Intranet Mediators (Spring 2001) EnPRO 307

Current web search engines only search unstructured data (web documents). A lot of data is available that is structured (weather, census, sports, etc.). A search engine that could search both structured data and text would be able to answer questions such as "show me the top three restaurants in Chicago" without simply looking for the word "three." The team has been building a Java-based metasearch engine in IPRO 334 duringFall 2000. Numerous issues have arisen. How do we identify which data source will be best for the query? What is the best user interface for the system? For Spring 2001, the team will extend the search engine to include more sources. The team could really use the talents of non-computer science students to help test the system and improve the user interface. Students should plan to work on this at least ten hours a week - anything less will resultin a poor grade for the IPRO. Students for this IPRO are graded heavily based on the success of the team, not just individual performance. Weekly progress reports are required. Note that graduate students in Computer Science are not able to use IPRO classes for credit toward a graduate degree.Sponsorship: IIT Internal R&DProject Plan for EnPRO 307: Intranet Mediators for the Spring 2001 semeste