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Global Social Work & Practice with Immigrants & Refugees: More Information Sources Across the Universe

This guide supports the curriculum for the field of practice specialization "Global Social Work & Practice with Immigrants & Refugees" at The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.

What Is Open Access?

'Open source' refers to systems and software products that are freely available online to all users and for which the source code is freely available for use, modification, and re-distribution.

'Public availability' or 'open access' describes webpages and information items that are freely available to anyone with internet access.

'Open access research' is a term used to describe research published by the academic press that has been made freely available (not behind a paywall) online, in the open access environment.

Websites

Better Care Network has current global Standards and Resources on Child Welfare

International Association of Schools of Social Work  https://www.iassw-aiets.org/ of which Silberman is a member https://www.iassw-aiets.org/product-category/social-dialogue/

Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action https://www.alliancecpha.org/en

https://www.alliancecpha.org/en/library-solr

IFRC resource center on pscycho-social support https://pscentre.org/resource-centre/

Global social service workforce alliance http://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a publicly available search tool that spans across many disciplines and sources: it is often a good resource for finding materials that may not appear in subscription library databases such as reports from professional societies, preprint repositories, universities, research institutes and think tanks, and other scholarly organizations.

Setting Google Scholar to show which items are at Hunter

  • On the Google Scholar homepage, click on Settings at the top on the right.
  • Click on Library Links in the left column.
  • Type in Hunter College Library - Fulltext at Hunter, click the search icon, and select.
  • Type in Open WorldCat - Library Search, click on search icon, and select.

What Is Grey Literature?

"That which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers."     From the Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature, October 1999

Grey literature resides in the open access environment – it is created to be freely available to the public (it is NOT produced by the commercial and/or academic press).

Grey literature is an umbrella term that covers many types of information sources and many different information products

Sources: Grey literature is produced by organizations whose primary function is NOT publishing.  Such sources frequently used in social work include governmental entities, professional organizations, advocacy organizations, research institutes, and think tanks. 

Products: Reports, commentaries, white papers, press releases, policy briefs, FAQ’s and data sheets, conference proceedings, power points, and lots of other stuff

What Are White Papers?

White Papers fall under the grey literature umbrella and are a type of authoritative reporting that typically cover governmental, social, or consumer issues.  White papers are prepared by governmental agencies, professional organizations, public policy and research organizations, and commercial enterprises.  By definition, they are based upon an exhaustive research process and frequently address new, controversial or developing trends, programs or products. 

What Are Research Institutes and Think Tanks?

“… think tanks are private organizations that emphasize the creation and dissemination of information in the form of policy ideas and advice. Their mission is to win the political war of ideas that surround policy making. Advocacy think tanks do not attempt to present neutral information; rather, they are aggressive ideological advocates for specific policies.

“Advocacy think tanks mostly repackage existing research on policy issues, adding their own ideological spin in order to present their policy ideas in the best light possible.”

Think Tanks. (2007). In G. L. Anderson & K. G. Herr (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice (Vol. 3, pp. 1369-1372). SAGE Reference.

Setting Google Scholar for non-English materials

  • On the Google Scholar homepage, click on Setting at the top on the right.
  • Click on Languages in the left column
  • There are two options, you may use either or both:
    • You may select to change the Google text to a language other than English;
    • You may select to search for items / pages in a language other than English.