Searching The Index

The Index contains two search functions;

• Advanced (Data Source) Search - allows custom data source selection criteria
• Site Search - a basic keyword search

We recommended using the Advanced Search to search for data sources.

Advanced Search

Search Selection Criteria
The Advanced Search (or Advanced Data Source Search) has been custom built for The Index and the search criteria selection contains a wide variety of searching options.

• Keywords – data source must contain keyword(s) in title or summary description.
• Category – only search within this category.
• Indicator – only search within this indicator.
• Diversity lens data – include data sources that contain data for these diversity lenses.
• Geographical data – include data sources that contain data for these geographical regions.
• Publisher – only search for data sources from this publisher.
• Free to Public – data source must be free to access (a couple of pay-per-view reports have been included within The Index due to the limited number of data sources available for that particular indicator).

All search criteria can be used in conjunction with each other. The more search criteria selected, the narrower the search parameters.

The Advanced search will only search through data sources within The Index. Use the Site Search if you wish to search through all of the pages within the website.

top of pageAdvanced Search Results 
Another custom built aspect of the Advanced Search is that the results are not presented in the usual brief format of standard search results. Instead, the Advanced search results are presented with the detailed summary of the data source, a listing of which diversity lenses and geograpical regions the data source includes data for, access to further information on the data source and a link to the external website to directly access the data/report. 

top of pageExact Matches versus Partial Matches
Usually the search results for the Advanced Search will only contain ‘exact’ matches. i.e. data sources that match all of the selected search criteria. However, as there are a limited number of data sources containing data across many diversity lenses and/or geographical regions, partial matches will also be included within the search results when both of the following conditions are met;

• The search criteria includes multiple diversity lens criteria or multiple geographical region criteria AND
• Less than 5 exact matches are returned.

If both of the above conditions are met, the search results will also include any data sources that partially matched the gender lens or geographical region criteria (and exactly matched all of the remaining search criteria). For example, search criteria requiring gendered, disability and sexual diversity data for a specific indicator may only find a few or perhaps no matches. In this case, data sources that contained gendered or disability or sexual diversity data (and exactly matched any remaining search criteria) would also be returned as partial matches.

If partial matches are returned, they will be clearly marked and displayed after all of the exact matches.

top of pageSite Search

The Site Search consists of a basic keyword search and will search through all pages within The Index.