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IPRO

General resources useful to IPRO courses.

Find Articles and Databases

These resources are a good place to start your research, since they contain a broad range of sources from various kinds of disciplines.

Google Scholar Search

Google Scholar is a popular way to search for scholarly articles, reports, books and more. Google Scholar is best if you want to search for articles beyond just what is in the library catalog, or if you feel most confident using Google search.

Make sure to connect your Google Scholar to IIT's libraries from the Library links section of Scholar Settings. This way, when you find an article you'd like to read you will be able to see if we have the article or be directed to MyILL to request it if we don't. More detailed instructions on how to do this are in the tab Optimize Search.

Subject-specific databases can be useful when you're looking for discipline-specific information or a specific type of source - for example, standards or market research. Databases are also a good place to find scholarly and peer-reviewed articles.

Below is a list of databases that IPRO teams often find useful. Check out the full A-Z Databases list to see a full list of databases and filter by subject or type in order to narrow based on your research needs, or look for a research guide for your subject to see what databases the library recommends.

Many IPRO teams need to do patent research at various points of the design process. Get started with Google Patent search, and then check out our guide on Patents to learn about additional places to look for prior art.

Google Patent Search

Google's Patent search can be a useful starting place to find patents. Pulling from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data, Google Patent Search provides full-text searching of US patents back to 1780 and allows for forward and backward reference searching.

Subject specific research guides can help you find additional resources that deal with a specific topic or type of research. These guides are typically created by librarians who specialize in that subject area.