A survey of current practice of data search services

<p>Relevancy ranking is an important component of making a data repository&#39;s search system<br> responsive to data seekers&rsquo; needs. The <a href="https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/data-discovery-paradigms-ig">Research Data Alliance (RDA) Data Discovery Paradigms<br> Interest Group</a> is a collaborative activity within our data community which aims to improve data<br> searchability. This survey is intended to gather information about the current practices and lessons<br> learnt by data repositories in implementing relevancy ranking in search systems. We expect that<br> analysis of the survey results will:</p> <ul> <li>Help data repositories choose appropriate technologies when implementing or improving their search functionality;</li> <li>Provide a means for sharing experiences in improving relevancy ranking;</li> <li>Capture the aspirations, successes and challenges encountered from research data repository managers;</li> <li>Help the Data Discovery Paradigms Interest group align future activities on data search improvement with the interests of data search service providers.</li> </ul> <p>For the above the purpose, we designed a survey instrument to answer the following topics (the numbers in brackets indicate the number of questions asked per topic):</p> <ol> <li>What are characteristics of each repositories (5)?</li> <li>What are system configurations (e.g., ranking model, index methods, query methods) (7)?</li> <li>Evaluation methods and benchmark (10) <ul> <li>What has been evaluated?</li> <li>What evaluation methods have been applied?</li> <li>How was the evaluation collection built?</li> <li>What is approximate &nbsp;performance range of search systems with certain configuration?</li> </ul> </li> <li>What methods have been used to boost searchability to web search engines (e.g., Google, Bing) (2)</li> <li>What other technologies or system configurations have been employed (5)?</li> <li>Wish list for future activities for the RDA relevance task force (2)?</li> </ol> <p>Notes: Survey instruments from Version 1 and Version 2 have same questions, but order questions slightly different.&nbsp; Version 2 has the one as instrumented to participants.</p>