In August, IU entered a strategic alliance with the web search company ChaCha to research and develop Internet search innovations. The ChaCha platform uses human expertise to improve and refine search results.

Here are some updates to the new and evolving ChaCha-powered IU search function hosted at search.iu.edu:

* You can now see search results which combine information from IU libraries and the UITS Knowledge Base.

* Certified guides are continuously approving links, drawing attention to recommended search results with check marks.

* On December 6, sponsored links based on your search terms will be incorporated into the results pages. This increases the relevance of your results while lowering development costs so experts can focus on content. For more, see:

https://kb.iu.edu/data/avzj.html

* Coming the week of December 17 — Look forward to “Search With a Guide,” which will allow info-seekers to interact in real time with an expert guide who will provide key resources to help find the best results more efficiently.

View the IU-ChaCha project site, including a video podcast project update at:

http://uits.iu.edu/scripts/ose.cgi?avrp.ose.help