I am fairly new to OJS and I have found the search somewhat too minimal. As an example, we use additional refinement terms (Disciplines) but they are not included in the search the system performs. We have done several tests and found the following:
Not included in the search
Subtitle
Keywords
Sections
Discipline (additional refinement)
Language (additional refinement)
Included in the search
Title
Author affiliations
Abstract
I think it would be useful to a lot of journals to access additional searching.
If I am wrong and OJS actually allows searching by these fields, please let me know…
Thank you for the excellent work on this programme!
Lucia
Is there any hope in sight for enhanced search capabilities? The existing search capability (I’m using v. 3.1.X) is anemic, to put it politely. The “keyword” search finds every single mention of a word in an article’s full-text PDF, instead of limiting it to the keyword metadata. While full-text search should be an OPTION, the default search by keyword should be for the keywords in the article’s metadata. Otherwise too many results come up that only tangentially mention the keyword. It should also allow filtering by section, by corresponding author vs. all authors, and other filters. It looks like I’ll need to install Google Custom Search, but I believe that will look through everything on our website rather than just within articles. Does anyone have suggestions on enhancing OJS’s search capabilities?
There are limits to how far the built-in (custom) OJS search engine will get you – to go beyond that, I’d recommend something like the Lucene/SOLR. There’s active work on this by the excellent ojs.de group – see GitHub - ojsde/lucene: Plugin for Solr/Lucene support in OJS. for details.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
We have a hosted site, 3.1.X. We are a small shop without the technical knowledge to install a complicated add-on like the PROPOSED Lucene/SOLR plug-in. I can’t understand how on earth it can be so hard to search the databases as described by @lsteele. You actually think it’s strange that readers would want to search by keyword (instead of full text, where they get a giant list of tangentially related papers) or by author or by section or by affiliation?? This is extremely frustrating and shows a lack of understanding of the BASIC uses of a journal’s website by its customers—our readers. And suggesting we add another feature to a custom block – making our site confusing – isn’t a solution. Sorry to unload, but this is extremely frustrating.
Dear Amy,
I am fully aware of the potential of a wide search in a website by its users. However, in my case - even though we are not a big publisher - I have a multidisciplinary journal, and it is extremely valuable for our readers to reach the content relevant for them easily. Not every user behaves in the same way.
I still find the search limited, as - for example - it does not pick up disciplines. What purpose would this field have if you cannot search by it?
Lucia