(Go Live) Determine Boosting Factors for Launch

Legend: NOT STARTED IN PROGRESS STALLED DECIDED

Status	IN PROGRESS
Scope	IMPLEMENTATION
Description	Each campus must determine the boosting factors for: Institution Boosting, Articles (Resource Type), and Book Chapters (Resource Type) that give them a minimally adequate representation of these formats in the search results. This decision outlines the methodology the campuses will use to determine the factors appropriate for their collection.
Decision	Campuses should identify a minimum Institution Boosting factor and then increase Resource Type boosting factors for Articles and Book Chapters as needed to resemble an “out of the box” mixture of resource types in search results.
Owning group	Discovery FG Josephine Tan and Jess Waggoner, co-chairs
Approver	PPC
Stakeholders	R = Discovery FG A = PPC C = I = Local Implementation Teams
Decision-making process	Gather data on how boosting factors impact search results Discovery FG will agree upon a process for assessing boosting factors
Priority	Mandatory before Go-live
Due date	TBD

Recommendations

Discovery FG recommends each campus use the following methodology to determine the minimum viability of their boosting factors:

Identify 10 search terms for which you would expect to have adequate collection coverage (ie. there should not be a need for a satisficing undergraduate student to surface consortial materials)
- Note: Transaction logs from the current campus ILS is a recommended source of search terms
To determine Institution Boosting factor:
- Slowly increase the Institution Boosting factor until [exclude? have no more than 1?] consortial materials in the first 10 results
To determine Article and Book Chapter boosting factors for Already-Alma campuses:
- Review the first 10 results for the identified search terms in your current production Primo site with CDI (ie. append &searchCDI=true)
- Adjust Article and Book Chapter boosting factors in your SILS Test environment until the results are similar to your Prod environment
To determine Article and Book Chapter boosting factors for new to Alma campuses:
- Review the first 10 results for the identified search terms in the UC Davis production Primo site with CDI (ie. append &searchCDI=true)
- Adjust Article and Book Chapter boosting factors in your SILS Test environment until the results are similar to the UC Davis production environment

Reasoning

Campuses may need to enable Institution Boosting in order to have their local materials adequately represented in the top Primo results
When Institution Boosting is enabled, it may be necessary to boost Resource Types that come through the CDI in order to incorporate those materials in the top results (Institution Boosting = Alma Boosting)

Background

While it is not possible to optimize the search algorithm via boosting before Go-Live, it is important to launch with at least a minimally adequate balance between Alma materials and two specific CDI resource types: Articles and Book Chapters.

It is not possible to create prescribed boosting factors that can be used by all campuses due to differences in collections. In this decision, we are providing a methodology to help campuses determine what a “minimally adequate balance” might look like in their Primo.

We anticipate that campuses will continue to refine these and other boosting factors after go live.

ExLibris provides some insight into their relevance ranking for CDI materials.

Dependencies

(Test Load) Default Primo VE Search Profile Configuration

Questions to consider

Is it valuable for campuses to boost their local materials above consortial materials in their Primo?
Is it important to ensure CDI materials are being surfaced in top results?
Which CDI materials should we focus on boosting for MVP?

Action Log

Action/Point Person	Expected Completion Date	Notes	Status
Gather data to test methodology	April 6, 2021	UCSC test case	Complete