ARCHIVED: Completed project: IU Search
Maintenance window: Thursdays 5-6am and Sundays midnight-8am
Primary UITS contact: Martin J. Wagner
Completed: August 17, 2015
Description: IU Search comprises the primary search page (http://search.iu.edu/) and the custom search boxes used on Indiana University web pages. The goal of this project is to meet user expectations for the search results obtained from these resources.
Outcome: An improved search interface will result in higher user satisfaction and the distribution of better information about IU.
Timeline for rolling out Google Custom Search:
- August 8, 2012: Complete front-end look and feel for IUB and IUPUI
- August 10, 2012: All promotions (keywords) entered
- August 13, 2012: Switch search boxes on campus gateways
- August 20, 2012: Classes start
- October 14, 2012: Microsoft FAST Search no longer supported as a search platform
- November 4, 2012: All traffic to search.sharepoint.iu.edu redirected to Google Custom Search
- December 16, 2012: Microsoft FAST service shut down
Milestones and status:
- April 2014: IU Branding and responsive design implemented
- November 2013: Update with IU Branding, responsive design underway
- September 2013: Update with IU Branding underway
- January 15, 2013: Mobile site planning and development underway
- December 16, 2012: Search as you type enabled on search.iu.edu
- December 16, 2012: FAST service shut down
- November 16, 2012: All IU Gateway sites on Google Custom Search
- November 4, 2012: All traffic to search.sharepoint.iu.edu redirected to Google Custom Search
- October 25, 2012: Search.iu.edu updated with new interface
- October 14, 2012: FAST Search crawlers taken offline; FAST Search no longer supported. Google Custom Search is now the supported search platform.
- October 8, 2012: New Search home page under development
- October 1, 2012: SharePoint FAST Index cleanup underway
- Communicated with Campus Web Managers, Webserve account managers, FAST site admins, Search-l email list, GSA Admins, and all web admins from IUB and IUPUI A-Z lists about Google Custom Search and FAST retirement
- July 31, 2012: Google Custom Search offered as an alternative to Microsoft FAST Search. Weekly infoshares starting 10am Wednesday, August 8, on IU Connect https://connect.iu.edu/searchinfo.
- July 7, 2012: Requested SharePoint Designer to be installed on IUanyWare
- July 6, 2012: Moved FAST Crawler into production
- July 2, 2012: Performance tuning FAST Crawler
- June 21, 2012: Introduced FAST Crawler in addition to SharePoint Crawler
- June 7, 2012: Performance tuning FAST Search
- June 1, 2012: Scheduled Health Check with Microsoft
- April 1, 2012: Microsoft FAST Search replaces Google Search Appliance
- March 2012: Weekly FAST Search infoshares from March-May 2012
- March 2012: Pilot of Microsoft FAST Enterprise Search underway
- January 2012: Pilot of Microsoft FAST Search planning, configuration, and testing underway
- October 2011: Microsoft FAST Search planning underway
- August 2011: Researching GSA alternatives, Microsoft Enterprise Search and Apache Solr
- July 2011: New performance tune of IU GSA, with faster and more accurate results; Google Search Appliance installed
- May 15, 2011: Search.iu.edu redesign live
- April 2011: Search.IU Mobile site under development; preview available at http://test.search.iu.edu/m2/
- January-March 2011: New Search.IU homepage under development (new features include new interface, Google and Bing search tabs, social media connectivity, and new campus images); IU Searchlight podcast, intended to shed light on search, with a focus on using search at IU (http://go.iu.edu/he); Search.IU Twitter feed (@iusearch, https://twitter.com/iusearch/)
- January 2011: Evaluation of Solr, Google, and FAST search underway
- January 2011: Pilot of Microsoft FAST Search planning
- September 2010-May 2011: Enhance http://search.iu.edu/ with options for Google and Bing search results. Add advanced features such as a directory of other search resources.
- August-September 2010: Conduct a survey of IU search professionals to gather more ideas for improvement. Complete
- July 2010: Encourage and address specific feedback about the usefulness of results by adding a feedback link to http://search.iu.edu/, and offer IU web professionals the opportunity to use the feedback link with their custom search boxes and search results. Complete
- June-August 2010: Educate the IU web community with updated
search information. Complete
- Search Confluence space updated with documentation of new features
- IU Knowledge Commons space added to provide information on custom search boxes
- March-May 2010: Educate IU search professionals on the new features of the Google Search Appliance. Complete
- March-April 2010: Optimize search at the system administrator level by testing the new features and updating the configuration of the Google Search Application.
- February 2010: Migrate to new Google Search Appliance. Complete
- December 2009-January 2010: Install, configure, and test the new Google Search Appliance to be the primary source of search results.
- September-November 2009: Develop a proposal to renew the license for the Google Search Appliance. Completed (proposal approved and license renewed in November)
- August 2009: Develop a plan to improve IU Search with IU search professionals. Completed (see recommendations below)
Comment process: Use the IU Search Feedback Form.
Benefits: Visitors to IU websites will be able to find information more easily. IU web and search professionals will have more tools to help visitors find content.
Related information: Search recommendations from IU search professionals during fall 2009. In fall 2011, Microsoft Search became a viable option that did not exist in 2009:
- Educate the IU web community on methods to improve search:
- Provide techniques to assure content is crawled, indexed, and found as desired.
- Explain how to work with campus web managers to achieve a more effective search.
- Educate GSA collection managers and front-end owners on how to
improve search:
- Identify duplicate, excluded hosts.
- Optimize search results for improved user experience, including integration of unused GSA features available to front-end owners, such as search-as-you-type, dynamic result clustering.
- Optimize search at the system administrator level:
- Improve global duplicate hosts, excluded hosts, and other global features through improved communication with developers within UITS, possibly leveraging the new API.
- Upgrade the GSA software as patches are released.
- Investigate the unused extensibility of the GSA, including the GSA API. Consider free Google extensions, best practices, and extensive Google Labs code available from Google.
- Analyze search problems:
- Analyze existing search problem reports.
- Collection and front-end owners should use GSA reports to analyze search queries.
- Introduce mechanisms to collect data in the future such as surveys, solicit feedback on search pages, or centrally collect and analyze search problem reports.
- Utilize Google's value-add services, including regular consultative "Health Checks" to seek solutions to search problems and feedback on our configuration and practices.
- Continue using the GSA:
- The GSA is underutilized, and can meet the stated search requirements if utilized more fully. With available information, no known search engine meets more requirements.
- A complete transition to a new solution would take more time and resources than we have.
- Renew the GSA contract for a three-year period, increasing the document count from 2 million to 3 million documents. Contract renewal includes a significant hardware upgrade.
- Evaluate solutions to replace, supplement, or complement the GSA during the new contract period.
- Periodically ask for assessment of what Google search products we should be using.
Primary client: Visitors to IU websites and the IU search and web professionals who maintain those sites and search tools
Project team: UITS Enterprise Web Technical Services is managing the project and environments. Team members include web professionals from throughout the university.
Governance: The Web Standards Committee will ensure that the needs of the IU web and search communities are met.
This is document bafu in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2018-01-18 16:40:39.