Report for the 'Advanced' gateway: 2009-01

This report analyses the ASDD gateway log files to provide the following summaries. See some explanations of terminology below each table.

• Search field combinations
• Individual search fields used
• Repositories that were searched
• Responses
• Search terms, phrases, and words
• Miscellaneous statistics
• Errors detected

Warning: As with any statistics, you must take care with their interpretation.

Search field combinations used

Total number of searches conducted: 654

Multiple search fields: 410

Singular search fields: 244

Note: Complex search queries can be composed, so as to yield accurate results. Multiple search fields are shown separated by delimiter, e.g. abstract|title|title means 3 search fields combined with AND/OR/NOT

• This table lists each different type of search that was used. It indicates how people are using the interface to build a complex search query.
• Multiple search terms are shown separated by delimiter, e.g. abstract|title|title
• Recall that the interfaces provide multiple rows for text-based queries. In addition, the Advanced interface provides Spatial, Date, and Controlled terms capabilities.
• full-text ... Search anywhere in the document, i.e. all metadata fields.

Individual search fields used

• This table lists each individual search field that was used. It is a summary of the table above.

Repositories that were searched

• This table shows the total number of searches conducted at each node (including successful and failed searches).
• Repository ... A collection of documents that a certain custodian has published and made available for searching. Also known as a "node".

Responses

• total searches ... The total number of searches conducted.
• results were found ... The search succeeded and one or more metadata records were found to match. The value is the number of such successful searches.
• no results found ... The search did succeed, but no matches were found. The value indicates the number of searches that resulted in no matches.
• navigate ... Display the Next/Previous set of results.
• full present ... Display a complete dataset description. From the brief listing from a certain node, the user has selected to see the full metadata record.
• search failed ... The search failed for a node-specific reason. Possible causes include: server misconfiguration, out-of-date server software at this node, network failure during search. See errors below.

Search terms, phrases, and words

Search terms (top 15)

• Includes all phrases, words, dates, and numbers.

Phrases (top 15)

• Excludes phrases used in "ANZLIC Search Words".

Words (top 15)

• Includes words used in "Phrases".
• Excludes words used in "ANZLIC Search Words".
• Excludes common words from the stopword list.

Miscellaneous Statistics

ANZLIC search words (top 15)

• Terms beginning with a word in all uppercase characters indicates that they used the pick-list option. Otherwise they must have used the text options which allow them to enter their own text to search against this field.

Number of repositories selected for simultaneous search

• Each search is conducted simultaneously against a certain number of repositories, as selected by the user.
• If the user forgot to specify a list of repositories to be searched, then the default is to search against all repositories.
• A high number of repositories probably indicates that they used the "select all" button.

Phrase search versus single-word search

• Phrase search ... more than one word occuring together.

Other statistics

• ANZLIC Unique Identifiers ... they searched for particular IDs either explicitly or using truncation, e.g. ANZCW1101*
• Right truncation ... they used a wildcard * to match any word-ending (see ASDD Help).
• within-bounding-box ... they conducted a spatial search using the "Within" or "Covers" option.
• overlaps-bounding-box ... they conducted a spatial search using the "Overlaps" option.

Errors detected

• timeout ... The remote search server could not be contacted. Possible causes include: offline for maintenance, network congestion. The ASDD Help shows other reasons.
• connection or init ... The remote search server was contacted, but did not respond properly. Possible causes include: server software configuration error, software failure.
• protocol ... An obscure error with the remote search server.