Search Engines in the fight against Institutional Impecuniousness

IWMW 2011, 26 July 2011Reading University

Search v.

Institutional Impecuniousness

David HawkingFunnelback

Who am I?

- 40 years in university computing (ANU).- 10 years (overlapping) in CSIRO

- 5 years (overlapping) Funnelback

3

Who are we?

Who are you?

Who are you?

What's all this got to do withSearch?

HE Institutions are businesses

(A) need to maintain and increase revenue◦ Attract more (or brighter) students◦ Attract more (or better) research staff, and consequently more

grants and research funding◦ Attract more (or bigger) endowments◦ Attract more (or bigger) industrial partnerships◦ More effective commercialisation of research

(B) need to increase staff productivity (without lowering standards).◦ Reduce unnecessary time and effort delivering courses,

applying for grants, doing research, undertaking commercialisation.

◦ Maximise accessibility of information and online services to all◦ Reduce student enquiry load

Areas where effective search can help: revenue side

Course Finding e.g City University Query completion demo – UPS Isn't this like e-Commerce?

◦ Avoid: There is a course for this student but they didn't find it. (Faceting, Suggestion)

◦ Conversion: Found the course → now enrol Issue: matching careers with courses:

Barrister LLB

Doctor MBBS

Webmaster MWeb

Lighthouse Keeper ?

Expertise finding e.g Australia's Knowledge Gateway Researchers, Publications, Projects, Theses Can facilitate:

◦ Discovery of strengths◦ Attraction of staff ◦ Attraction of graduate students◦ Industrial investment◦ Endowments

Image & Marketing Websites are vital to marketing a university. Search is vital to web experience Key differences between universities and

corporates. Websites operated by departments may provide critical information but don't (and possibly shouldn't) conform to corporate image. Search can help integrate them.

Alerting

Business Intelligence What are people searching for on your

sites? Are your campaigns working?

Areas where effective search can help: productivity side

Student enquiry handling Access to course materials Course planning Accommodation Exams Timetable Library email Employment / Careers

Video recordings of lectures

Staff efficiency Locating policies and procedures Staff directory Access to online services: parking permits,

leave forms, study leave applications, Gathering material for grant proposals Finding collaborators Issue: new staff and position handover Issue: search of restricted-access material Issue: academic staff often work remotely,

e.g. at home or on important field work …

Search: Issues common to all applications

Overcoming poor queries Acomodation or is it accomodation or even

accommodation?◦ Autocompletion, did you mean, query blending

Computer science or is it Information Technology or informatics?◦ Synonyms, query blending, autocompletion.

There's nothing on our site about that! Try the SERC!◦ Best bets

Queries whose best answers change 'graduation' may have different best

answers at different times of the year◦ Best bets?

Tune your ranking How well is your search working?

◦ Measure using a test set of queries and right answers

How can you improve it?◦ Explore the combinations of SE parameters,

measuring performance on the test set. Pick the optimum?

LSE Case StudyLSE Case Study

Query Best answer 2nd best answer ...

accommodation …/lifeatLSE/accommodatiaon/accommodationforStudents.aspx

accounting …/accounting/Home.aspx

anthropology …/anthropology/Home.aspx

asia …/collections/asiaResearchCentre/

ba …/study/undergraduate/degreeProgrammes2012.aspx

biomedicine …/collections/BIOS/

Test set: 134 queries

dim2

dim1

1 2

3

Out of boxAs configured

-daat (tuned)-daat20000 (tuned)

-daat0/TAAT (tuned)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Challenges in HE ranking

- Hundreds of websites- Up to millions of webpages (what's a webpage?)- Diverse publishing technologies- Corporate branding & messages slow to propagate to the outposts.- Outdated content still present (may be useful)

Official web site(s)

100s of less official web sites

But search effectiveness is a two-way street:Search and Publishing are in

a symbiotic relationship

The “Emmottiser” MY page should rank top to this query! Why doesn't it? The Emmottiser in action. Trying not to encourage fruitless arms races Will help external as well as internal search

Emmottiser: administrator

Emmottiser: content owner The query “inconsequential studies” does

not appear as a phrase:◦ Anywhere in your web page◦ In your web page's title◦ In anchor text referrring to your web page

Your web page is very long (more than 100,000 words).

The query “inconsequential studies” has been submitted 57,307 times but has never resulted in a click on your web page.

Examples of search-unfriendly publishing which might be detected and for which advice might be given.

The accessoriser? Bulk WCAG2 compliance testing and

reporting over time can be built into your search tool. (within limits)

Accessible web publishing means that ALL students and staff (and other potential stakeholders) can make use of web resources.

In Australian government accessible websites have become mandatory.

Search profiles Prospective student Current student Staff member ….

Conclusions A successful search deployment in a university

should consider:◦ Search's potential contribution to the business bottom line◦ Effective search's contribution to image and marketing◦ Several business-critical audiences◦ The symbiotic relationship between publishing and search.◦ How to achieve high quality ranking in the heterogeneous,

somewhat anarchic world of typical university web domains.◦ Responsive search of restricted-access documents◦ Specialised resources – LMS, video lectures, expertise,

research outputs Effective search can make HE institutions more

attractive, successful and productive

For best results:

For best results:• the right ingredients• proven methods• a dash of expertise• tasty presentation