Physician Assistant Program Resources: Keeping Current

News from the Journal of the American Academy of Physician's Assistant

You need a READER to subscribe to and read RSS or News Feeds.  Here are some popular ones (web based) that are free.

Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/

Google reader: http://www.google.com/help/reader/tour.html

My Yahoo: http://my.yahoo.com/s/about/rss/index.html

Search alerts

• Many resources now support Search Alerts.
• Search Alerts are e-mails automatically sent to you by a database provider when criteria that you set though the database are met.
• Some "triggers" may include a database returning new results from a saved search or a new issue or journal becoming available in a database.
• Some databases provide many other alert options, as well.
• If you know the publisher of the database (i.e. Ebsco or Gale), click on databases by publisher. Search Alert instructions are the same for every database of a particular publisher.

Example for setting up Alert in Ebsco databases:

1. Start a search
2. Click on "Search History" at the top under the search box
3. Click on "Save Searches/Alerts"
4. Create an account or sign into your existing account (Important:  DO NOT uncheck the "Load my Preferences from Ebscohost)
5. After the account is created, it will go back to the previous screen, but with your personalized information
6. Fill in the requested information and check "Alerts"
7. The screen will expand.  Fill in more required information and click "Save"
8. On the new screen click "Continue"
9. The alerts should be complete.

Monitor a subject using Google's aggregated search of news sources. Useful for gleaning broader perspecitves, beyond the academic journals.

• Go to Google News
• Perform your search. In the left-hand column you can choose an alert format, email (called "News Alert") or RSS.