Computer science: Articles and databases

Full-text databases contain full-text versions of the required materials (e.g. electronic journals).

Reference databases point towards the required information, but you will still have to retrieve the information from the original document.

Web of Science and Scopus are multidisciplinary reference databases that offer information about articles as well as their connections by way of citations and references. Web of Science and Scopus databases allow you to search for the most cited articles on a topic, and citations of a specific article. You can check the availability of full-text versions of the articles via library linking (ViewIt@Aalto).

Also Google Scholar  - Google's search engine specialised in searching for scholarly information - contains citation information.

Scholarly articles are published in scholarly journals (academic journals). Scholarly articles are written by experts in a particular academic discipline and intended for an academic audience.

The quality of articles in the majority of scholarly journals is guaranteed by peer review. The submitted articles are reviewed by other scholars in the field, and they also decide on their publication.

Many databases allow you to limit your search to academic, scolarly or peer-reviewed articles.

The platforms of the e-journal services allow you to specify and refine your searches much more than e.g. the Aalto-Primo search portal. The search functions of different e-journal databases are relatively similar. When you know how to use different browse functions, thesauruses and subject terms, reference management programs, user accounts on the databases and can filter search results, your knowledge of information retrieval from the databases is already very good.

Even though using individual databases is easy, learning how to use library services such as Aalto-Primo will provide you with a deeper understanding of the information resources available. This will make you a more efficient information-seeker, and support your independent learning.

Reference databases enable you to go through the content from multiple e-journal databases via one user interface. You can store a small number of full-text articles onto e.g. your personal computer for research purposes.

Search articles from Aalto-Primo portal.

Aalto University IT Services provides the EndNote reference manager for the students, teachers, researchers and other staff of the university.

Information about installing EndNote : https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/reference-management-software-endnote

The Aalto University subscription to RefWorks ended 31 December 2021.
Please see further instructions on how to export references from RefWorks to another reference management system.

RefWorks is a citation management tool that will store your references and convert them into the correct referencing system. Read more >>

Citation guide

Learn to Use RefWorks in 20 Minutes (YouTube)

Aalto University students and staff:

• Using university workstations on landline network

• Using Aalto University username and password to login from outside of the university network (off-campus use)

• Using the Eduroam network or through VPN connection whenever needed

Other customers:

• Using Learning Centre workstations

Read more about using e-resources and conditions of use for e-resources.