Sometimes an investigation involves searching for something on a particular council website. Quite often the search facility on a council website is not very effective - so here's how to search a council website using Google: On Google, click on Advanced Search (to the right of the search button) Type in your search query, e.g. 'Environmental Information Regulations' in the first box In the last box - 'Search within a site or domain' type the...

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I've put together a short video tutorial explaining how to add tags and other information to your profile - and why this is useful. It's on the Help Me Investigate blog at http://helpmeinvestigate.posterous.com/video-tutorial-on-editing-your-profile

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If you're looking for ideas for investigations then check out David Higgerson's 'FOI Friday' series. Also useful is the Freedom of Information Blog, which publishes monthly updates in the same vein - you can find the latest one here

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Here's a useful-looking website if you're trying to campaign for change or find others who share your concern about an issue. Quiet Riots "allows individuals to join together in groups to make change happen for the issues they share. Users find their Quiet Riot, share their experience, and work together to get something done." The site is very new, but clearly has a lot of potential to get people together and raise awareness of issues...

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In the 4 months since Help Me Investigate launched we've seen some of the characteristics that make a successful investigation. If you've started an investigation this list should provide some ideas to give it further impetus:1. Someone driving it - most successful investigations have someone - not always the person who started it - with the energy to drive it along; they can be someone who gathers information, or raises awareness, or sets challenges. If...

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The 'hidden', 'invisible' or 'deep' web is simply the vast amount of online data that search engines cannot see. In fact, the vast bulk of web 'content' is posted in a form that search engines can't index. There are many reasons for this but, from the perspective of the journalist and online researcher, the most important is the fact that most databases can't be indexed by standard search engines because they are either in the...

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TellThemWhatYouThink is a new tool from MySociety which allows you to receive updates on government consultations. This is a hugely useful tool if you're waiting for the result of a particular consultation - or want to keep updated on consultations on a particular subject or from a particular department.The site allows you to search government consultations or browse by department. Once you've done either you will see an option to receive email or RSS updates on new...

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If you could customise your browser to help you do online research faster and more efficiently what would you do? How about a tool that enables you to save and store whole sites that you could browse offline? Maybe a function that lets you investigate a link - before you click it? How about a research tool that lets you highlight a word and then it automatically gathers background information about that subject and posts...

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Every investigation on Help Me Investigate is broken down into a number of small 'challenges'. This allows different members of an investigation to contribute in different ways - from inviting a friend or adding background information to submitting a Freedom of Information request or analysing the results.Anyone can set a challenge. The most successful ones tend to bea) short and simple. Don't ask people to do too much - break it down into smaller chunks.b)...

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If you're a journalist, Help Me Investigate can be a useful resource - on the surface for simple leads and content - but if you explore more deeply you'll find it goes beyond that.Here are a few ways you can use Help Me Investigate most effectively:Add a link to your articles - and raw materialIf you write up a story from the material in an investigation, please come back to the investigation and at the...

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