Testing Federated Search Activated Resources in a Multi-Campus Installation: What Can Go Wrong. Kirsten Leonard (Indiana University Kokomo)
Indiana University purchased SIRSI OneSearch and is providing federated searching to seven of the campuses in the I.U. system. The MUSE Administrative Console and federated searching server are located in Bloomington but testing must occur on each campus. The challenge has been extending OneSearch to a multiple campus state-wide organization with each campus having its own web pages, subscriptions, IP addresses, proxy servers, and native database configurations to add to the already significant complexity of federated searching. Testing of activated resources on the Kokomo campus has evolved from defining success as clicking on a result and getting an article to needing to verify that the correct resource is being searched, that it is accessible from off-campus, and that all and only the subscribed portion of the resource is being searched, as well as many other possible problems. Testing has also expanded to include the analysis and comparison of search defaults and functionality in the native database and within OneSearch. This analysis has led to the question of whether search defaults should be made as consistent as possible for all subscribed resources to provide more effective federated searching.