Understanding Search Functionality in Kuali

• How the Search Works
• Filtering Out Common Words (Stop Words)
• Word Stemming: Finding Variations of Words

How the Search Works

The search functionality applies to all searches in Kuali - specifically the Document List and Data Lookup searches. 

Our search functionality uses MongoDB's Full-Text Search, which helps make finding relevant results quick and efficient. However, there are a few things to be aware of that will affect how search results appear. 

Filtering Out Common Words (Stop Words)

MongoDB automatically removes certain common words from searches. These are called stop words, and they include words like "of," "the," "himself," and many others. The reason for this is that these words appear so frequently in text that they don't add much value to the search. Removing them helps speed up search performance and improves accuracy. 

However, sometimes stop words can interfere with the results. For example, the word "same" is considered a stop word, meaning searches including "same" may not work as expected. 

A list of the Mongo stop words can be found here. 

Word Stemming: Finding Variations of Words

Another feature of MongoDB's Full-Text Search is word stemming. This means that the system tries to match different versions of the same word. For example: 

• Searching for "jump" will also return results for "jumped" and "jumping".
• Searching for "running" might also return results for "run". 

This makes search more flexible and allows you to find content that may not exactly match the typed words but still relates to them. 

Search is a powerful tool, and our system is designed to prioritize performance and flexibility by filtering out stop words and using word stemming. Our. goal is to provide an efficient and effective search experience. 

If you have any questions or need assistance with search, feel free to submit a support ticket!