Author Archives: Matthew Brabham

Search v0.4.0 Released

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Search v0.4 was released. In this release, we fixed a few bugs as well as a few features that incorporate some of the remaining out of the box Google Search Appliance features including:

Display a link to ‘more results from …’
Indent results if they are related to each other
Specify the format of the search results (pdf, text file, etc)
suggestion box close link

In addition to how the out of the box features function, we have also provided a method for doing an exact phrase search without having to put quotes around it or having to go to advanced search. Most of our user base, looking through the search reports, do not put quotes around items. Is this because they do not want to find an exact search, or just that the understanding that search by defaults tries to find all words in a page, not necessarily the exact phrase? We hope by providing this, it may make those who are in the latter group, the ability to easily perform an exact search with a click, rather than typing quotes.

Next steps for search are we will be working with Web Communications and University Advancement on some possible UI changes. The goal is to see how to make search more robust and feature rich, and the right UI for it. We’ll be looking to perform some focus groups to search to see what it is people are expecting, and as always, we welcome any feedback.

In addition to UI, we are looking to add more CWS features, such as the ability to see and filter results based on the list of domains we index. This allows individuals to also see what sites we actually are indexing, and if your sites are not there, to let us know. Some sites are excluded based on the number of results, as our license limit is only 1 million docs.  You can read our previous article about this.

How to get Search on your page

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Please check this page frequently.  Updates to code for integrating search for sites will be provided here.

OSU Search lets users search for your content across all of OSU. No matter where they type in their query, results from across OSU will be displayed for any visitors.

As of January 1st, 2010.  OSU has switched to using the Google Search Appliance.

How can you tell if you are using the old search?

Simple.  If your search results goes to search.oregonstate.edu/web in the url string, you are on the old search.  If you are using Drupal (see below), it means custom code was inserted and will need to be changed by you or whomever helped develop your site.  If you need assistance, contact CWS.

What does this mean to you?

If you are a site hosted by Central Web Services using OSU Drupal 5 or OSU Drupal 6 hosted solutions, the search switchover will be transparent and no action needs to be taken.  Please note, if you have installed drupal or other software solutions yourselves, and not using the centrally hosted CWS solution, you will be responsible for switching these over.

If you are maintaining static sites, whether hosted with CWS or not, with html code embedded for using the Nutch search engine (as referenced in the form with a url of search.oregonstate.edu/web) then you will need to replace the code with one of the two following options:

Code

We have two methods for you to include a search box into your website. The first method and preferred method is using PHP or another programming language. The first method ensures that when we add new features to search boxes in the future, your website we’ll get the updates. The second method is only recommended if you have static html websites.

Using PHP (preferred)

To search all of OSU, paste the code below in your php file. If you are
using any other programming language, you basically have to create an array
and turn it into a json string. Then request the url over the web.


$options = array(
'url' => 'http://oregonstate.edu/cws'
);
$json = json_encode($options);
$url = 'http://search.oregonstate.edu/libs.php?q=osusearch_searchbox&o='.urlencode($json);
echo file_get_contents($url);

Using HTML

For sites using static HTML, please use the link below to contact us and we will help you set up a search box for your site.

If you have questions regarding this process, use the contact form and select Search to send us your question.

Search 0.3.1 released April 7th

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A maintenance release was pushed to production for Search, version 0.3.1.

For those who haven’t noticed the capabilities of search, look at the options, if a word is typed in, there may be some suggestions offered.  At the bottom is related searches, if you misspell a word, you may see a “Did you mean…”.  Also, domain search has been added to the Advanced Search.  Did you notice these changes?  We implemented all this in a front end, meaning we look at the features Google has, create an interface to the appliance, and then place things where we need to place it.  The front end also serves a dual purpose, if for future reasons, the backend, aka the Google Appliance is replaced, we simply rewrite the front end to work with the new back end.  More importantly, the front end allows us to do other certain aspects, like implement our feedback module.

Now with a front end, it also means we may have minor bugs, which is why we release the maintenance version for minor bugs.  It may simply be things like formatting, or some case we did not handle that the appliance handles.

We’ll be continuing to look at enhancing search, and integrate other aspects with it as we move ahead.  There has been minimal feedback to date, and without feedback, we cannot know how we can improve it.  So if you have a comment let us know.

Thanks!  Your Central Web Services Group

OSU Search: Tell Us More

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CWS Let Us Know Module
CWS Let Us Know Module

As part of the next search release, we now have a quick feedback module.  If you are looking for a particular search which you know is on a specific site, for example, on forestry.oregonstate.edu, and you do not find that, what do you do?  Well, let us know.

It is entirely possible that sites are not indexed into our search engine, so just send us a quick feedback with the url.  If you want to be contacted, provide us with contact information as well, or instead use our full help form.

If you want to let us know anything else about the layout or design, then just tell us more.  Enter the information and just click Send Feedback, and your feedback will come to us.  We try to be mind readers as best as possible, but there are particulars which we may not be able to pick up on.  If there is something we can do about your feedback, if it helps many students, faculty, and staff, we do want to look at how we could accomplish it.

Thank You, Your Central Web Services Team

The Return of Finals Schedules

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finals2OSU Mobile has once again published generalized finals schedules on the mobile site, m.oregonstate.edu.   Current support is limited to iPhones/iPod touch, Android, PalmPre.  Some Blackberries with newer browsers will also contain most of the functionality.

Basics of the Finals Schedules menus:

  • Classes are listed by subjects, and then selecting that will show the class designations and sections of the class.
  • If a class has multiple sections, find your appropriate section.
  • From there, a person can see the class, date, time and room.
  • There are some classes that are group finals, and for room information, students would contact their instructor for this.
  • We’ve also provided the phone number for the Office of the Registrar, if there are questions around class times or rooms.
  • If a class has a building designated, there will be a small map.  If you click the small map, it takes a person to a larger map that can be zoomed in on most smart phones.

Thanks to the Office of the Registrar for their collaboration. If you notice any discrepancies, please let us know.

Keyword/Keymatch

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keyword

You’ve probably come here maybe because you clicked on the Keyword link from our search page, or you came across our blog, or from blogs.o.e.  But however you arrived here is secondary to the information that you want.

What is a Keyword, how do I get one?  The first part is easy, a Keyword is a prominent link that is top of results based on, well, keywords.  Google calls it Keymatch, but we are keeping our prior terminology of Keyword.  So for example, a keyword could be “academic calendar” which when you type in search, displays in a shaded area above the result set, that when you click the link takes you to the catalog for the academic calendar.

So how do you get one?  In our previous search engine, we would have to enter keywords into a database manually, and there was no policy on establishing keywords, and as the keywords grew and grew, the maintenance in ensuring links were fresh was too much of an overhead.

With the new Google Search Appliance, we are operating in a different mode, we have data to look at, and with good search engine optimization for your pages, organic results should be improved.

It was previously necessary for keywords for many users, but with a better organic result set, we can minimize the number of keywords we have to maintain.  With the ability now to see what are the top queries that both get and don’t get results, we can make some intelligent determination on what should be keywords.  For others, we do recommend that you optimize your page for search engines, and there is information about it on Google’s site.  The basics on it though if you don’t want to read all about it is, one, relevant content, and two, other sites to link to your site.

We’ll be looking at other approaches in the future to build upon the need for additional promotion, but for now, a data-driven approach is what we will be looking at for a fresh approach to searching by keywords.  So for now, we will not be taking user requests for keywords.  Stay tuned to this blog for changes.  In the future we hope to make the search reports accessible via a web interface that any user can visit.  If you have feedback, please contact us, or leave a comment here.

Search Beta now Production

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Advanced Search

With the release of the Advanced Search function, we have released Search as production.  Hmm, what does that mean?  Well, now if you go to the original search site, at search.oregonstate.edu, it is the new Google Search Appliance search.  So does that mean that’s it you ask?  Well, no.  There’s still more features coming, like Narrow Your Search and Keywords, which we’ll discuss more about in the near future.  For now, look at the advanced search.  If you really are looking to search, and you don’t find what you are looking for, don’t give up.  Try the advanced search feature, add more words, exclude words, pick a specific file format.  There are several file formats you can look to find.

Advanced Search

Now if you don’t find what you are looking for, it could be that the site you are looking to search might be new and not crawled yet, or it might not be hosted with us, so we are not aware it needs to be crawled.  In this case, all you have to do is just let us know what the site is, and we’ll look to crawl.  Read our other post on exceptions to get additional information as well on what we don’t crawl.

People on the Go

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iPhoneicon Now on OSU Mobile, in v0.2 of our Alpha release, we have People live search.  Simply navigate to m.oregonstate.edu on your mobile phone, select people, and start typing in a name, email or phone number, and for select phones, results will begin to appear with the live search feature in v0.2.

People Lookup
People Lookup

You probably noticed just then that we said select phones, right?  Well, it’s true, the live search feature is only for phones capable of handling the dynamic querying.  For now, this means all the iPhone, Android, and Palm-pre users.  What about all of the people on Blackberry you ask?  Well, some functionality exists right now, but we’ll be working on Blackberry phone support in the near future.  For some Blackberry phones on newer versions, the live search may be functional, other Blackberry OS versions will just be able to get a normal search, where you type in the name and hit the enter key to get a result.  Because Blackberry phones handle aspects differently, there may be slight differences in feature capabilities.  For all other non-smart phones, we will also be looking at what the right strategy is to deliver information to these type of phones.  But don’t hesitate to let us know that you want to have some capabilities for your phone as well.  Leave us a comment here and tell us what you would like to see.

One of the other things added is a Library menu item to help make it easier to navigate to the Library’s mobile site.  So that’s it for v0.2 right now, for all you people on the go.

How to use the Live Search:  Start typing a name, first or last, email address, or phone number, and a set of results will be returned to you as you start typing.  The more you type, the narrower your list becomes.  For this release we only list the first 20 results, so the narrower your search, the better.

While we hope to have flushed out as many bugs as possible, it is always possible there may be one or two you will encounter.  If you notice any, please send us a note via our help ticket form.

This feature release brought to you by the people of Central Web Services in collaboration with Enterprise Computing, the Valley Library, Web Communications and others.

Navigating Mobile

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The first thing to remember in Navigating OSU Mobile is not while driving a vehicle.  There’s a law in Oregon that only permits hands-free talking while driving, for those age 18 and over.  If you are navigating OSU Mobile, you are definitely not hands-free.  Read up on the law if you are not aware of it.

So, you’re not driving?  Well then don’t forget to look up and know where you are if you are walking and navigating, so you don’t run into a pole or a trash can or in front of a vehicle or into another person.

Aside from that, Navigating OSU Mobile is relatively simple in the current version.  The front page has the OSU logo, and underneath the icons and text for various menu items.  Each menu item takes you to a page in OSU Mobile that you can then further navigate, or that will provide information, links and the footer to select the full OSU website.

The second level page, for example, when you click on Buildings, changes the top header, to include an arrow tail Mobile OSU logo, that when clicked will return you to the main page.  After that the title of the second level page is shown, and underneath the same style of navigation as the main page or other information.  Going to subsequent depths of navigation, will display the arrow tail Mobile OSU logo, the previous navigation page, which when clicked will take you back to the page listed, and the title of the current page, in addition to further navigation or information underneath the header nav bar.

Stylistically, a different approach was taken with the Alpha version of OSU Mobile to indicate how to navigate with the arrows being within the design instead of the traditional button style.

mobileheader

In the image shown here from the Finals Schedules, OSU takes you back to the OSU Mobile Home, and Subjects takes you to a list of available courses.  Art is the title of the current page and is not clickable, and underneath is either information or additional navigation paths.

And that’s basically it for navigating mobile.  Simple?  We hope so.

Going Mobile

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osumobile

Have you heard or seen?  OSU has launched the new mobile site, m.oregonstate.edu.

The official launch date was on December 7th, 2009, and there was some information in The Daily Barometer and on OSU Today about this, if you want to read what was said then.  Or you can find more information here as we continue with its development.  This project was a collaborative between Central Web Services providing the core mobile development efforts, Facilities, the Office of the Registrar, and Web Communications.

What you missed if you did not see it during the launch week was the display of finals schedules, thanks to the information provided by the Office of the Registrar.  Not to worry though, there’s plenty more finals to come along in 2010.

So why mobile, and why now, or really why back in December?  The reason is simply the prevalence of mobile computing in the world today.  Phones that weren’t smart are becoming smarter, and the smart phones, well they are just adding more and more.  There are plenty of studies on how mobile computing is where people will find their main source of information in the future, so I’m not going to rehash that here.  Just use your favorite search engine and go read about it.  So why now?  Now because we cannot afford to wait and be left behind other Universities that are advancing on this front.  The reality is, trying to find a building isn’t something you should have to pull your laptop out of your backpack, especially when it is raining, or go find a computer lab and a computer to log on, to find a building.  Much of this information can be provided via a mobile device, and for certain phones we have in fact provided this.

What we dubbed the alpha release, which is a working release with a few main features, buildings, parking, the full campus map, and some essential phone numbers are provided via m.  There’s still some things to work out to provide in future releases, such as providing location information, and other detailed information, but the alpha release was just that, alpha.  Showing this now, provides the OSU community the ability to see some of the capabilities that mobile can provide, and let’s us ask the question, what’s next?  Well, how about a directory search?  Or News or personalized class schedules or finals?  These things are all possible.  No doubt everyone has seen news releases about all the numerous schools with iPhone applications, right?  Stanford, Duke, the University of Texas and others have released or are releasing applications specifically for the iPhone.  Did you know there is a team working on an OSU iPhone application as well?  That’s right, there is a Capstone Project that is working on just this.  So then you ask, why another mobile platform?  The simple answer is that not everyone is walking around with an iPhone.  If you’ve acquired a Palm Pre, or an Android, or a Blackberry, what do you do?  Well, that’s why we have m.oregonstate.edu.  Currently, Palm Pre and Android phones will be supported (ie. you should be able to see and use the site).  The newer Blackberries also will work for most features.  With some of the older blackberry models, the UI will not be correct.  We’ll be laying out a list of supported models soon, and we’ll provide a blog post on it soon.  Unfortunately we won’t be able to support every single phone, but we figure the ones we do will be a good subset.  And did I mention m.oregonstate.edu will also work on the iPhone?

There is plenty left to do, but the way I see it, we’ve only just begun.

Thank You,

Jos Manuel Accapadi

Interim Associate Director, Central Web Services