CERN Accelerating science

A Single Entry Point to user relevant information

With increasing amounts of information published on the Web, it has become more and more difficult to locate the information corresponding to a specific computer related question or task. It is therefore desirable to provide CERN users with a single entry point which will guide them towards the appropriate information.

In this view, the main purpose of 'consult.cern.ch' is to make information easily accessible for users, independently of the origin of the information. The users should not need to know which person or group is hosting a given service, in order to be able to find the corresponding information.

What you will find in Consult ?

Presently, there are the following main areas available via Consult (http://consult.cern.ch):

• Services: Information about services offered to CERN computer users
• Documentation: Newsletters, user-documentation, program descriptions, etc.
• Knowledge Base: Question and answer collections (see also CNL 236, "Xfind is Expanding: Questions & Answers").
• Data associated to persons and teams: Location, phone numbers, loginids, e-mail etc.

The contents presently available in Consult can be seen below:

The Consult Page "the entry point to user relevant information" Information available via Consult Search and View xfind Search the information on the Consult pages xwho People and their Location, phone numbers, e-mail, loginids etc. Services Services offered to CERN computer users Documentation Books available at the User Support Bookshop CNL Cern Computer Newsletter Writeups = User Documentation CERN program library Short Writeups Knowledge Base Question & Answers from the Computing Helpdesk and related Newsgroups A selection of CERN newsgroups Other useful information Information Technology Home Page CERN home page CERN Library CERN wide search For comments and feedback, write to: Consult Webmaster Last modified: 27. Nov 1999

How to you find what you are looking for ?

• Via keyword based search:

• The search engine used to find information in Consult is called Xfind (http://consult.cern.ch/xfind). Xfind is not searching the hole of CERNs Web pages, but on the contrary, it only searches the meta-information of the items available via Consult. Therefore you will not be able to find everything, but on the other hand the "signal/noise" ratio will be kept high.

• Access via various views at the data (i.e. structured lists):

• Apart from accessing the information using the search engine 'Xfind' also lists are available, which present summaries of the available information and give the opportunity to get an overview of what is available.

• Access via meaningful, "readable" URLs:

• Apart from the two mechanisms mentioned above - search and catalogues - a serious effort has been made to organise and label the information in a understandable and meaningful way, which is also reflected in the URLs,

  http://consult.cern.ch/area_name/[sub-area_name]/item_name

  here are a few examples:

  http://consult.cern.ch/service/mail
http://consult.cern.ch/writeups/afsrefcard
http://consult.cern.ch/cnl/236

How can you help us to constantly improve Consult ?

The answer is very simple: "Give us feedback !"

• If you have comments on Consult, please let us know !
• If you were looking for something in Consult but didn't find it, please let us know !
• If you find some information in Consult you have problems to apply, please let us know !
• If you have suggestions for additional areas, please let us know !

A simple feedback mechanism (see below) is implemented on all pages of Consult. It provides you with a Web-form in which the URL of the page the comments are referring to as well as the author and modification date are already automatically filled in. Just type your comments and suggestions and submit the feedback.

Consult feedback form Comments referring to : http://consult.cern.ch/cnl/237 Author/Responsible : Consult Webmaster Creation date of page : 27. Nov 1999 Please write your comments/suggestions in the field below ! Your name or email address (facultative):