Search Facilities For Web Sites A Discussion Group Session

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Search Facilities For Web SitesA Discussion
Group Session

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac.
uk/
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Contents
E

• Introduction
• Exercise 1Our Requirements and Our Challenges
• Where Are We?
• What Would We Like?
• Exercise 2Other Issues
• Conclusions

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About Me

• Brian Kelly
• UK Web Focus a JISC-funded post to advise the
  UK Higher and Further Education communities on
  Web issues
• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath
• Organises annual 3-day workshop for members of
  University Web teams
• Publishes surveys of features of University Web
  sites including search engines

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About This Session

• Aims of the session
• To provide an opportunity for participants to
  discuss approaches to providing search facilities
  for Web sites
• To review some of the approaches currently being
  made
• To summarise the key requirements
• To compare with trends in other communities
• To address implementation challenges in several
  key areas

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Exercise 1 Requirements And Challenges

• Split into small groups and address the following
  issues
• Your Requirements
• What features would you like the search facility
  on your Web site to provide?
• Your Challenges
• What challenges do you face in implementing
  search facilities which satisfy your requirements?

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Exercise 1 Report Back

• Please report back on your group discussions

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Looking At The Community

• A survey of the search facilities provided on the
  local authority Web sites for workshop delegates
  was carried out in Oct 2002

See lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/work
shops/pub-lib-2002/survey/gt
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Comparisons With UK HE

• Surveys of search facilities on UK University
  Web sites
• Began in 1999
• Initially wide range on tools used
• Large nos. of small colleges had none
• Much change

• Now a market leader ht//Dig
• Growth in externally hosted solutions, esp.
  Google
• Growth in expensive solution - Inktomi

See lthttp//www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue30/web-watch/gt
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Lessons

• Some lessons which may be relevant
• You will change your search engine so
• Use www.foo.gov.uk/search/ and not
  www.foo.gov.uk/htdig/ (or whatever)
• Think about change implications
• An externally-hosted solution (such as Google) is
  an option and not just for small authorities
• You can use a local product and an externally
  hosted one

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Exercise 2 Other Issues
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• Issues for discussion in small groups
• Metadata
• Should you be providing metadata?
• How should it be managed, used and deployed?
• Integration
• Should you be integrating search facilities with
  other systems (e.g. OPACs, other Web sites, etc)?
• Software Procurement
• How should you specify the requirements for your
  search facility?
• Open sources versus licensed solution
• Resource implications

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Metadata
Metadata

• Metadata for web sites has not taken off
• Search engines (e.g. Google) dont use it
• Limited support in authoring tools
• Limited support in search engines
• But
• Tools are becoming available
• Metadata can provide enhanced searching locally
• Metadata can provide support for
• Auditing
• Management

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Example

• Search engines which support ltmetagt are
  available
• MS (shown)
• ht//Dig (new version)

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Issues
Metadata

• Need to think about

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Issues
Metadata

• Need to think about
• Management of metadata
• Metadata repository (cf CMS)
• Neutral format for metadata
• Which is the master source
• Benefits of metadata
• Costs of providing and managing metadata

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Integration
Integration

• Indexing tools will ideally index more than Web
  resources
• Library OPACs
• Remote resources
• The Invisible Web
• A number of approaches are possible
• Z39.50 support
• ODBC

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Software Issues

• Indexing of Web sites can be provided very
  cheaply
• Externally hosted Web services e.g. Google
• But
• Dependency on third party
• Limited control (indexing frequency, )
• Alternatively install software locally
• Open source
• Licensed
• How much are you prepared to pay?

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Conclusions