1. Finding information from a large website and an online databaseUsing the UCAS website and subsequent university sites

2. Task 1 You need to search online for possible degree courses at Universities. You should use at least three search engines to find out about between three and five possible degree courses. The information you could look for includes, the university, the cost of the course and the UCAS points needed to study the course. You should include screen shot evidence of using the search engines, including evidence of using advanced searches and logical operators. There should also be evidence of comparing the different search engines and choosing the best one to use. You will also need to write a short report describing the process you carried out searching for your information. The report will need to cover the following areas: Identify the information required and use the advanced search facilities of more thanone search engine to locate the information, comparing the results obtained. Identify the information required, select the most appropriate search engine and use efficient methods, including the use of logical operators to locate the information. Select the search engine that you would use in the future and give reasons why Evidence for this task should be screenshots of the search engines used and the searches carried out with annotations. There should be clear evidence (with screenshots that are large enough to read) of the advanced search features used and the logical operators used. There should be a comparison of the searches carried out, explaining the difference and efficiency of key work, string and Boolean searches, and a selection of the best search engine to use in the future explaining why. As part of this assignment, you need to create a bibliography to display the sources you used.

3. Marks – mark band 3 The candidate identifies the information required from a large website and an online database; the candidate provides evidence of accessing information that demonstrably meets their requirements by using menus, navigation bars etc. and by using an internal search engine to carry out a range of complex searches of the online database. [5 6]

4. Once again, you need to clearly explain what you are going to do in an opening paragraph and the methods you used to obtain the required information: • The information needed is as follows: • A course you are interested in studying (UCAS website) • A University (or universities) you are interested in (UCAS) • UCAS points required (from UCAS and/or the university website) • Course content (what will be covered – from the university website) • Tuition fees (university website) • Accommodation fees (on campus/off campus, shared or single occupancy – from the university website) • Distance from home (AA Route planner) • Travel costs (Rail/Coach website) • Average rental costs for the area you are looking at (from a local estate agent’s website)

5. You need to provide evidence that you have used; • Navigation bars • Hyperlinks • Using the drop down features of some websites • Using the internal search engine of the university web site found • Tuition fees for the course • Evidence you have followed links from a web page to locate the required information • Using logical operators (i.e. accommodation +single occupancy) • You must keep a bibliography of all the sources you have found the information from

6. You need to find information relating to your chosen course by using the UCAS Website andthe chosen University websites You will state what you are going to do – i.e. Use the UCAS website to find information on university courses relating to ……….. Print screen the home page You will select the Course Search option

7. You then have two methods of searching – a search and a search by subject

8. Using Search will display this page This method allows you to perform some complex searching by selecting appropriate choices from the lists given

9. Example: if I wanted to find a list of universities who deliver a full time ICT degree in the South East, I would select the following (and print screen it)

10. This will then display a list of universities offering the subject entered in the location entered (print screen to show your search)

11. You will then select a university which meet your criteria – print screen the page opened. Obviously you need to make sure that the criteria entered in the previous page allows you to select the correct course type – ICT is very generic! Print screen the page (you can then annotate it to show which link you used to access further information • Remember the information you need to find is: • UCAS points • Cost of Course • Accommodation charges • Remember also, you need to keep a bibliography of the sources used

12. If you click on the link Course Specific Requirements, this will then take you to another page which gives further links where information can be found. This particular course requires three C grades. You may then need to access the UCAS points tariff page to convert grades to points. On this same page is a link to Fees, bursaries and financial support which displays the cost of the course. There is another link which will then open the university page for the particular course – this will then have a link to the universities home page. This too will hold useful information regarding fees etc

13. You also need evidence of searching within a site Print screen the page found and annotate to show the link used to find the information you require Do not forget to save your information – you will need this for a later task

15. When collating the evidence, make sure you are using data of the same type. Accommodation is to be of the same type and level i.e. single en-suite room, catered Information Found A rail card will save 1/3 on rail fares quoted so when we come to the spreadsheet element, we can do some calculations

16. So, to sum up, you need to find information relating to 5 Universities • UCAS points, cost for course, accommodation charges – the other information will be useful to include in the spreadsheet task • You need evidence of: • Finding information from a large website (UCAS and university) and on line database (UCAS, AA Route Planner and National Rail enquires) • Evidence of accessing the information using menus, navigation bars, links • Evidence of using internal searches using complex queries • A bibliography of sources used