72142 Accessing Information Assessment 2 2026 | Open Polytechnic NZ

72142 Assessment 2

Weighting 

40%

Learning outcome

2 Accessing information required effectively and efficiently and through a variety of sources.

Instructions

Complete and submit your assessment according to the Open Polytechnic’s Assessments webpage. This includes information on academic integrity, word limits and referencing.

• Include your name, student number and the assessment number.
• Number your pages.

Submission

• Submit your assessment in one file.
• Submit your work through your iQualify course.
• Emailed assessments will not be accepted.
• You will receive an automated notice following submission.

By submitting your assessment, you confirm that it is your own, original work.

Part 1: Revisiting topic and places/collections 

Task 1: Redefined topic revisited 

In this task you need to show that your redefined topic from Assessment 1 is suitable for Assessments 2 & 3, and that, if you were required to revise your topic from Assessment 1, you understand why.

There is no word limit for this task.

1. Provide the 80 word redefined topic summary statement you submitted as part of your Assessment 1.
2. Did your marker suggest that you need to revise your topic? Did you make any changes as a result of your marker’s feedback? If so, give your new 80 word redefined topic summary statement. Explain any changes you have made to your original topic, saying what the changes were, and why you made them. If no changes were made, please say so.

(5 marks)

Task 2: Places or collections revisited 

In Assessment 1 you identified a library and a full-text academic database to search for information. Here, you will update this list and think about potential problems and issues of these places or collections.

There is no word limit for this task.

1. Name the library and database that you identified in Assessment 1.
2. Are you going to search the same places or collections, or have you made a change? If you have changed, name the library and database that you are planning to search, and briefly explain why you changed (for example, could not access a public library due to COVID-19 restrictions or did not find sufficient resources in my original database). If you have made no change, just say so.

(5 marks)              

Part 2: Develop a search strategy and undertake searches 

In this part you will go through the stages of planning and executing a series of searches (a search strategy), with the aim of finding and selecting 10 items relevant to your topic.

Task 1: Concepts and keywords 

In preparation for searching, create a table of concepts and keywords.

Write three to five main concepts (ideas) from your topic statement and write them in the concept headings.

Under each concept, list the key words that writers on your topic might have used to describe each of the concepts. These will be your searching keywords.

There is no word limit for this task.

Guidance

• A concept is a broad idea; keywords are the narrower and specific aspects of that broad idea. Each concept should have at least three useful keywords associated with it.
• There should be 9–25 relevant keywords in total in the table.
• You will use the most important key words from this table to construct your search strategies in Tasks 2 and 3.

(10 marks)

Task 2: How search tools work 

There is no word limit for this task.

Choose a general search engine to search the World Wide Web (for example, Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go).

Create some search strings that combine two or three of the concepts from Task 1. Do some searching, and experiment with different combinations of keywords, Boolean operators, truncation, etc. Do this using your chosen search engine, library catalogue and database. You do not need to write this part down in your assessment, but we recommend you take notes or screenshots so you can re-create successful searches later. You will use this searching for this task and for Task 3.

a. Create a search guide showing how to do advanced searches using the search functions:

1. • Boolean AND, OR and NOT
   • Phrase searching
   • Truncation (where available)
   • Wildcards
   • Any other features that can be used such as proximity searching or filtering.

b. Provide examples that show how each of the search functions work. These can be taken from the search strategies you did at the start of the task and should show searches carried out using the search engine, library catalogue, and database. Make sure you have examples from each of the three places you are searching.

c. Make sure your guide also explains how to find the advanced search screen and help screens for the search engine and for the library catalogue or full text database.

Guidance 

You can set out part of the guide using a table like this if you wish:

Task 3: Finding information on your topic 

Write down two examples of successful search strategies that retrieved relevant results, one from the library catalogue or one from the database, and one from the WWW. Show a range of search functions in your selected strategy. Each strategy will be made up of one or two (or maybe more) search strings. Write in your assessment the search strings you used so they look something like these examples of search strings:

• (“native birds” OR kokako) AND decline AND human
• birds AND “environmental threat” AND “new zealand”
• kokako AND “environment” AND (threat OR decline OR impact)

Write a paragraph discussing the results you got with for each search strategy in each place. Explain why you chose these search functions, and what effect they had on your search results.

(Word limit: 750 words) (20 marks)

Task 4: Subject headings 

a. Discuss the use of subject headings in your chosen library catalogue.

When you searched your library catalogue, you will have identified some books that are very relevant for your topic. Look at the full catalogue records for the most relevant books you found in the library catalogue and identify the subject headings that look most useful for finding information on your topic. List the five subject headings that you think are most useful for your topic. Briefly explain the following.

i. Why you think these five headings are useful for your topic.

ii. How you could use subject headings to search for information on your topic.

b. Discuss the use of subject headings in your chosen full text database. When you searched your academic database, you will have identified some articles that are very relevant for your topic. Look at the full database records for the most relevant articles you found in the academic database search result and identify the subject headings that look most useful for finding information on your topic.

List the five subject headings that you think are most useful for your topic.

Briefly explain the following.

i. Why you think these five headings are useful for your topic.

ii. How you could use subject headings to search for information on your topic.

(Word limit: 400 words) 

(10 marks)

Task 5: Resources 

There is no word limit for this task.

From the searches you have done so far, identify and list 10 potentially relevant resources.

Your list of 10 resources should include at least two books (or chapters from two different books) from your library search and three articles from your academic database.

Provide complete references for all 10 resources in the correct APA referencing style. Look at The Guide to APA Referencing for help.

(15 marks)

Part 3: Reflect on your experience of searching for information

Write a reflective commentary on the tasks you have just completed. Comment on the following.

• How good was your choice of places or collections to search, and your choice of search tools? Do you think you chose the best ones?
• Were there any differences between the places or collections you initially identified to use in Assessment 1 and the ones you actually used in Assessment 2?
• How easy or difficult was the process of identifying concepts and key words? Explain.
• Were there any problems or issues you had when conducting your search strategies in each search tool? Which aspects were easy, and what issues did you find challenging?
• Is there anything you might do differently when searching for information using these tools in the future?

(Word limit: 500 words)

(10 marks)

Marking Schedule 

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