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IT News

Author: Janelle Corkill

Web Editors meeting Tuesday, May 3

The next Web Editors meeting is 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 3, in Room 211 of the Leadership Studies Building. Discussion will include updates on the K-State web content management system, social media, and other central web projects. The meetings are open to departmental web editors.

K-State search enhancements: Tabs, format, faster results

K-State’s new search debuts this Thursday, Aug. 21, and racks up improvements three ways — by using Google, providing quicker visual access to search results, and updating the format of the People Directory results.

The webpage-search results are powered by a Google Search Appliance (GSA) purchased in cooperation with K-State Libraries and K-State Research and Extension. The GSA produces more relevant search results and enables the popular “Did you mean” feature that catches and offers to automatically correct potential spelling errors.

“Three tabs” format

The most obvious change is that results will be presented on a page with three tabs, just like many other popular search sites. The new tabs mean less scrolling and quicker access to specific search results.

The new search still searches three information sources:

* K-State webpages
* K-State people
* K-State departments, units, and organizations

Search results for People Directory

The format of People Directory search results has been improved by observing how people use that data. First, people scan the list of possible matches by name, and second, they scan for identifying information — such as class/major for students, and title/department for faculty and staff.

In the new format, names are larger and more prominent, and identifying information stands out and is more clearly associated with the name.