Journals@Ovid – Knowledge Discovery with Basic Search

Background

Journals@Ovid is an aggregated online database of all the journals available via the Ovid platform. These journals are from a variety of sources, principally, Lippincott®, Williams & Wilkins (LWW), from societies as well as from partnering publishers. The actual journals in full-text that you have access to will depend upon the selection of journal packages (2), groups of journals or individual publications your institution has subscribed to. Be sure to check with your librarian.

Accessible via the Ovid platform, collections of full-text journals as well as single publications can be searched on and across using Ovid's powerful search functionality. Journal content can be displayed and retrieved in PDF format. Or alternatively in the browser-based Ovid Full Text format, which in turn facilitates targeted navigation through the journal's content using the Outline feature. This format also enables the provision of information sharing and export via Tools. 

Journals@Ovid – Facts and Figures (1)

• Journals@Ovid is an aggregated online database of hundreds of scientific, technical, and medical journals.
• The Ovid Full Text Collections are subsets of journals combined for local access.
• The journals covered are from over 50 publishers and societies.
• Each journal is nevertheless available by individual subscription.
• Purchase of any of Ovid's Full Text journals, provides access to all the bibliographic citations in the database.
• The bibliographic citation information includes the title, references and abstract (where available) for each database record, all of which are searchable.

Training Session Programme

This Learning Pathway series of training modules draws upon the content and teaching approaches in and behind the learning resource OvidGO! (3). Constructed around a selection of focused searches, the training programme has been designed to achieve the following two objectives,

1. to introduce the database, Journals@Ovid, drawing upon where helpful, parallels and comparisons with Ovid MEDLINE,
2. to discuss, demonstrate and practice the key features and functionality of the database Journals@Ovid. 

(1). Journals@Ovid Database Guide
https://ovidsp.dc1.ovid.com/ovid-new-b/ovidweb.cgi?&S=876bba95-4fa0-485f-95c9-386b9ccfaab1%7cmain&Database+Field+Guide=53

(2). Journals@Ovid
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/ovid/platforms-products/journals

(3). OvidGO! Learning Resource
https://tools.ovid.com/ovidgo/

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When using databases for research, a common problem for beginners and advanced users alike, is how to find appropriate and relevant terms for the subjects being investigated. This could be because the user is unfamiliar with the subject or is working with the database from another language that differs from the language in which the subject terms are expressed. Or that the subject is new and that a consensus has not formed around key ideas and concepts and hence, have not yet found their way into the controlled vocabularies that are the basis of database thesauri, such as MeSH for Ovid MEDLINE and Emtree for Embase on Ovid.  

In such cases Ovid’s Basic Search can help. A natural language processing (NLP), relevancy ranking search engine, the Basic Search enables you to enter terms as simple expressions in any sequence. That is to say, there is no need to add Boolean operators or wildcard symbols or expressions. The entered terms are compared against those in a proprietary lexicon that Ovid has built to support the Basic Search and, following a statistical evaluation and ranking process, returns results on the basis of their calculated relevance to the terms you originally entered.

One of the many advantages of the Basic Search is that you can search using single terms, combinations of terms or complete sentences. If you can describe the problem or task, you can search on Journals@Ovid! Being a field blind search, the Basic Search will focus on returning results that are deemed the most relevant. These results can be separated from the total number of returned documents by using the ‘5 Stars’ limit.

Points to note:

• The Basic Search operates across the entire database or combination of databases as selected.
• Boolean operators, OR, AND, NOT, as well as proximity operators, ADJ and ADJn and wildcards for truncation and character replacement are not used in the Basic Search mode.
• The most relevant results returned by a Basic Search are those where all the query concepts are said to be present. These are the so-called ‘5 Star’ results.
• The total number of results returned following a Basic Search contains ‘a long tail’ of references where many of the query concepts are not present and so are deemed less relevant.
• Basic Search searches cannot be directly combined with one another or with search results obtained using the Advanced Search mode.

Instructions:

1. Logon to Ovid, select Journals@Ovid <To Present>, select the Basic Search mode.
2. Enter the search lines for this focused search as listed below using the given entry terms.
3. Alternatively, having not yet logged on,  <Click here> to run this focused search above in Ovid.

do omega-3 fatty acids prevent cardiovascular disease [Entry term(s): Whole sentence]
limit 1 to five stars
limit 2 to yr="2020 -Current"
adolescents adhd Ritalin adverse effects [Entry term(s): Words, abbreviations, phrases]
limit 4 to five stars
limit 5 to yr="2020 -Current"
children sepsis guidelines [Entry term(s): Words in sequence]
limit 7 to five stars
limit 8 to yr="2024 -Current"
limit 7 to (five stars or four stars or three stars or two stars or one star)
 

Questions:

1. Does adding or subtracting the hyphen in ‘omega-3’ make a difference to the results?
2. What Type of search is the search in line #10?
3. What other limits could you use to narrow down your results?

 

Search Stategy

Copy Strategy Launch Search

Reviewers

Primary: Michael Fanning

Secondary: Charlotte Viken

Review Date: 2025-05-19

Expiry Date: 2026-05-19

Original search produced by:

Ovid Training Team

References:

OvidGO! / Skills Videos / General Introduction
What is a bibliographic database?
What is the structure of a database?
What is Ovid MEDLINE?
What are Boolean Operators?
What are wildcards?
Subject heading searching

Citation:

OvidGO! Portal. Focused Searches: Journals@Ovid – Knowledge Discovery with Basic Search [Internet]. London (UK): Ovid Training Team (Editors); 2025 [updated 2 March 2024; cited 10 March 2025]. Available from: https://tools.ovid.com/ovidgo/searches/view.php?id=123