1. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Search Facilities For Web Sites A Discussion Group Session Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY Email B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ UKOLN is supported by:

2. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Contents Introduction Exercise 1: Our Requirements and Our Challenges Where Are We? What Would We Like? Exercise 2: Other Issues Conclusions E

3. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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

4. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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

5. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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?

6. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Exercise 1: Report Back Please report back on your group discussions

7. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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 Search EngineNumber Microsoft10 Muscat3 ColdFusion2 Excite1 Freefind1 Google1 Unknown5 None found3 See

8. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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 See Now a market leader – ht://Dig Growth in externally hosted solutions, esp. Google Growth in expensive solution - Inktomi

9. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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

10. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Exercise 2: Other Issues 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 E

11. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Metadata Metadata for web sites has not taken off: Search engines (e.g. Google) don’t 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 Metadata

12. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Example Search engines which support are available: MS (shown) ht://Dig (new version)

13. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Issues Need to think about: Metadata

14. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Issues 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 Metadata

15. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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 … Integration

16. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 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?

17. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Conclusions