinger.net
4. consumer reports
5. census of manufacturers
6. national bureau of standards
7. patent database
8. trade magazines
9. research papers
10. white papers
11. newspaper

Question 11

Examples of research databases for secondary information?

Answer 11

1. scopus
2. google scholar
3. web of science

Question 12

Examples of market research databases for secondary information?

Answer 12

1. DIALOG/proquest
2. predicast
3. american demographics

Question 13

How do you carry out the search?

Answer 13

1. start searching with single or string of keywords
2. combine keywords if too many results
3. scan promising results, identify author names and publication sources
4. continue with author-based search
5. free text search is possible in general search engines and emerging in specialized databases
6. apply an iterative approach first, but then wrap up with repeating the search in systematic fashion

Question 14

How to screen results for relevance and quality?

Answer 14

1. read the title, abstract and the conclusions
2. evaluate relevance with respect to stated research scope
   —> e.g. with pest
   —> e.g. use qualitative scale
3. Estimate the quality
   —>number of citations in google scholar, scopes etc.
   —> number of citations of main author
   —> develop a scale to rank between them
4. select relevant and acceptable quality papers for further analysis

Question 15

How to analyze relevant high quality publications?

Answer 15

1. Categorize
   —> what publications are relevant for describing background, for answering the respective research question for PEST analysis etc.
2. read the wholee papers
3. summarize the key points, make tables, graphs etc.
4. what is known, what is not known
5. look for recommendations
   —> e.g. identified research gaps or market opportunities
6. beware that research questions may emerge or be modified during the analysis work
7. the analysis may also prompt a need for repeating parts of the search process

Question 16

What should be considered during report-writing?

Answer 16

1. when compiling large doubts of text material, there is risk for adapting a copy-paste approach, possibly without referring to the right source
   —> plagiarism

Question 17

Conclusions due to secondary information search?

Answer 17

1. well-performed information search and analysis is essential for the quality of product planning work
2. Many product planning tools require the collection of secondary information and rely on similar information search processess
   —> information search skills are leveraged in many situations