| page 2/final Section 4. Answers to the Two Section 1 Questions. A. Does the “directory approach” used at the Management Accounting Information Center for finding Internet sites make sense when search engines, such as Goggle, exist? I believe the results, presented in Section 3 above, shows that using the MAIC “directory approach”, in responding to 42 requests for information, found relevant sites, which would not have been found using only Google to search for relevant sites. This is shown by the data that shows that the MAIC found 48 sites that would not have been found in the Google searching. (The 58 sites the MAIC found less the 10 identical sites Google found.) In other words, 48 out of 118 (48 + 70), or 41%, of the 118 sites, found with both the MAIC and Google, would not have been provided to the requestors if only Google was used. Also, that the MAIC found in 8 of the search requests (19% of the 42 search requests) sites, when Google found no relevant sites, shows a value in the MAIC approach. B. How should Google be used, in conjunction with the MAIC, to find sites? I believe the results presented in Section 3 above clearly shows that Google should always be used as a supplement to the MAIC for finding relevant sites containing information for management accountants. This is shown by the data that Google found 60 sites that were not found by the MAIC. In other words, by also using Google, more than twice as many sites, with relevant information, would have been provided to the requestors. Also, that Google found in 4 of the searches (or 9% of the searches) sites, when the MAIC found no sites, shows the value of using Google. Some bias did exist in the Google searches conducted for this article. Because the MAIC searches had already been completed, I was better able to understand the questions being asked when I conducted the Google searches. This better understanding helped me formulate better search terms in the Google searches. In searching Google for each of the 42 information requests, phrases were frequently used, along with single terms in combination with phrases. For the 42 “search projects” conducted with Google, anywhere from 1 to 10 separate searches, using various combinations of phrases and single works, were used. The number of searches in each of the 42 “search projects” was based on my determination that I had used and exhausted all combinations of phrases and words that made sense to me to use. An average of two searches was completed for the 42 “search projects”. Going to Google without the benefit of the MAIC experience probably would have decreased the relevant sites found using Google. This “bias” advantage of using the MAIC first suggests that a Google search should follow the use of the MAIC to find relevant sites. One important point to make about the Google searches done for this article is that for all Google searches only the first 40 sites found by Google were examined. This was done for all the searches, even those that returned thousands of hits. I think going deeper than the first 40 hits, or so, begins to impose a real fatigue factor to looking at the Google hit returns. Also, my experience is that beyond the first 40, or so, hits, the relevancies of the sites found are generally, but not always, low. Cutting off at 40 hits seems, for me, to be a reasonable benefit-cost decision. Evaluating the first 40 hits seems to take about the right amount of time that one should use, while the risk of missing a relevant hit beyond the first 40 seems low. 5. Conclusion. I believe the results presented in Section 3 "approximates” correct results, and therefore, conclusions based on these results can help decision-making about the use of the MAIC and Google as tools to find useful information on the Internet for management accountants. Whether the data, summarized in this article, is “absolutely” correct is not important. The data is likely to be somewhat different every time an evaluation, such as the one in this article, is done. But, the conclusion drawn from the results will remain the same - the MAIC and Google can find relevant sites not found by the other. And, because of this, both tools, the MAIC and Google, or other search engines, should be used in searching for management-accounting relevant information on the Internet. End. Please click here to comment on this article or to suggest a topic for another article. Please click here to return to the Management Accounting Information Center’s homepage. |
| Using Google to Find Management Accounting Information |