Subject Support

Civil Engineering

Internet Links
Databases and Electronic Resources
Printed Resources
Dissertation guidance
Contact Subject Librarian

Internet Links

Click here for del.icio.us links to some useful Civil Engineering sites

You can also keep up to date with our LLS CITE Blog, please click on the link below

The Library and Learning Services have proudly launced a new website: Info skills. This resource is a great refresher for you and covers four main areas of research: identifying, finding, evaluating and referencing information.

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Databases and Electonic Resources

Databases

There are several databases that are very useful in the area of Civil Engineering. A lot of the databases we subscribe to give you access to expenisve technical information free of charge as a UEL student. The information that you will find has been quality assured and reviewed so you can be sure of the quality. Much of the information on these databases is available full-text and is accessible from home, with your Athens account, as well as from University.

ANTE (Abstracts in New Technologies and Engineering) This is an abstract database, so the information that you are able to access is a citation and an abstract.
British Standards Online This database give full-text access to British Standards and some Eurocodes.
Construction Information Service A very useful database with a range of technical information on there from publishers sucah as the British Standards Institute and BRE. Again a lot of the information is available full-text to you. You are also able to access the Architects Journal and the New Civil Engineer through this database.
Civil Engineering Channel A very useful multi media resource that give you access to videos with experts in the Civil Engineering field. To accompany this package there are also interactive quizzes, further reading and factsheets available from the Library counter. These are on CD roms which are in the Short loan collection.
Digimap A collection of Ordinance Survey maps.
EBSCO Academic Search Complete There are a number of journals on this database which relate to the field of Civil Engineering and Engineering in general.
EBSCO Greenfile If you are interested in green issues in Engineering, you will find this database a useful source of information.
ICE virtual library This is gives access to ICE proceedings and e-books that the library subscribes to.
Nexis This is a database for newspapers primarily, however it does also have a large collection of industry related publications e.g Construction News.
Sciencedirect This database has a host of information, journals and books. It is particularly useful for anything related to the environment and engineering. There is a good coverage on this database and even if you can not get access to the full text you will get some good citations.

Electronic resources

Electronic Books. The library holds several e-books in the area of civil engineering. To access our e-book collection please search our library search from here you will be able to search and access our e-books with your Athens username and password from anywhere in the world.If you need more help then take a look at our e-books quick guide. The collection is continually growing and wherever possible will include core texts. Our e-books include:

Chudley, R. and Greeno, R. (2006) Advanced Construction Technology 4th Rev edn. Dawsonera [Online] http://www.dawsonera.com
Bolton, W. (2006) Engineering science 5th edn. Dawsonera [Online] http://www.dawsonera.com
Silyn-Roberts, H (2000) Writing for science and engineering : papers, presentations and reports. Dawsonera [Online] http://www.dawsonera.com
Elghazouli, A. (ed.) (2009) Seismic design of buildings to Eurocode 8. Dawsonera [Online] http://www.dawsonera.com
Chen, W. and Duan, L. (2003) Bridge engineering: substructure design. Dawsonera [Online] http://www.dawsonera.com

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Printed Resources - Journals and Reference materials

Construction News: Now online through Nexis database
Civil Engineering Surveyor
Concrete
Construction Manager
Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics
Engineering Geology
Highways and Modern Asphalts
Housing and Planning Yearbook
Hydro International
IEE Proceedings
Journal of Constructional steel Research
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Proceedings of The Institution of Civil Engineers
Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and hydrogeology
Town Planning Review
Transactions of The Institute of Measurement Control
Transportation
Tunnels and Tunnelling International
Water and Environmental Management
World water and Environmental Engineering
The Engineering Index [620.016/ENG]
The ASCE (Amercian Society of Civil Engineers) Annual Combined Index [624/ASC]
Glossary of Building & Civil Engineering Terms [624.03/BRI]
Civil Engineers Reference Book [624/CIV]

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Dissertation guidance

Make sure that you check the dissertation handbook. It will give you a lot of valuable help and advice and is often more useful than looking over past examples of dissertations. Key points to remember when starting your research for your dissertation:

Have your research question well formed and be clear on the aims and objectives of your research- clarity in your own mind can help you evaluate whether information is useful or not quickly. Make sure that there is plenty of information on your chosen research topic.
Plan your time. This can be very important if you need to visit other universities for information or to get an interlibrary loan, it can be time consuming to acquire the information you need.
Keywords and phrases. Use your research question/aims/objectives to pick out keywords. When thinking about keywords use dictionaries/thesaurus to expand your selection, really think about words that describe your research topics. Think about spelling variations e.g americanisms. You may find that some keywords are more successful than others. Think about how your keywords can be combined to form phrases which might better describe what you are looking for.
Think about the best sources for the type of information that you need: e.g if you are looking for a British Standard, these will not be available on the internet. You will however be able to access this through the database British Standards Online. Journals articles are very good sources of up-to-date information which is; topical, research focussed, written by academic, industrial professionals, professional bodies and researchers. The bonus is that they are usually short and sweet to read; quick snippets of quality information. There are a lot of journal articles available through our databases such as EBSCO and Sciencedirect.
A little and often is a good approach for your dissertation. Do not leave it to the last minute, the document is required to be well researched and written. It is usually given a higher weighting in your degree classification so it is a good idea to get it right.
Referencing never under estimate how much time it will take you to compile your reference list or bibliography. Making note of resources you use as you go will make it easier.
There are some great sources of help and advice for your dissertation. A key one that is recommended helpfully available as an e-book as well: Naoum, S. (2007) Dissertation research and writing for construction students. 2nd Edn. Dawsonera [online] available at: http://www.dawsonera.com

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