Accessing the Greenstone Collection - Report Example

Greenstone Collection Name University Lecturer Course Date Executive summary This report is about how to design a quality custom access to a collection – Greenstone Collection and browse features. This will enable users of students and academicians to filter and access core research materials in one site. What this means is that the user can decide what materials to include or exclude from the collection, and they can decide to attach weighting parameters to the results to either increase or decrease the rankings of particular materials. It discusses method like creating database by accessing large files, managing them, aggregating and offer some search functionality to users of Greenstone Collection. Since it stores data in a database, full-text catalogues and indexing will be used. Indexing the website searching the index, incremental updates used for crawling and the indexing of files such as PDFs, DOCs etc. A full-text catalogue indexed more than one fields in a table for searching. Full-text catalogue is suitable since it is good in updating any changes to information or data automatically without the use of additional libraries in the system. The problem with this is that it is machine friendly later than user friendly, as the query language applicable is not extensive in analysis to produce information that can be understood by user. The catalogues made from this are restricted to a single table formed thus giving difficulties to any data in many tables. However, there is an embeddable search engine that is a library that accepts the building search functionality into the program. Building access to a collection Introduction To access Greenstone collection a program will be used for developing effective search engines that gathers, creates, manipulates, builds and previews and stores files from Greenstone collection. The program will be able to download files, pages within a reasonable time as well as monitor the downloads constantly to be consistent with users requirements. In case the required files or sites are not downloaded the program should be able to refresh for fresh search and download. Since Greenstone collection is a shared resource the program should have the ability to avoid putting pressure instead give a feedback to the user about network and site traffic. A quick and effective access program can retrieve high-quality pages and that too quickly and by keeping the retrieved pages fresh. There are many challenges to the design of a good access program, such as the existence of a number of pages available and to searched before the right files are retrieved. However it should be able to search engine locates the needed information and is returned to the user’s computer. It should be able to help users of the site to find links to materials that is being accessed from the site. It should take them through the site with easiness to find the materials rather linking them to sites. However it should be able to detect reciprocal links that are links the user to other sites. Link sites are distinguished from search results of the site. each search the search engine will display a dynamic summary of query terms and other information such as the URL of the result, its size, and its possible category etc besides providing a cached copy of the result to the user. They use parse keywords to help in searching the right web links much better. The program uses concept of complex search queries that are used by most search engines and how a website should take advantage of these complex search queries to climb up the ladder of search rankings. Steps used in designing Building access to a collection Identification of Audience – the designing begun by identifying audience that was going to use the data. This ensured that the designed search engine or access engine concentrated on audience and greenstone collections. The main aspect in the identification of the audience and target site was to find the problem. This stage facilitates focus on the right problem to come up with the right answers Understanding user’s problems to be solved – in this case the users of Greenstone Stone were interested in downloading, gathering, enriching, designing, creating and formatting in from formatting Generating Real Solutions - This part entails generating real solutions, necessitates brainstorming. This stage obliges the entities to think outside the box and come up with all manner of ideas they can think off. This stage is very important because it grants the opportunity to come up with possible solutions. Furthermore, it allows the entity looking for solutions to put together links, take risks, as well as experiment with a mixture of ideas to come up with innovative solutions Preparation for action -The final part in the process calls for an entity to take action. At first, the entity should seek to reinforce and enhance the top ideas generated from step two. This should be followed by the creation of a standard to assess the ideas for their effectiveness. The standard should be applied to the top ideas to come up with those likely to solve the problem and ideas, which are easy to implement. Finally, the one should accept the findings in that one should decide on what is to be done to realize a matured activated solution. This step involves the goal setting exercise which is an important part in creative problem solving. Download- this involves downloading necessary materials from the web to be ready for use. They can be downloaded by the user but they would always require internet connection to work. The same application can be used in most of the devices and can be downloaded through a multiple websites online. Gather – this involves the gathering or related data that is suitable metadata element set from source documents. Some of the strategies discussed such as indexing use spider and robot to gather necessary materials on the greenstone collections. Robots are programs that retrieve hyperlinks that are linked to files accessed as well as have the ability to load into a database and index them through a formula. The indexing formula varies from database to database. Based on a request given by the user, the database is searched. Robots follow different methods for gathering information from web pages which is different from other search engines that indexes the whole file found in a web to the database of greenstone collection. This is what is known as full-text indexing and most search engines are known to have full-text databases. Enrich – this involves assignment appropriate metadata for each source document. Appropriate metadata provides a links that are used by search engines to attain their results. They show that the site is a good source of information that is the information that can be relied on. Enriching is the process of merging and appropriating the accessible resources in greenstone collection by dividing up the accessible data into metadata which are independent from one another and thus can be reassigned to a specific links. The idea here is that enriching masks the real complexity of the search by separating materials that are quickly accessed. Design - design should address all issues for successful implementation of the database system by stating the collection configuration such as Indexes Create - These procedures are taken into consideration to create collections that are specifically useful for the target users. The approach could be considered complicated at some point as creating these collections involve too many technicalities that not all are ready to take into consideration. Format- this involves creating appearance of the Collection Build and Preview – Designing and previewing the created Collection User Interface The design of search engine which is user friendly is necessary in this case. The application is important as it makes research easier to those accessing the digital library. "The text of links is treated in a special way in our search engine. Most search engines associate the text of a link with the page that the link is on” (Brin and Page, 2011). This makes it possible to return web pages which have not actually been crawled, information retrieval, the use of big files and repositories, indexing of documents, creation of lexicons, hit lists, forward and inverted indexes, web crawling, indexing of the web, performance analysis, storage requirements besides system and search performance. With the impact of design commands imposed through the creation of site, it is expected that navigating the collection would be much easier. The user indexers, search index, query and the search interface will be used to access greenstone collection through Searching the collections Browsing the documents by metadata fields scrutiny entire substance Highlight similar search texts Separate the document for viewing in another window. An array data is searched for a particular value and there is a variable holding the value to be searched is called the key. As indicated earlier, searching is an important list processing activity. For many applications the presence of a value indicates availability; for other applications the presence of a value indicates the list has a particular property associated with it. These search strategies are very important for most of the users but these strategies can also throw light on what techniques should be used by search engine developers for building a successful search engine. The techniques such as tips for keyword indexing and concept based indexing. Concept based indexing is in which systems determine what you mean rather than what you say is, "when several words or phrases that are tagged to signal a particular concept appear closet to each other in a text, the search engine concludes through statistical analysis, that the piece is about a certain subject’’(James, pg.151, 2010). Case sensitivity and date limitation are other issues that should be taken care of while designing a successful search engine. The design is a constantly improving process. Picking the design strategies that are most appealing to the target audience is an important factor that needs constant attention. Basically, these innovations are dedicated to function for some features that websites ought to offer; applying the right one is essential. Program provides offers a function-based access control interface and offers a service-level design interface that allows for all the users needed by an application to be designed via a graphically driven construction block approach. Search and Browse The various search strategies such as Indexing, use of Boolean operators, phrase searching, truncation, proximity searching, field searching, case sensitivity and limiting by dates. These strategies are used for searching on a search engine; as such they should be implemented in any search engine so that searches using these strategies are successful. Some of the strategies discussed such as indexing use a spider or a robot to gather new documents on the World Wide Web. Robots are programs that retrieve hyperlinks attached to documents load them into a database and index the database through a formula which varies from database to database. Based on a request given by the user, the database is searched. Robots follow different methods for gathering information from web pages and some search engines index the entire text of a web document in their database. Implementing search on a collection In implementing search on a collection the users will use search strategies of Indexing, use of Boolean operators, phrase searching, truncation, book title searching, proximity searching, and limiting by dates. These strategies will used for searching on a collection, as such they should be implemented in any search engine so that searches using these strategies are successful. Indexing will use a spider or a robot to gather new documents on a collection designed. Robots are programs that retrieve hyperlinks attached to documents load them into a database and index the database through a formula which varies from database to database. Based on a request given by the user, the database is searched. Robots follow different methods for gathering information from web pages and some search engines index the entire text of a web document in their database. This is what is known as full-text indexing and most search engines are known to have full-text databases. Robots can be intuitive and they can search on the basis of some important keywords, also some robots search on the basis of concepts also besides the search query typed by the user, in the process the robot skips prepositions and articles and searches the web on the basis of the concept keywords. These words are known as stop words. “Some robot programs are intuitive; they know which words are important to the meaning of the entire Web page, and some of them can find synonyms to the words and add them to the index. Some full-text databases use a robot that enables them to search on concepts, as well as on the search query words. In some search engines, the robot skips over words that appear often, such as prepositions and articles. These common words are called stop words.” (Ackermann, 2008). Boolean operations such as AND, OR and NOT besides implied Boolean search and phrase search. Other searching techniques such as proximity searching, wherein, words such as NEAR or WITHIN are also discussed in this article. The Boolean logic is manifested as the use of logical operators through the use of full Boolean logic, the use of implied logic through the use of keywords, and the implementation of Boolean logic through the use of form terminology. In full Boolean logic through the use of logical operators, there is use of logical operators such as OR, AND and NOT. On the other hand in implied Boolean logic, keywords are used, wherein according to Cohen “you enter words in a search box representing the concepts you wish to retrieve. Boolean operators are not used” (Cohen, 2011). Examples of the use of implied Boolean logic are: “I need information about cats”, in this case the implied Boolean logic is OR. On the other hand in the following example: “I'm interested in dyslexia in adults”, the implied Boolean logic is AND. The application of full Boolean logic and implied Boolean logic as well as the implementation of Boolean logic through the use of forms terminology. Another method through which Boolean logic is implemented in Internet search operations is through the use of forms terminology. Many search engines provide advanced search pages where Boolean operators can be chosen from a menu. In this case the logical operators are expressed as substitute terminology rather than as operators itself. Examples for search through the use of forms terminology are: Question: I need information about articles on java. Boolean logic used here: OR Search: Any of the words/At least one of the words/should contain the words Question: I want to know more about substance abuse among nurses. Boolean logic: AND Search: All of these words/Must contain the words The comparison between this article and the previous article that I discussed was in the use of Boolean logical operators such as AND, OR, and NOT. In addition to these, there is an implementation of the plus and minus signs in implied Boolean search. The (+) sign is used with AND and the (-) is used with AND NOT. There is no space between the symbols and the keyword. For example, +nurses implies AND nurses, +process implies AND process, -nurses implies AND NOT nurses. Another search technique implemented is phrase search, wherein specific phrases are used in the search surrounded by double quotes. Besides the above other forms of search discussed in this article are the use of plurals, capital letters and alternate spellings. Use of title, domain, host, URL and link search - “Field searching is one of the most effective techniques for narrowing results and getting the most relevant websites listed at the top of the results page. A web page is composed of a number of fields, such as title, domain, host, URL, and link. Searching effectiveness increases as you combine field searches with phrase searches and Boolean logic” (Flanagan, 2004). In total, this article is a complete discussion on the different search techniques that should be implemented for effective Boolean search on the Internet. The comparison between this article and the other two articles are in the discussion on the use of full Boolean logic, implied Boolean logic and the implementation of Boolean logic through the use of forms terminology. The difference between this article and the other two articles discussed above are in the use of plus and minus signs in implied Boolean search, phrase search, use of plurals, capital letters and alternate spellings and in the use of title, domain, host, URL and link search. Challenges in implementing Like most systems, this has its own challenges like inability to perform its functions properly by not downloading the required information from all sources due to the large number. This happens even there is a comprehensive search by the access program where a small section of data will be produced. Therefore the designed program should be having ability to select required files carefully and rank them in order of importance, so that the fraction of the Web that is visited is more meaningful. The program will refresh the pages by revisiting them once again to detect any changes that might have occurred and required full attention. This makes the impact greenstone collection reduced. It should have ability consolidate files into fewer accessible pages. References Ackermann, E., 2008. Search Strategies for Search Engines. University of Mary Washington, 2008. Date Accessed: 28/4/2014. Brin, S. & , Page, L., 2011. "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine". Stanford University, California. Date Accessed: 28/4/2014 Cohen, Laura B., 2011. Boolean Searching on the Internet - A Primer in Boolean Logic. Internet Tutorials. Date Accessed: 28/4/2014 James. K.L., 2010. The Internet – A User's Guide. New Delhi: PHI Learning Private Ltd. Read More