What's on this page
Information like facts, statistics, standards, and government reports are not scholarly sources, but they still may be credible and useful for your research.
You won't always look for these in the same way you'd look for a scholarly article or a textbook. See below for tips on searching for non-scholarly sources.
You should evaluate all of your sources for credibility, but it is particularly important for sources like this, which have not already been scrutinised by the research community. The Information Essentials modules will help you assess the credibility of your sources.
Standards & Patents
Standards
Technical standards lay out the specifications of best practice, as decided by professional bodies of experts, to ensure a certain level of quality, safety, and consistency. Read more from Standards Australia (Australia's peak non-government standards organisation).
Most of you will need to be familiar with technical standards as part of your work. Standards are also useful for research in part because they allow you to compare actual practice and products against what professional groups believe should be done.
Find standards in standards databases, academic databases, and the websites of professional associations. Some databases are below.
Patents
Patents are a way of formalising intellectual property rights so that only the owner has the legal right to make or sell the creation. According to IP Australia, the Australian Government agency responsible for administering patents, trade marks and designs, "A patent is a right granted for a device, substance, method, or process that you have invented that is new, inventive, and useful when compared with what is already known."
If you're developing a new idea, check that it has not already been patented by searching on one of the sites below.
- Techstreet - Standards Australia Online This link opens in a new window
Australian standards covering: Aerospace, Automotive, Construction, Energy, Engineering, Government, Manufacturing, Medical devices, Pharmaceuticals, Safety.
[Registration required. Create a personal account using your ECU email address.]
Please download this tip sheet on how to access standards on Techstreet
Click here to register for Techstreet. See the database for the corporate key - Engineering Workbench This link opens in a new window
Engineering Workbench by Accuris provides access to Australian and International Standards (including ISO, ASTM, BSI, and ASHRAE standards). The database allows you to search for related bibliographic information including technical articles, journals, books, patents and patent applications, and utility modes.
- IEEE Standards This link opens in a new window
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) provides one of the most comprehensive international collections of technical industry standards from over 175 countries and includes more than 2,500 technical standards and publications dating from 1948.
- Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB)Register with this site to access PDF downloads for Australian building codes. You do not need to use your ECU login details.
Most patent websites do not require an ECU login.
The person who registered the patent might not use the same words you would use to describe the invention. Think of synonyms you might use for each term, including technical terms. Try to be specific and accurate to limit the number of results: is there a material or a step in a process that you can use in your search?
Are you looking for Australian patents only, or patents from other countries as well? Some of the links below have international content.
Make sure the site you choose covers the time period you would expect this invention to have been created.
- AusPatProduced by IP Australia, the Australian Government agency responsible for administering patents, trade marks, designs and plant breeder’s rights.
- PAFTUnited States Patent and Trademark Office : A searchable database of US patents with full text of patent documents.
- European Patent OfficeProvides free access to the full text and drawings of patents from the European Patent Office, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Japanese Patent Office. English titles and abstracts are provided for non-English language patents.
- Patent LensSearchable full-text database of more than 7 million patents and patent applications from World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO), and IPAustralia.
- Google Patent SearchIndexes USPTO issued patents from the 1790s onwards. It does not cover US patent applications, international patents, or recently issued U.S. patents.
- PatentScopePatentScope : The Patentscope Search Service enables you to do full-text search in over 1.6 million published international patent applications from the first publication in 1978.
Resources to help you in your search:
Patent searching: Tools & techniques by Publication Date: 2007
Statistics
Statistics can be difficult to locate, and you will not find rigorously collected data for every question you might have.
To locate good statistics, usually you will need to know which agencies (including government, educational, non-profit, and for-profit institutions) might be doing research in the area in question.
How to Find Statistics
Identify where to search
Start by identifying organisations that might be collecting the types of data you are looking for.
- Governments - Most statistics are collected by national and subnational government agencies, e.g. the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Office for National Statistics (UK).
- International organisations - Organisations and institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) collect and collate statistics from different countries.
- National organisations - Many national organisations and research bodies collect statistics on particular areas of interest, e.g. the Australian Council for Educational Research, Diabetes Australia.
- Professional associations - Some professional bodies conduct research and publish survey findings, e.g. the Australian Institute of Management.
Note of caution:
International statistics are dependent on the collection of data by national governments and other agencies, so the types, depth and dates of data are not always consistent between countries.
Collection of data within individual countries
- changes over time,
- may be inconsistent across states,
- and can be disrupted by events such as regime change and war.
Some places to look: