EBSCOhost: January Product Enhancements

EBSCO Publishing has announced the release of a number of significant product enhancements, to be implemented in early 2006. We have been advised that these upgrades are targeted to go live in early February. MOREnet will pass on a specific date as soon as we receive it.

The key features of this release are:

-New Visual Search interface, powered by Grokker.
Visual Search delivers a graphically-rich, efficient visual searching alternative to EBSCO's Basic and Advanced Searching modes. It will be available, by default, as an alternative search interface selection in EBSCOhost Web.

Visual Search represents an exciting and unique search method, featuring richly colorful, graphical presentations of citations sorted by topics. Visual Search offers, at a glance, a glimpse at what is beyond the first page of traditional search results. Users will be able to find the best articles with patterns of color, shapes and sizes that are easy to understand. A screen shot is available at http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?faq=2488.

Please be advised that Visual Search requires a Sun Java installation on the local machine. If the installation is necessary, and there are appropriate permissions for download and installation, the browser will prompt the user to install the necessary Sun Java modules on the machine.

Search engine preferences can be set by EBSCOadmin. We have been advised that Visual Search can be made inaccessible, if your organization prefers that option.

-Clustering

Clustering, in EBSCOhost Web and EBSCOhost Text Only, organizes search results into groups based on the categories subject headings, authors, and journals. By default, MOREnet customers will see subject clusters and journal clusters (in that order). EBSCOadmin will permit administrators to control over displaying clusters through the Viewing Results sub-tab in the profile configuration.

A screen shot, displaying clustering results, is available at:
http://support.epnet.com/uploads/CustSupport/Images/ReleaseInfo/Clustering.htm

-Database Selection from Basic or Advanced Search screen

EBSCOhost Web and EBSCOhost Text Only will include a convenient drop-down list of available databases, located right under the Find field(s) on both the Basic and Advanced Search screens. Users will now be able to select a new database to search without having to return to the Choose Databases screen.

-Grouping of databases by subject
In conjunction with the new drop-down list of databases under the Find field(s) on the Basic and Advanced Search screens, EBSCOhost administrators may opt for the list to display database subject groupings (see available subjects at http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=2725). These subject groupings are sorted by EBSCO; a future software enhancement will permit EBSCOhost administrators additional latitude on selecting groupings for subscribed databases.

By default, all MOREnet customers will have this feature turned off by default, and the drop down menu will display the database names only. For instructions on implementing this feature in EBSCOadmin when it becomes available, see http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?faq=2492.

-Printing, e-mailing and saving in standard industry formats

Citation formatting selections for printing, emailing and saving will include: AMA, APA, Chicago/Turabian: Humanities, Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date, Modern Language Association or Vancouver/ICMJE. EBSCO administrators will be able to set the default format type on the Customize services sub-tab in each configured EBSCO profile.

-RSS enabled alerts

EBSCOhost Search and Journal Alerts will now be able to feed results into news readers and aggregators, as well as web sites. Please note that users will still need to authenticate to view full text.

-MARC format display

Library catalogers who prefer to see EBSCOhost records in MARC format, or who would like to save and e-mail MARC records to download into their OPACs, will be able to retrieve EBSCOhost results in MARC format right from the interface. Administrators will be able to implement the Option to Display, Save or Email EBSCOhost Records in MARC format feature in the View Results sub-tab in the specific profile in EBSCOadmin.

-Context-specific help

Context-specific Help will be available when users click on new question mark icons.

-Personalization activity report in EBSCOadmin

A new personalization activity report will include statistics related to Personalized Accounts, including total numbers of Search Alerts, Journal Alerts and Personalized Accounts.

-Result list default sorting option

The administrator will be able to set a preferred sort default on the "All Results" view. The database default presents the result list in an order most appropriate given the type of data--often, by Date. Relevance can be selected, which will present the result list in a priority order with the most pertinent items appearing at the top of the list. Relevance is determined by how often (and where) the search terms appear within database fields that are weighted.

-EBSCOadmin control of suggest subject terms feature at a database level

Administrators will be able to control the display of the Suggest Subject Terms feature at the database level by modifying the Show Suggest Subject Terms parameter in EBSCOadmin.

For additional information on upcoming features, see the EBSCO Support website at http://support.epnet.com/. The newly-redesigned EBSCO Support website also includes an extensive knowledgebase, tutorials, product manuals, FAQ's and more.

For questions or issues on EBSCOhost or EBSCOadmin, please contact MOREnet Technical Support at techsupp@more.net.