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Strategies, options and developments in searching for manufacturing information on the Internet
Anyone
can do an Internet search. By simply putting a word or two into a
search engine, you will get something back out. What you won't
necessarily get are those sites most relevant to what you want, and you
may well miss the best ones. To search efficiently and effectively, you
need a strategy. Jim Corlett helps oversee one of the most impressive
collections of resources for manufacturers that exists online or
anywhere (www.eevl.ac.uk). He didn't help build that website without
knowing a thing or two about how to separate wheat from the chaff. This
will likely be the best article you read this year about Internet
search strategies for manufacturers. If you read it carefully, and
follow Jim's strategies, you will save yourself countless wasted hours
waiting for useless website pages to load.
I'm
going to show you how I search for information on the Internet. There
are other approaches that differ in detail, but the basics are the same.
Most search engines offer simple or advanced searches, and the good
ones will have a page of search hint or tips for you to get the most
out of the service. Use them! A quick read of their specific search
rules will save you time later.
For a simple search to be effective, you need to be looking for
something pretty specific or unusual -- if you want stuff on high speed
machining, then enter "high speed machining", into the search window,
and not just "machining" which will give you a mass of irrelevant items
to wade through.
For a more advanced search, (that is, one with more than one simple
word or term), you need first to be clear about what you are actually
looking for. Sounds obvious, but it's often a useful first step.
Formulate a sentence which describes the topic -- e.g. "concurrent
engineering in the automotive industry". Identify the key bits
("concurrent engineering", "automotive industry") and then make sure
you've got the alternatives covered. Putting in these terms will get
some relevant results. But you will miss, for instance, those sites
which call it "simultaneous engineering" (a synonym). Similarly with
automobile, car, or motor for automotive.
These searches use Boolean logic. To widen a search out (get the most
hits), use an OR --"simultaneous engineering" OR "concurrent
engineering". To narrow things down, use an AND -- "concurrent
engineering" AND "automotive industry".
Other things to look out for are: - spelling: moulding or molding, for instance; one without the other could lose you a lot of sites;
- also,
be wary of acronyms: they can be a useful shortcut, but they are often
not unique. Look for electro-discharge machining by putting in EDM and
you'll also get back lots of stuff about engineering data management;
- another
useful shortcut is truncation: most searches will allow you to do a
stem search i.e. cut off words with a symbol so that you find
everything which starts with that stem ‹ e.g. "automo*" (and most Web
engines use an asterix as the truncation symbol) will get you
automobile, automobiles, automotive. It is particularly useful if you
want both singular and plural. But don't cut too deep: "auto*" for
example, would bring out a lot more than the three terms required in
the last example!
Also, know your search site. There may be options within a site. For instance, EEVL (www.eevl.ac.uk/)
has a database option (for which you'll need fairly general terms,
since you're searching only the titles, keywords and abstracts
describing sites) and also the option to search whole websites (where
much more specific terms are appropriate, given the much greater amount
of information available for searching).
If
you're getting too much out of the system, it is possible with some
sites (e.g. EEVL, again) to limit the search by a particular resource
type. It may be that you only want companies in a particular field, or
full-text documents, or courseware. In which case, put your search term
in and click the relevant resource type.
If you're not getting enough out of the system using these strategies,
then try going wider, using related terms rather than just synonyms, or
more generic terms. You're never going to get everything, nor are you
likely to want to. Some of these strategies, however, will get you more
relevant sites more quickly.
Once you've got a list of sites, what should you do to see if they're
any good? You need to know a number of things about them to make sure
you're not wasting your time checking out a dud.
Website evaluation does not take long. A few quick checks should do it:
- Can you see if a person or organization is responsible for the site? (You need to know where it's coming from);
- Is the subject matter relevant? (Obvious, really);
- Is
it maintained by an individual or organization affiliated to an
academic or government institution? (These are usually reliable sources
of useful information);
- Is there a statement about the purpose and coverage of the information? (so you can gauge its range and depth);
- Is the information promotional? (In which case, be aware of bias);
- Is
the information copyrighted? (If so, this might restrict what you can
do with the info; you must abide by the rules laid down);
- Is the date of the last update included? (Invaluable to make sure you're not getting outdated information);
- Is there an index or site map or table of contents? (Can speed your awareness of and navigation round the site), and;
- Are contact details given? (So that you can have somewhere to go immediately for further info, if required).
Options
Once you've decided what exactly you're looking for, and how you're
going to rate it when you do find it, where do you then go to look for
it?
Basically, you can try one of the big global search engines that use
robot search tools to trawl through a massive number of websites
automatically and give a very brief indication of what the site's about.
Or you can go for one of the more specific sites (subject gateways)
which search a pre-selected range of sites in a targeted area (such as
engineering), based on certain quality criteria and containing full
descriptions of each site.
My favourite global search engine of the moment is Google (www.google.com/), but there are a good number of others, such as AltaVista (www.altavista.com/), Lycos (www.lycos.co.uk/), and HotBot (hotbot.lycos. com/).
As search tools, they can be effective for detailed topics. Their main
defects spring from the way the results of a search are presented; the
list of resources your search query returns can seem very unfocused and
unselective, and the descriptions unhelpful. This can lead to
time-consuming efforts that you may find frustrating when trying to dig
out the relevant sites.
I would rather start from the other end, and go from the specific to
the general. I would pick a single-subject gateway and see what it has
to offer first. EEVL (www.eevl.ac.uk/),
from the UK, with more than 5,000 engineering resources (some 1,600 in
manufacturing), is a prime example and my first port-of-call. It offers
a variety of search options (the catalogue, engineering newsgroups, UK
websites) and complementary services, including a recent advances in
manufacturing (RAM) database (www.eevl.ac.uk/ ram/).
Resource type searching is also available, and some topics are conveniently listed as hot links.
There are other examples of engineering gateways (most of which include
manufacturing information) emanating from various countries. Although
none offers as many resources as EEVL in this field, they are useful
resources: A useful list of subject gateways is at the Pinakes site (www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html).
If you don't find what you are looking for, then you could try one of the multi subject gateways. Recently, Google (directory.google.com/Top/Science/Technology/) and AltaVista (dir.altavista. com/Top/Science/Technology/)
and some of the other global search engines have also acquired subject
directories. There are various other, less extensive sites available.
The two main UK sites are NISS (www.niss.ac.uk/subject/) and BUBL (bubl.ac.uk/link/), while European sites include DutchESS (The Netherlands) (www.kb.nl/dutchess/) and DEf Vejviser (Denmark) (www.deff.dk/vejviser/).
The library resources of many academic institutions will also act as
quasi subject gateways, so it may be worth looking at specialist
libraries or ones with acknowledged good collections, if you know of
some in your particular area. Developments
The change is on from gateways to portals. A portal is a door or gate,
and helps steer users to where they need to go. There are a number of
international projects aimed at creating better portals to help
organize the chaos of the Web.
Eventually you should be able to put in a search term and get not only
websites, but also resources such as: document references, data, images
and videos, courseware and training materials, lists of leading
experts/like minded people, events taking place in the field, product
data and purchasing opportunities.
Jim Corlett is a faculty liaison officer for engineering and computing
at the Nottingham Trent University in the UK. He is a subject
consultant on manufacturing and mechanical engineering for the EEVL
website project, and writes for the e-journal ADAM with IT: Advanced
Design And Manufacturing with Information Technology (www.cimwareukandusa.com/). You can reach him by e-mail at: (
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
)
References
1.
Corlett, J., 2000. The Portal Shone: Resource Discovery in Engineering,
In: Su, D. ed. Internet-Based Engineering: Applications and Case
Studies. Nottingham: Nottingham Trent University in association with
Professional Engineering Publishing.
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