What is SmartIndexing?
SmartIndexing is a classification technology that helps researchers overcome information overload by more quickly and efficiently finding the information they need to do their jobs. More specifically, SmartIndexing is a rule-based automated classification system that analyzes and tags online documents for relevant subjects, industries, companies, organizations, people and places. Researchers build searches using index terms to efficiently and accurately pinpoint results.
How are SmartIndexing terms created?
Indexing at LexisNexis is a unique partnership between technology and editorial effort. Subject experts and information professionals create vocabularies and rules governing their application. These experts then iteratively test and analyze results before a term is released to production. Controlled vocabularies are applied to new documents as they are added to the system. Periodically all indexed documents are retrospectively updated with the latest vocabularies.
When should SmartIndexing be used?
SmartIndexing can add value to any search run in LexisNexis news and business content. Some of the top reasons for using SmartIndexing include:
- Easily capture broad concepts in a single term (eg. airlines, trade agreements, banking & finance agencies, etc.). Rather than string together an endless keyword search, take advantage of the testing and analysis already completed by LexisNexis indexers!
- Find companies with common names (eg. Orange, Saturn, etc) or major stories about companies that appear frequently in the news (eg. Microsoft, IBM, etc.). Searching with company index terms adds immediate context to your search!
- Research industries. It's very difficult to build a keyword search that captures an entire industry. SmartIndexing makes these searches easy by "rolling up" narrower terms so that parent terms are all-inclusive!
- Add context to a keyword search. Have you ever tried to disambiguate a word like "discovery," "bonds" or "futures"? Use the index term and let SmartIndexing do the work for you!
- Find things that are difficult to represent in a keyword search. Have you ever developed a search statement to capture topics like "market share," "rankings," "statistics" or "trends"? All of these concepts are SmartIndexing terms. Use them and save yourself valuable time!
Send questions, feedback and suggestions for terms to the Indexing Team.
