New release: Spring 2024

I am delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, which features a new onboarding experience that provides a much more integrated search journey, particularly for new users. Why does this matter? Well, one of things we’ve come to appreciate since conceiving the 2D approach is the potential of that blank canvas, with its limitless possibilities for constructing precise, accurate searches from simple visual components. But that is also its biggest weakness — faced with a blank screen, many people just don’t know where to start.

This release addresses that, with an integrated onboarding experience that offers four clear journeys:

• a blank canvas
• a set of standardised templates (e.g. PICO, SPIDER, etc.)
• a set of curated samples (showing the types of searches that each source supports)
• an AI-powered search strategy generator (which we covered in our last release)

You could say this release merely re-packages what we had before, since each of these features already existed somewhere in the app. But they were buried within separate, unconnected journeys and options. In bringing them together, we now offer an integrated experience that provides the support you need throughout your search journey, whether you are novice user or seasoned expert.

This is particularly good news for students and researchers who don’t always want to spend time formulating a robust, accurate search strategy. Now you can choose how much support you need from the outset. Want it all done for you? Choose the AI option. Want to start from a proven framework? Choose a search template. Want to see what each source offers? Choose a curated sample. And if after all that you prefer the DIY approach, just select a blank canvas.

There’s lots more in this release, including many UX improvements and bug fixes, so we hope you enjoy checking it out. As always, 2Dsearch is free to use for everyone, whether you’re a student/researcher, an information professional or even a recruiter/sourcing professional. We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you. 2Dsearch

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New Year, New Release (2024)

I am delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, which includes a new feature we’re particularly excited about: the Search Strategy Generator. All you need do is enter your research question (in plain language) and 2Dsearch will identify the facets, offer suitable keyword suggestions and build your search for you, directly on the canvas.

This is great news for students (and many researchers) who, let’s face it, generally hate doing literature reviews and often avoid even trying to formulate a robust, accurate search strategy. But now, as long as you can articulate your research question, you’ll have a starting point which you can refine and modify, simply using drag and drop. And for the rest of us who are happy to create our own finely crafted strategies, well, who doesn’t like a head start for inspiration (or even an automated second opinion)?

What this means is that you can now use 2Dsearch to automatically generate and execute a single visual search across a multiple databases, and benefit from automated translations for many more. There’s lots more in this release, including many UX improvements and bug fixes, so we hope you enjoy checking it out. As always, 2Dsearch is free to use, whether you’re a student/researcher, an information professional or a recruiter/sourcing professional. We have more in the pipeline for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you. https://www.2dsearch.com/

 

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A prototype debugger for search strategies

In this video we explore how we might take ideas from the world of software engineering and apply them to the challenge of search strategy formulation. We demonstrate a prototype ‘debugger’ which provides insight into the behaviour of search strategies, helping users to inspect, understand and validate them. This work was completed in collaboration with Jingfan Zang as part of his Master’s thesis in User Experience Engineering and was accepted as a demo_paper at the ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR 2023).

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A new way to search for patents

I am delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, with various improvements including an integration with two of the world’s biggest patent databases: Google Patents and Lens Patents. What this means is that you can now run a single visual search across 14 different sources and benefit from automated translations for many more. And with the addition of Google Patents and Lens Patents, you can now use 2Dsearch for patent searching and competitive intelligence, with free starter examples for each.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

 

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2Dsearch: new release (Feb 2022)

Delighted to announce a new release of 2Dsearch, with various improvements including new preferences with options for snap-to-grid, advanced query parsing and default databases. We’ve also integrated the latest version of PolyGlot and fixed the query parser bug which so many of you raised.

What this means is that you can now use 2Dsearch to execute a single visual search across a dozen different databases and benefit from automated translations for many more. We’ve also made further improvements to the user experience and now provide example searches for each of the databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this or have comments or suggestions then please let us know.

 

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Searching grey literature: a single strategy to search multiple sources

In this short video we take a brief look at searching grey literature. Grey literature is the term given to unpublished documents such as dissertations, technical reports, conference abstracts, newsletters, presentations and so on. Even though they may not have been formally published, these documents can still contain vital information.

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Translating search strategies: a universal language for information needs?

In this short video we learn how to automatically translate search strategies to the syntax of different databases.

Let’s start with a simple search strategy that finds documents on the use of exercise to prevent obesity in older people:

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2Dsearch: new release (spring 2021)

Spring is traditionally a time of new beginnings, so I am delighted this week to announce a new release of 2Dsearch. This release contains a variety of bug fixes and improvements, including support for two new databases: ACM Guide to Computing Literature and IDEAS (the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics available freely on the Internet). We’ve also improved our search report generation tool and now offer query statistics to help you refine those all important search strategies.

What all this means is that you can now use 2Dsearch to search visually across 12 different databases and use automated translations for 8 more. We’ve also made further improvements to the user experience and now provide example searches for each of the 12 databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this and/or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you!

 

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2Dsearch: new year, new release

New year, new release — I am delighted this week to announce a new release of 2Dsearch. This contains a variety of bug fixes and improvements, including support for IEEE XPlore, a ‘Help me choose’ feature and automated search report generation.

You can now use 2Dsearch to search visually across 10 different databases and use automated translations for many more. We’ve also made improvements to the canvas user experience and now provide starter examples for each of the 10 databases.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this and/or have comments or suggestions then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you.

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2Dsearch: latest release including ERIC

It’s been a little while in the making, but I am delighted this week to announce a new release of 2Dsearch. This contains a variety of bug fixes and improvements, notably support for ERIC (Education Resources Information Center).

You can now use 2Dsearch to search visually across 9 different databases and use automated translations for many more. We’ve made various improvements to the canvas user experience, including support for proximity operators and creating nested groups. We also improved the query parsing and now provide in-app links to syntax guides and other support materials.

We’ve lots more planned for the next release, so if you’d like to help shape this and/or have comments of your own then do let us know. We’d be delighted to hear from you!

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