Databases are highly organized and allow students to search for information on a topic by keyword, subject, author, title, and phrase.  But the Scholarly Database aims to serve researchers and practitioners interested in the analysis, modeling, and visualization of large-scale data sets. However, Grand Canyon University (GCU) Library has lots of databases. And one of the benefits of being a student at GCU is the access to the institution’s vast online library resources. Effective learners, students, and researchers will conduct most of them inquire using many various databases found within the GCU Library, which has “92 databases with access to over 70, 000 full-text journals and the articles”.

   The two GCU scholarly database that will help one find the best research articles are CINAHL Complete database and ProQuest Health and Medical Complete. CINAHL Complete is the ultimate research tool for nursing and allied health professionals with entry to the top nursing and allied health journals. Includes full text for more than 1,300 journals titles with indexing for more than 5,000 journal titles (GCU library, n.d). Covers more than 50 nursing specialties, speech-language pathology, and nutrition. CINAHL also provides access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice audiovisual and book chapters etc. It is an essential tool for nursing research, CINAHL Database provides an easy-to-use interference with basic and advanced search features and searchable cited references. ProQuest has many different databases, though it is one of the most popular and prolific databases used by learners from various disciplines because it contains scholastic and popular resources from core academic subject areas (GCU, n.d.) It includes 28 databases in total. Its broad catalog enables learners to locate peer-reviewed articles from many different periodicals, as well as access dissertations and theses. The search function allows users to explore the database using a basic or advanced search that will generate a list of titles and identify full-text availability. The result page will provide users with a list of 20 titles per page with the newest publication at the top.

   These two databases I selected would be better to use than Google scholar or a general Internet search because they carry peer-reviewed articles. These databases also will offer me a more refined search that carters to my field of study. Generally, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and allied health literature they carry are taught to be a good source to search when conducting a review of qualitative evidence. Google Scholar is not a database, but its ability to extend its search to peer-reviewed journals, scholarly books, reports, and abstracts, as well as a link to library catalogs (including Grand Canyon University), makes it is a valuable research tool.

References

Grand Canyon University library. Becoming a Researcher/scholar/chapter 4 Effective Research. Retrieved from http://lc.gcumedia.com/res811/find-your-purpose-the-path-to-a-successful-doctoral-experience/v1.1/chapter-4-searching-for-materials.html

Grand Canyon University. (n.d.). Journal databases-Nursing and health sciences. Retrieved From:

https://library.gcu.edu/Database/Subject?subject=Nursing_And_Health_Science

Grand Canyon University