Search Engine: Definition, Types & Descriptions

Search Engine is a computer program to find answers to queries in a collection of information, which might be a library catalogue or a database but is most commonly the World Wide Web. A Web search engine produces a list of “pages”—computer files listed on the Web—that contain the terms in a query. Most search engines allow the user to join terms with and, or, and not to refine queries. They may also search specifically for images, videos, or news articles or for names of Web sites.

DEFINITION OF SEARCH ENGINE

Search engine is a program that searches for and identifies items in a database that correspond to keywords or characters specified by the user, used especially for finding particular sites on the Internet. It is a retrieval mechanism and performs the basic retrieval task. It accepts the query with each of the records in a database. Primary application is to provide access to the resources on the WWW (World Wide Web) and stored on many different services. A search engine is really a general class of programs; however, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web.

IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINE

Search engines are the foundation of the Internet. Most users will turn to a search engine as the quickest way of finding the information, or product that they want. Collecting right information or data is mostly impossible without using it. Major importance of search engine is given below:

   1.      The role of a search engine is to help a user find what they are looking for on the web.

   2.      Search engine provides access to a large and distributed document collection.

   3.      By using keywords and phrases, the search engine finds the most relevant results for the user that is what they are looking for.

   4.      Efficiency achieved by using metadata to represent websites.

   5.      Search engine solves user’s information need.

TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINE

Broadly categorized into three types of search engines:

   A.      Keyword or Basic Search Engine,

   B.      Directory Search Engine,

   C.      Meta Search Engine.

It will be described as follow:

A. KEYWORD OR BASIC SEARCH ENGINE

DEFINITION

Whenever you search for something using a search engine, you type keywords that tell the search engine what to search for. Which search engines have keyword base search interface are called keyword or basic search engine. This type of search engine use special robot program to copy back to main server and index. Keyword search engines have very simple search interface and these are more advance.

EXAMPLES

Google: http://www.google.com 

BING: http://www.bing.com

 AltaVista: http://www.altavista.com

Hottbot: http://www.hottbot.com

Lycos: http://www.lycos.com

ADVANTAGES

   1.      Simple one is easy to use.

   2.      Look for new and updated webpages.

   3.      Can achieve the best results by using less commonly used words.

DISADVANTAGES

   1.      One way nature link.

   2.      No knowledge of the link page itself.

B. DIRECTORY SEARCH ENGINES

DEFINITION

These are the selective Internet finding aids that are arranged by subject and include only selected sites. Many portals and search engines have a directory component or partner. Most directories have keyword searching, but entries are also listed under one or more hierarchical subject terms or categories. Directory search engines offer hierarchical of internet resource. This type of search engine organized by human effort according to some basic underlying principle.

EXAMPLES

Yahoo!: http://www.yahoo.com

Megellan!: http://www.megellan.com

Open Directory Project-ODP: http://www.dmoz.org

ADVANTAGES

   1.      Can be very useful for browsing information on a particular subject.

   2.      Useful in evaluating search results.

DISADVANTAGES

   1.      Major problems in connection with directory

   2.      Reliance on people to build and maintain their content.

C. META SEARCH ENGINE

DEFINITION

A Meta search engine is a search tool that sends user requests to several other search engines and/or databases and aggregates the results into a single list or displays them according to their source. It provides all in one tools search for works and phrases. This type of search engine Amalgamate results, remove duplicate entries and present a single listing.

EXAMPLES

Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com

Metacrawler: http://www.metacrawler.com

Debriefing: http://www.debriefing.com

ADVANTAGES

   1.      Quick way searcher across several search tools.

   2.      The searcher can be sure to have incorporated a range of approaches in seeking the information what they require from internet.

DISADVANTAGES

   1.      May not support some of the more sophisticated search facilities.

   2.      Need additional time taken to problem a search as opposed to using just a single search engine.

A GOOD SEARCH ENGINE CHARACTERISTIC

   1.      Coverage of the database

   2.      Search facilities and process

   3.      Result list

   4.      Version of search tools

An awareness of strengths and weakness of the different search engine is important in searching the internet for resources. If an information organization is designing a website, it is important to be aware of the search engines that users may use in accessing that website. In fine having so many advantage and disadvantages all search engines are important for searching information.

REFERENCES: S.M. Zabed Ahmed, Dept. of Information Science and Library Management, University of Dhaka

                       WEBOPEDIA

                       ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITTANICA

                       NetXtra

                       SEARCH ENGINE SHOWDOWN

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Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Version 1.1 with Example

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set is a vocabulary of fifteen properties for use in resource description. The name ‘Dublin’ is due to its origin at a 1995 invitational workshop in Dublin, Ohio; ‘Core’ because its elements are broad and generic, usable for describing a wide range of resources.

There are fifteen core elements of Dublin Core Metadata.

1.    Contributor,
2.    Coverage,
3.    Creator,
4.    Date,
5.    Description,
6.    Format,
7.    Identifier,
8.    Language,
9.    Publisher,
10.    Relation,
11.    Rights,
12.    Source,
13.    Subject,
14.    Title,
15.    Type.

Now, these will be defined as follow-

LABEL	DEFINITION
Contributor	An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource.
Coverage	The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant.
Creator	An entity primarily responsible for making the resource.
Date	A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource.
Description	An account of the resource.
Format	The file format, physical medium or dimensions of the resource.
Identifier	An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.
Language	A language of the resource.
Publisher	An entity responsible for making the resource available.
Relation	A related resource.
Rights	Information about rights held in and over the resource.
Source	The resource from which the described resource is derive.
Subject	The topic of the resource.
Title	A name given to the resource.
Type	The nature or genre of the resource.

EXAMPLE OF DUBLIN CORE

Title           = ‘Metadata Demystified’

Creator      = ‘Brand, Amy’

Creator      = ‘Daly, Frank’

Creator      = ‘Meyers, Barbara’

Subject      = ‘Metadata’

Description = ‘Presents an overview of metadata conventions in publishing’

Publisher    = ‘NISO Press’

Publisher    = ‘The Sheridan Press’

Date           = ‘2003-07’

Type           = ‘Text’

Format       = ‘application.pdf’

Identifier    = ‘http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/metadata_demystified.pdf’

Language  = ‘en’

Dublin Core Metadata can be used for multiple purposes, from simple resources description to combining metadata vocabularies of different metadata standards, to providing interoperability for metadata vocabularies in the Linked data cloud and Semantic web implementations.

REFERENCE: http://dublincore.org

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7 R's of Information Management by David Butcher & J. Rowley

Attempts to define information management as a discipline have focused on definitions, such as 'Information management includes organization-wide information policy planning, the development and maintenance of integrated systems and services, the optimization of information flows and the harnessing of leading edge technologies to the functional requirements of end-users, whatever their status or role in the parent organization' (Rowley, 1988).

This can be further defined through an understanding of the role of the information manager. The information manager will have a central role in:

•        Managing and coordinating the mechanisms for keeping a business team aware of market developments and taking some responsibility for wider environmental scanning.
•        Designing, implementing, and when necessary, monitoring and updating information systems, and the exploitation of information in information systems in appropriate decision-making (Rowley, 1994).

Others have sought to define information management in terms of its contributing disciplines. Candidates for this role, include for example: management science, information systems, office automation, end-user computing, cybernetics and engineering. (Taylor and Farrell, 1992.)

Here we argue that what the discipline really lacks is a popular image. Elsewhere we argue this in a more academically rigorous style, but the objective of this article is simply to present some proposals and to invite further debate. We propose a simple model which seeks to summarize and place in a unifying framework the essential processes of information management in any context. We invite comments and further debate, and shall view this article as a success if it provokes a more refined version of our basic model, or a number of additional models that cover different aspects of information management.

THE 7 R'S OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Figure 1 is intended as a summary of the processes that contribute to information processing and the creation of knowledge. Information management as a discipline must be concerned with the management of all of these processes. Some of these processes are performed by individuals, whilst others are performed by organizations, or, in some cases, information professionals on behalf of organizations. On the left-hand side of the model are the processes that the individual performs in information management. On the right-hand side are processes performed by organizations. The completion of all of these processes may be supported by systems, but this will more evidently be the case in respect of those processes that are organizationally based. The relationships between the processes on the left-hand side of Figure 1 and those on the right-hand side are many-to-many. In other words, an individual may interact with the information management processes of many organizations, and, on the other hand, any one organization will draw on the contribution of many individuals in the management of its knowledge base. It is the nature of this many-to-many relationship that poses some of the most significant challenges to information management. Perhaps, in passing, it may be worthwhile to comment that this figure does not explicitly identify the role of those responsible for the systems that facilitate each of the processes. Importantly, however, the Figure does emphasize that information and knowledge management involves a series of stages in a cycle.

The model uses the terms and concepts information, and subjective and objective knowledge. This model proposes definitions for these terms. These definitions take into account earlier literature on the meaning of these terms, but do not derive directly from any specific school of thought. The literature on the definition of information is complex and includes contributions from a range of different disciplinary perspectives. In particular, definitions of information have been proposed that conceptualize information as subjective knowledge, or as useful data, or as a resource, or as a commodity, or as a constitutive force in society. It is not our intention to explore this literature in any depth in this article.

Perhaps the best way to explain the processes that comprise the information management cycle in more detail is to examine the inputs and outputs from each of them. Figure 2 summarizes this.

Starting with the Read process, the cycle can be described to work like this:

     1. A person reads a collection of relevant knowledge recorded in both electronic and print documents. They may also absorb other inputs from the external environment, or real world data, using a range of data collection methodologies.

     2. Once read, the relevant knowledge becomes information which is absorbed into the cognitive framework of the individual. This statement implies a definition of information as subjective knowledge. Other definitions of information exist and may be attractive to some audiences. The use adopted here allows a clear differentiation between knowledge and information, and relates both of these concepts to one of the 7R's. This process of recognition is concerned with matching the concepts in the user's cognitive framework with those in the document that is read. Recognizing is concerned with converting information into subjective knowledge.

     3. Re-interpretation is concerned with the conversion of knowledge into a form that can be easily communicated, such as in a document. Although documents might be the primary concern of information managers, it is important to remember that public utterances can also be in verbal or graphical form. We describe this knowledge as Public Knowledge.

     4. Review or evaluation is concerned with the conversion of public Knowledge into Validated Knowledge. This process is conducted through the various channels that filter communications from individuals, at some stage in its process to the entry of validated knowledge. Typical activities that are concerned with validation include reviewing, refereeing, listing, and other processes for evaluating public knowledge.

     5. Release or distribution is concerned with the making of public knowledge that is widely available within the community, organization or marketplace that might find it to be of value. Once validated knowledge has been released, it enters the knowledge domain upon which individuals and organization and communities can draw. Release for documents is typically in the form of publication, but other public announcements can also be made, though, say, television and cinema, and other information media.

     6. Organizations will interact with this knowledge domain, select items from it, and collect, or provide routes of access to a subject of the knowledge domain that they judge to be of specific interest in meeting their objectives. Processing that might be involved here could include data warehousing, indexing, and physical arrangement of printed documents. This may take place in libraries, document collections, and document management systems. All such processes can be said to broadly fit into the category of re-structuring of knowledge to meet a specific purpose. This collection of knowledge will be supplemented, within organizations by information that emerges from the collection of transaction-based data, such as sales data, within the organization.

     7. This accessible collection of knowledge will then be used by individuals as a resource from which they can retrieve relevant knowledge. Users will approach this collection with individual objectives, and seek to differentiate between relevant knowledge and rubbish as defined by their specific objectives.

     8. Relevant knowledge, once retrieved, must be read before the knowledge recorded in documents of various types can be converted into information and the cycle can recommence. The cycle shows the stages in the order in which they are often encountered. However, the processes may occur in alternative orders: for example, Review may occur, before or after Distribution. If the stages are switched, then the inputs and outputs to the processes need to be adjusted accordingly. In addition, there are, of course, many sub processes within each of the processes identified in this model. The study of these processes and the way in which they can be facilitated in different contexts, is what constitutes the discipline of information management. There is more work to be done in the identification of the nature of these sub-processes.

WHY DO WE NEED THIS MODEL?

Perhaps creating models may seem a little like a game that academics play, but the game does have more professionally significant outcomes. The model, together with the terminology that it embeds can act as a basis for communication about information processing. In addition it emphasizes that individual and organizational information processing must be viewed as part of a whole, and very simply, but very forcibly communicates that effective information processing is only achieved if both sets of processes operate effectively and they are integrated. As the nature of information processing changes with the increasing use of electronic information, there is an ever more pressing need to understand these processes.

REFERENCES

Managing Information, From the March 1998 issue (Volume 5 Number 2)

Rowley, J E. Basics of Information Technology. London: Library Association, 1988.

Rowley, J E. The Changing Role of the Information Manager. Librarian Career Development 2 (3) 1994,

pp.3-6.

Taylor, A and Farrell, S. Information management in context. Aslib Proceedings, 44 (9), September 1992,

pp.319-322.


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Information: Parameters and Varieties

PARAMETERS OF INFORMATION

Six parameters of information have been recognized:

1. Quantity of information which can be measured by the  number of documents, pages, words, characters, bits, drawings, etc.

2. Content, the meaning of information.

3. Structure, the format or organization of information and its logical relationship between statements or elements.

4. Language, the symbols, alphabets, codes, and syntax with which the ideas are expressed.

5. Quality, which characterizes the completeness, accuracy, relevance, and timeliness of information.

6. Life, the total span of time in which the value can be derived from the information.

VARIETIES OF INFORMATION

Information has its varieties. They are recognizable on the basis of different characteristics. Hertz and Rubinstein have identified six varieties of information:

1. Conceptual information: the ideas, theories, hypotheses about the relationships which exist among the variables.

2. Empirical information: drawn from observation, experience and experiments rather than theory.

3. Procedural information: the methodology which enables the investigator to operate more effectively. Procedural information relates to the means by which the data of investigation are obtained, manipulated, and tested.

4. Stimulatory information: a person must be motivated, and there are but two sources for such motivation, himself and his environment. Stimulatory information when environmentally derived is probably most effective when it is transmitted by direct communication.

5. Policy information: this is the focus of the decision making process. Collective activity necessitates the definition of objectives and purpose, the fixing of and of responsibility, the conditions of rights and privileges, and delineation of functions. Directive information: group activity cannot proceed effectively without coordination, and it is through directive information that this coordination is achieved.

REFERENCE: S.M. Zabed Ahmed, Chairman, Dept. of Information Science and Library Management, University of Dhaka 

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Data, Information and Knowledge, its characteristics and difference between Data and Information

Data, information and knowledge frequently overlap, mainly differing in abstraction. Data is least abstract, information next least, and knowledge most. Data becomes information by interpretation; e.g., the height of MD. Faruk is generally considered as "data", a book on MD. Faruk geological characteristics may be considered as "information", and a report containing practical information on the best way to reach MD. Faruk’s peak may be considered as "knowledge".

DATA 

DEFINITION

The word data is the plural of Latin datum, "something given," but it is not always treated as a plural noun in English. Data is a set of organized information; it is a quantification or measurement of the real world by a set of variables. Statistical data is a set of observations on which values of variables are given. Variables are things that one measures, controls or manipulates in a research problem.

The data is plentiful and easily available — H. A. Gleason, Jr.

Comprehensive data on economic growth have been published — N. H. Jacoby

EXAMPLES

     1.     Height of a man, suppose 70 inches, is a data;

     2.     Name of a person, suppose Rehan or Juni, is a data;

     3.     His/her weight, suppose 150 lbs., is a data;

     4.     His/her skin colour, suppose white, is a data;

     5.     His/her religion, suppose Islam, is a data; and so on.

CHARACTERISTICS

     1.     Data are the raw materials of information,

     2.     Data is a distinct piece of information,

     3.     Data must be disorganized or unprocessed,

INFORMATION

DEFINITION

One of the most common ways to define information is to describe it as one or more statements or facts that are received by a human and that have some form of worth to the recipient. For example, the Sesame Street character ``Cookie Monster" describes information as ``news or facts about something," or, as the first definition in the Random House College Dictionary suggests for information, ``knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; news." Cookie Monster's definition is consistent with the common notions that information must:

     

     1.     Be something, although the exact nature (substance, energy, or abstract concept) isn't clear;

     2.     Provide ``new" information: a repetition of previously received messages isn't informative;

     3.     Be ``true:" a lie or false or counterfactual information is mis-information, not  information itself;

     4.     Be ``about" something.

EXAMPLES

      1.     The average height or weight of several people, suppose 62 inch, is information;

      2.     The average weight of the class, suppose 130 lbs., is an information; and so on.

CHARACTERISTICS

      1.     Information is the resultant version of some data.

      2.     Information always be processed or organized

      3.     Information is the context in which data is taken.

KNOWLEDGE

DEFINITION

Knowledge is a combination of information, experience and insight that may benefit the individual or the organisation. "When crude oil prices go up by $10 per barrel, it's likely that petrol prices will rise by 2p per litre" is knowledge.

EXAMPLES

The shop manager can see that ‘Polar’ is the most popular ice-cream. Next time he places an order, he will ask for 4 times as much ‘Polar’ ice-cream than other ice-cream.

CHARACTERISTICS

     1.     General awareness or possession of information, facts, ideas, truths, or principles

     2.     Clear awareness or explicit information, for example, of a situation or fact

     3.     All the information, facts, truths, and principles learned throughout time

     4.     Familiarity or understanding gained through experience or study

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DATA AND INFORMATION

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE 1

Suppose, in your first, second, third and fourth year GPAs are: 3.0, 3.5, 3.5, and 4.0

Then so the CGPA is say something like: 3.5

Here, the individual GPAs are data

And then the finally calculated CGPA is information.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE 2

Suppose, in your first year, you got individual GPs in four classes you took as: 3.0, 3.5, 3.5, and 4.0

Then your average grade = (3.0+3.5+3.5+4.0)/4 = 3.5.

Here, the individual GPs you got are data,

And the average grade that is calculated is information.

CHART

DATA	INFORMATION
Name or measure of a fact	Resultant form of the fact
Raw materials of information	Resultant version of some data
Unprocessed or unorganized	Processed or organized
Meaningful or meaningless	Must be meaningful
Examples: Marks, GP(Grade Point), etc.	Examples: GPA, CGPA, etc.

Just Remember

     1.     Positions of data and information are not always fixed,

     2.     They change themselves due to change of time or situation,

     3.     Just remember that, data is the primary or intermediate version of information.

REFERENCES: S.M. Zabed Ahmed, Chairman, Dept. of Information Science and                              Library Management, University of Dhaka

                             UNESCO

                             WIKIPEDIA

                             otec.uoregon.edu

                             www.merriam-webster.com


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