TERMINALFOUR's Mark Baldwin discusses TERMINALFOUR's approaches to higher education course search by examining a number of case studies including; University of Portsmouth, University of St Mark & St John, University of Derby and University of East London.

1. The Aviva Stadium Dublin, 21-22 November 2013

2. The following slides are not just about course
search!
It’s about organising and presenting STUFF!

3. • Projects are not just about “building a site”
• Often get requests for presentation and searching of
structured data
• More than just “web search”
• Main examples: Course search / People Directories
• Lots of data of same/similar layout
• Coming from many different sources
• CMS, Student Mgt system, LDAP, Research systems
• Challenge:
• How to automate publication
• Presentation (responsive)
• Provide intuitive search
• Ease of maintenance / update

4. • Houston Community College - Multiple external sources, Data & Web Object,
Content Syncer , PeopleSoft
www.hccs.edu/finder/
• University of St Mark & St John - JavaScript Search
http://www.marjon.ac.uk/courses/
• University of Portsmouth – keywords and all data in CMS
http://www.port.ac.uk/courses/
• University of Derby – PHP searching XML, all data in CMS
http://www.derby.ac.uk/courses/
• University of East London – JSP & XML, data in CMS
http://experts.uel.ac.uk/course-search/
• Sacred Heart Faculty Pages - Content Sync from phone DB
http://www.sacredheart.edu/facultystaffdirectory/
• SAIC Profile pages - built from LDAP and CMS
http://www.saic.edu/profiles/
• SAIC – Course Search, PeopleSoft & Syncer
http://www.saic.edu/coursesearch/
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5. 240,000 course combos output via Site Manager
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6. • Taking data from both PeopleSoft and a legacy
course system in CSV format & via MySQL.
• Syncing this with SiteManager to push out 2500
courses and 300 programs with scheduling.
• Requirements and credit information all of which is
searchable and filterable by PHP.
• Also combining the content syncer with the data
object to further refine the output of the possible
240,000 course combos!
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8. All Program information is being published to one file
using the Publish to one file Navigation object.
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http://www.marjon.ac.uk/courses/
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9. Classes are added to TERMINALFOUR Site Manager as Content; 1
class = 1 piece of Content. The Content Type has an alternative
Content Layout which is used to format the Content Layout as XML.
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10. The programs are
displayed on the
page with the
text/html layout.
This layout links to
a fulltext layout
when you link on
the course name.
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11. The rest is then is all JavaScript.
Notice how the listing changes when you select a filter.
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12. Type in word in the search box, the listing
changes as well.
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13. When a program is added in Site Manager, there are 2
lists, one for Letter and another for program type –
Undergraduate, postgraduate.
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http://www.port.ac.uk/courses/
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14. The program Content Type contains a list which is made up of
entries (A – Z). When adding a program the user selects a letter
which corresponds to the course.
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15. On the program page, they have the same list as the
program Content Type; which is used to display what is
displayed at that point. The Content Type has a Keyword
Content Search Navigation object in it.
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16. Keyword Content Search Navigation Objects Is used to
display content which matches set criteria.
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17. The program Search Functionality is PHP. PHP is used to
search the XML produced by Site Manager. Site Manager
outputs a Page Layout as PHP this page layout has one
function and that is to search the XML file.
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http://www.derby.ac.uk/courses/
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18. Programs are added to Site Manager as Content; 1 program = 1
piece of Content. The Content Type has an alternative Content
Layout which is used to format the Content Layout as XML.
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19. Filters use a mixture of xpath & filtering through returned arrays.
Predictive text is based off Program Name within the
program Content Type, it will match from three letters
upwards.
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20. Search function is JSP, this was custom built by Terminalfour and
controls the filters and what content is displayed
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http://experts.uel.ac.uk/course-search/
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21. Programs are added as content using a Undergraduate and
Postgraduate Content Type’s. These Content Types have alternative
Content Layout that are used to format the content as XML.
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22. All Program information is being published to one file using the
Publish to one file Navigation object.
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23. Content displayed on
the following page is
another alternative
layout.
http://experts.uel.ac.uk
/course-search/ .
When you click on
program name it takes
you to the normal
Content Layout
text/html.
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