Is your search engine getting smarter?

Thanks to an emerging concept known as "intelligent searching," teachers and students soon might have at their disposal a variety of online tools designed to help them more effectively navigate the vast amount of information on the internet.

From "federated" search technologies, which enable users to search through multiple online databases at once, to customizable user interfaces that enable individuals to define their own search criteria more effectively, technology architects are finding ways to give users more control over how they find, receive, and process data mined on the web.

"Everyone has their own definition for what 'intelligent searching' is," says Ilene Slavick, director of marketing for Cuadra Associates Inc., a California-based information management firm that specializes in building intelligent search tools for use with corporate databases, government agencies, records archives, museums, and other organizations. But the basic idea is to give internet users "a variety of options to make their search more precise," she added.

These innovations likely will translate into good news for educators, many of whom have struggled to help their students make sense of the vast amount of information they find online. One of the big problems with the internet, they say, isn't finding information, but rather knowing when to trust what you find.

"We live in an era when access to a broad range of information is valued more than at any previous time," observed Raymond Yeagley, former superintendent of the Rochester Public Schools in New Hampshire. "In today's world, better search tools and the ability to use them effectively are nearly as essential as the information itself."

It's that kind of thinking that has engineers at Google and other search-engine providers constantly looking for ways to provide faster access to more reliable information.

In an interview with eSchool News, Debbie Jaffe, group product marketing manager for Google Inc.--whose name has become synonymous with internet searches--said the company has integrated, or plans to integrate, a myriad of innovations designed to help web surfers more easily find what they're looking for.

Building on Google Scholar, a search service launched last year for researchers and students that restricts queries to entries from scholarly journals and research publications (see "New search service creates 'Google for scholars'"), the company also has unveiled Google Suggest, which offers suggestions culled from an index of online search terms to help users better define their searches.

Looking for information relevant to a specific web site? Google's Site Restrict feature lets users search for relevant documents limited to a particular domain.

For example, if students wanted to look for admissions information relevant to Stanford University, Jaffe said, they could restrict their search to Stanford University web sites by typing "Admissions" Site: Standford.edu, and so on. The same approach also works for dictionary definitions, she said. Type "Define: Emerging" into the search bar, and Google responds with "coming into view."