MuseSearch 2.6 vs. our new MuseKnowledge Search 2.7+  product line

The MuseKnowledge Search Platform is today’s most powerful of its kind, is known as best of multiple target searching and content normalization to a single data model. It gives institutions large and small, global and local, the building blocks to create custom Global Search Environments that support research, education and innovation processes.

 

MuseKnowledge Search comes with new core features and modern end-user interfaces working on any device to offer the best user experience.

 

New features available in MuseKnowledge Search 2.7+

Our new MuseKnowledge product line comes with many new features and updates, with the most important ones listed below:

  • The embedded Web server – Apache Tomcat – was updated to a newer version, more exactly 8.5.23.0. This brings many improvements and fixes from performance and security point of view. From security point of view, now it is possible to enable the HTTP security headers such as X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-XSS-Protection, Content-Security-Policy.
  • New products were introduced for achieving a more robust Discovery Platform:
    • Muse Central Index. This is our metadata repository that can index e-book and article metadata, catalog records, and other information harvested from institutional repositories and various digital collections. Muse Central Index is not pre-populated with metadata but each installation can add its own data from various sources.
    • Muse Identity Manager. This is our Web application with processes for identifying, authenticating and authorizing individuals or groups of people to access configured applications by associating user rights and restrictions with established identities. It offers support for user registration with email validation, with or without administrator approval, centralized management including user details visualization, searching and filtering, bulk updates, sending email, export as CSV, JSON and XML, import from CSV file.
  • New authentication modules are available:
    • ICELoginModuleSQL - authentication against a SQL database. It supports simple scenarios with just username/password and more complex scenarios which involve additional logic based on extra fields;
    • Support for SAML authentication is now available. We now support SAML 2.0 Authentication as a Service Provider. Being based on Spring Security SAML Extension, theoretically all products supporting SAML 2.0 in Identity Provider mode (e.g. ADFS, Okta, Shibboleth, OpenAM, Efecte EIM or Ping Federate) should be compatible;
    • A new utility login module is available - ICELoginModulePropertiesExtractor - which can be used in conjunction with other login modules to compute/extract/remap parameters using a script written in Java Script language;
    • ICELoginModuleHTTPReferer - allows authentication based on the HTTP Referer field. Although it cannot be secure it may be useful for situations where security is not a demanding factor;
    • ICELoginModuleHMAC - for protected login without password and signed by HMAC which also covers the end-user IP. Timestamp is also covered and used for a max time availability test. This is most secure for integration scenarios;
    • Support for LTI authentication is available to allow the MuseKnowledge Search Application to act as External Tool (Tool Providers) in Learning Management Systems (LMS).
  • The Muse API was enhanced to support JSON response as well, besides XML;
  • MuseKnowledge Search Applications are fully responsive on mobile devices. The existing native mobile application – MuseKnowledge Mobile, running on both iOS and Android (available in stores for download), is integrating the MuseKnowledge Search Web application and services to allow users have a true mobile experience, like sharing records and files on Facebook, WhatsUp, Google Drive, DropBox or any other mobile application that is regsitering itself in the mobile OS as allowing sharing content.
  • The integration of a MuseKnowledge Search Application via an iFrame within an exiting customer website, portal is more easier now as its components are more iFrame „friendly”.

 

Comparison between end-user Web Applications, 2.6 vs. 2.7+

In Muse Federated Search version 2.6 the template end-user application is MuseSearch, while for Muse Federated Search version 2.7+ the template end-user application is MuseKnowledge Search.

 

Web Technologies Used

 

MuseSearch (2.6) MuseKnowledge Search (2.7+)
CSS 2 mostly
JQuery 1.8 and JQuey UI 19		 CSS 3 – it adds a whole new set of element selectors and some new pseudo-elements that means simpler code with much more options.

 

Boostrap 3.3.6 – it ensures that the Web Application is web responsive no matter the device user is using, from an extra small device to a large computer screen.

 

Angular JS 1.6.9 – using it, the one page application design/concept was achieved so the user does not see page flickers but only loaders. Such an application is much better structured and easier to maintain since it is based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) concept, thus changes are done much easier - one must modify the service bringing data as a small part of the html instead of whole pages with lots of logic.

 

Side by Side End-User Application Interfaces Functionalities Comparison

 

Functionality
MuseSearch (2.6) MuseKnowledge Search (2.7+)
Home Page
No. Yes.
The MuseKnowledge Search (2.7+) Application allows transforming a simple search application into a portal-like application with various features and widgets.Widgets available:

  • search form;
  • widget for displaying a list of recommendations in terms of books, journals, articles, etc., part of institution’ subscription;
  • important links section to allow placing links to points of interest for the customer’s end-users;
  • widget with RSS feed. This widget presents a RSS feed from the customer’s website, usually news items;
  • widget with all the sources available for search, sort and multiple display types (alphabetically or as defined in the Muse Administration Console); Descriptions and linking to native website is available;
  • widget with all publishers’ subscribed products, databases;
  • Titles A to Z functionality. This widget presents all titles (Books, Journals) subscribed by the customer to the various publishers. Metadata is available along with linking to the native publisher platform. The titles information is taken from Muse Central Index where it was ingested based on the publisher provided information.
Local Index
No. Yes.

Muse Central Index available in versions 2.7+ is providing the local index features. Publisher metadata can be ingested and

searched with Muse Source Packages. Muse Source Packages searching through Muse Central Index can be installed in MuseKnowledge Search Applications along with federated search Muse Source Packages.

Also the metadata for the Titles A to Z functionality is ingested into the Muse Central Index.
Mobile devices friendly
No. Yes.
Clear, user readable content no matter the device user is using.
Integration with the native IOS and Android MuseKnowledge Mobile Application
No. Yes.
See the above items for more details.
Interface Customisations
Yes.
Support for a limited set of customizations is available. For example a customer logo, header is allowed.		 Yes.
A wide range of customizations are available through the Muse Administration Console, such as:

  • Header, Footer can be enabled and disabled;
  • Any widget can be set to display/hide indivisually depending on screen size/device type. Available settings: extra small devices (eg: iPhone 10), small devices (e.g. iPad in portrait mode), medium (iPad in landscame mode) and large (computer screen);
  • Logos, custom CSS, login form, upload images, upload JSON files to be used in the Home Page widgets;
  • One may set if the interface should be displayed with either 2 or 3 columns;
  • enabling/disabling any application functionality.
Modern interface
No.
The interface uses a lot of text labels.		 Yes.
We use FontAwsome 5 that has a very large set of icons. Interface is now more intuitive and modern.
Search Form
Yes.
Three separate search forms are available: simple, advanced, complex.		 Yes.
A search form builder is available. It starts as a simple search input box and new input boxes can be added for an advanced search form where complex queries can be specified with boolean operators.
Option for specifying whether to search with all words or as a phrase was added. Search form features are configurable from the Muse Administration Console, such as number of inputs, maximum allowed length of the text user inputs, etc.
Search Sources
Yes.
Only a tree-like display type is available.		 Yes.
Four types of Search Sources representations are available, configurable from the Muse Administration Console:

  • Tree-like. This is the basic and the simplest representation of the search sources;
  • List-like. A two-steps search sources representation is available, laid out in three columns: Goups column, List of Sources and Sources to Search;
  • List-like Simplified. This is a simplified representation of the previous List-like version where only two columns are available: Goups column and List of Sources;
  • Categories. This is the most complete representation of the search sources capable of categories handling (e.g. groups of groups of sources).

For all types of search sources representations, various features are available, configurable from the Muse Administration Console:

  • display groups collapsed yes/no;
  • allow user to collapse/expand groups;
  • allow user to filter for sources;
  • list sources under group name;
  • display number of sources next to the group name;
  • concept of filtering groups – selecting such a group does not add sources to the overall selection buy only filters the sources already selected (e.g.: select only books sources).
Search Limits
Yes. Yes.
The Search Limits section was completely rewritten, now is more intuitive. The content type limits were updated to support the set of record content types we adopted.
Search Options
Yes. Yes.
Completely rewritten section, much easier to use.
Related Queries Functionality
No. Yes.
It presents other search queries similar to the one used for search. A history is created based on all the queries used by the end-users of that Muse System.
Deduplication
Yes. Yes.
New deduplication options are available such as by DOI.
Sorting
Yes. Yes.
A new Relevance sorting algorithm is available.
Help
Yes. Yes.
The Help section was extended to cover the latest features implemented.
Record 5 Star Ranking
No. Yes.
The record relevance is displayed as a 5 Star Ranking.
Search Progress Information
Yes. Yes.
Two display modes are available: progress bar and circle. Progress popup has filter and sort capabilities.
Topics Widget
No. Yes.
Integration with Lingo3G and Carrot2.
Besides the linear text representation, we integrated 2 visual representations, namely Circles and Foam Tree.The integration with Lingo3G and the visual representations is subject to subscription.
Refine your Results (Distill) Widge, Faceting Options
Yes. Yes.

The Refine your Results feature was improved and enhanced:

  • now one may see sources that are matched by a single term and vice-versa, the terms matched by a single source;
  • new distill keys are available (faceting options): by record content type, by language, by dates;
  • a graphical bar display for date faceting is available.
Side Search
Yes. Yes.
The Side Search widget functionality was improved, now it is fully configurable from the Muse Administration Console, in terms of number of sources and number of records to retrieve from each.
Print
No. Yes.
A dedicated Print page for selected records was implemented, having printer friendly CSS definitions for a better quality and ease of reading.
Query Translation
No. Yes.
A query translation feature was implemented in integration with the Microsoft Azzure Translator API. If the language of the query entered by the end-user is different than of the current application set language, then its translation in the application language is offered and the end-user can use it for searching.The integration with the Microsoft Azzure Translation API is subject to subscription.
Cookies Usage Warning
No. Yes.
As per EU GDPR, application notifies the end-user that it uses cookies and how it protects user data.
My List
No. Yes.
End-users can save records from searches into a temporary list, available per session. The records saved into the remporarily list can be further processed and used in actions such as sending them by email, save to disk, export, print, etc.
Record Display by Content Type
No. Yes.
For specialized sources, such as Dictionary sources, a specialed record display is used such that it displays the information specific to this type of resource (such as phonetic translation, audio prononciation, etc.).
Social Media Integration
No. Yes.
One may share Muse records on Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

For a complete list of new features for MuseKnowledge Search 2.7+ please refer to the Release Note documentation which can be downloaded from here.