Overview
Background
There is a requirement to review the University search tools and search strategy because a range of consultation and research activities have revealed issues with the current search functionality and inappropriate results are often delivered. Full details of the research completed in section 2.6 of the original project proposal. The current solution is relying on a free offering from Google which was set up by Communications and Marketing a number of years ago.
This proposal is for a project to investigate and propose an alternative search engine solution (and identify the on-going management requirements) which can be used across all areas of the University website and a framework within which it is managed – both technically and editorially. This will involve business analysis for the view of how the future search could be managed within each of the business units. It is expected that this would involve a short study of how another similar organisation manages search.
Business analysis would be needed to:
- Propose criteria for what makes a good search (desk research and competitor analysis)
- Facilitate agreement and prioritisation of those criteria for the desired search experience –balanced with resources and managing expectations of delivering that experience
The immediate benefit will be that the University will have a road map for implementing and supporting a significantly improved search solution for staff and external website visitors. This would lay the foundations to support achieving the long-term objective of enhancing the users search experience on all websites - audience focused, coherent search results are a requirement that must be managed by the University. It would also deliver the information needed for a project proposal for the next annual planning round in January 2013 to enable the long-term objective to be realised. Note this is not within the agreed timeline for this project within the programme.
An additional future benefit (following a separate project relating to an implementation and support of an alternative search engine) would be that the business may be able to weight search results to reflect the institutions strategic objectives (dependent on solution).
Scope, Objectives and Deliverables
Scope
The scope of this project is to gather the requirements around web search throughout the institution. The project will undertake a business analysis of which options are available to meet these requirements. The project will identify and produce a business case for a new University wide search engine [note that the business case is not in the annual plan proposal, which detailed only an estimate of how much it will cost to run on an ongoing basis]. In costing the proposed solution consideration will be given to the initial procurement and installation cost as well as on-going IS support. The business case should outline the benefits as well as details on how search could be managed in the future.
Out of scope
The procurement, development and implementation of the recommended solution is not covered in this project.
Business Objectives
- Clear statement on the benefits of what an improved search engine could mean to key audiences and members of staff.
- Propose a more effective, managed and sustainable search solution than is currently available.
- Deliver an active search engine management strategy with transparent cost and resource implication of adopting the strategy.
Deliverables
Deliverable | Limitation |
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Benefits
Tangible - Description and Value | Assumptions |
A clear costing for the purchase and support of an on-going service set against the total time wasted currently on users getting poor search results | Number searches per year, length of time saved per search. |
Long-term benefit (not from this project but from any subsequent implementation): Reduce average search pages viewed from 1.3 to 1.0 | Most relevant result will appear in the first page of results |
| Long-term benefit (not from this project but from any subsequent implementation): Reduce average number of searches | Most users will alter their search input rather than navigate through all the search result pages |
Intangible – Description |
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Contribute to University Website Programme's IA and Content strategies | Strategies being developed and refined as part of the ongoing CMS and website review and enhancement activity (http://bit.ly/sgVV8Z) - please note that this project will not produce a revised stratagy but will influence it. |
Clear direction for the University to take on search engine management | Through consultation with data owners |
Long-term benefit (not from this project but from any subsequent implementation): Improve University’s reputation, by delivering more relevant results for website visitors | More relevant search results for website visitors would improve the University's reputation. |
Success Criteria
Success will be measured by the delivery of:
- A clear recommendation about which technology should be used
- How much it will cost to run the sevice on an on-going basis (technical cost)
- A viable process for how the search could be managed in a devolved editorial environment
- How much it will cost for continuous editorial maintenance (business cost)