Help > Member Manager > Search a member

Explaining the member search

Here is explained how to use the search engine and perform your demand to display good results.
When you make your first search, you will only have the form to fill on your screen. It has the default values everywhere. When you make your search, you will see first the results, but the form is still displayed on the upper part of the page. In this case, the form has the values you demanded, if you need to change your entries.

The form

The search engine for this functionnality has been written to optimize the results over what is demanded. It has two running mode, which are the 'specific search' and the 'vast search'. It is important to insist on this point because a wrong use will display unwanted members, or no members enough. You can select the type of search just over the submit an reset buttons.
They normally seem like that :

all filled fields must match
at least one field must match

The first mode, the 'specific search', is the default selected mode. In this mode, all the field you demanded will have to match with members. In fact it works like an 'AND' function, meaning this way that the search engine will only display members where the director AND the country AND the specialisations match, if these fields are those one you demanded. If your search is too specific, you will have a 'no matching members' result, in this case decrease the precision of your search, or look at errors in what you demanded. Generally, this type of search is used when you only have some precise information about the member to find.
In the second mode, the 'vast search', at least one field you demanded has to match with members. By comparison, and taking the example given for the first mode, this one works like an 'OR' function. If the director matches OR the country matches OR one specialisation matches, the member will be displayed. The results have generally a lot of members matching. Try this search if you have obscur information over a member.

In an attempt to reduce the number of displayed members, you have the possibility to limit the range of member id number to display. These fields are not taken in account by the type of search and the range you entered will definitively limit your search in this way.
You can limit the id range in these fieds :

from to (incl.)

The default values are the lowest member id number and the greatest one. Enter a lower value or a higher in one of the fields will lead to an error, and a correction will be made for the wrong values. Also, the 'from' value must never be greater than the 'to' value. If you need to order your search see the (not available) explainations.
Useful to display pages of results (from 1 to 50, then for 51 to 100, etc...) or if you don't remind the complete id (one hundred sixty something?)

Also, another way to reduce the size of your search is to only display the fields that interest you. Just consider the size of a search with all fields displayed, over all the members. The result page size is (actually) more than a half mega-byte (500ko) for around 250 members. And images are not taken in account here ! So remind this if you have a slow connection, or if the server response time is to high.
The field selection is made with these checkboxes :

Institute/Company  Institute type  Affiliation  Director  EARSeL representative  Contribution  Address  Phone / Fax / E-mail  Website

Now, let's start with the form itself, especially the values that you can demand.
The first one is the institute or company's name. It is the easiest and the common pattern of basic search engines. The engine will take the words you demanded, and then it will compare each one with the members company. Your entries won't be case sensitive, meaning that 'department' and 'DEpARtmENt' have strictly the same result. Special characters work the same way. Any 'é' or 'è' will be replaced by a 'e'.
This kind of method will be applied to other 'text' fields such as the affiliation, the director and the EARSeL representative fields. They all seem like this field :

Generally, one or two words is enough to match few members. Also, there are some helpful tips for each field :
- for the institute or company's name, 'research', 'institute', 'department' and all other general words limit well your 'specific search',
- for the affiliation, it is similar with words like 'university' or 'faculty',
- in the director field, you can spell 'Dr' or 'Prof', very helpful,
- and for the representative one, the tip is exactly identical.

The type of institute field allows you to select a type of institute or company to search for. The first entry in the selection tells to the search engine to look over all company's types.
The other entries are those one you can edit in the Member option Manager. You can only select one type to search for.
The selection is made in this field :

All University Research institute Small/medium enterprise Large enterprise Governmental agency Non-governmental organisation Consultant Individual observer Media EU Institution

You can try this selection if your 'specific search' returned too many results.

The next field is the selection of the country. For more accuracy and less lost of time, the selectable countries are only countries that include at least one member in the member directory. It is normal to not look for a country if this country is not yet represented by a member.
Here also, you can only select one country to look for. The selection is made with this field :

All Austria Belgium Bulgaria Canada Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Israel Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russian Federation Spain Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom

A quick overview of the members in order of contribution is possible with the Paid/not-Paid choice. Select one type of institute a in specific search will only show you universities that have paid, for an example.
Just select one of these options :

PAID NOT-PAID ALL

The following field, the specialisation one, is a little particular. This field contains specialisations divided in groups. These groups and specialisations can be set in the Member option Manager. A group in the field is bold and italic : Development of new systems/sensors. A specialisation has a normal font. You can't select a group, they just specify the separation between the specialisations.
Here, the multiple selection is available. To make a multiple selection, keep pressed the 'Ctrl' key and click on the entries that interest you.
The field seems like that :

Optical Thermal Active microwave Passive microwave Hyperspectral METEOSAT ERS-1 NOAA Airborne Ground-based Landsat/SPOT Envisat ASTER IKONOS Quickbird Optical spaceborne Optical airborne Thermal spaceborne data Thermal airborne Radar spaceborne Radar airborne Passive microwave airborne Hyperspectral Multi-sensor data integration With other data in a GIS With numerical models

For a 'specific search', all the entries you demanded must have been selected by the member. If one miss, the member doesn't match and won't be displayed. At the opposite, if the member has all the specifications you demanded (even more), he will be displayed.
Used with a 'vast search', at least one of your selection has to be selected by the member. It means that only members who have not any specialisation matching your demand won't be displayed... Pay attention that selecting a lot of specialisation will return a lot of results !

The last one is the selection of the fields of application. Its principle is the same as the specialisations. And it works exactly the same way.
It seems like this one :

Topography and geomorphology Cartography Geology Land use/land cover Forestry Agriculture Nature management/ecology Hydrology Land ice/snow Forest fires Water quality Oceanography Sea ice Intertidal zones Meteorology Atmospheric chemistry Climatology/global change High school University activities International courses Summer schools courses Advanced postgraduate courses General information to the public Hands-on technical courses EC or ESA projects GIS Off-the-shelf Working groups

To display the results of your search, click on the buttons at the bottom of the form. There are three buttons, helping in the form values management. The first one is the submit button, it will send your query, and then you will receive the results to display. The second allows you to reset the fields to their previous values. These values are thoose which you demanded, except the case of your first search, where this button will set the default values. The third and last one will always reload the default values.
Here are the buttons :

The results

Once you sended your request, the server will calculate which member matches and will return the result in a table containing the fields you wanted to display. As you can see, there is particular field always displayed : the member id number. As this number is unique for member, you can have a relation between the present database and 'paper database', for example your directory of members at your work, or an exell database...
The first line of this table contains the headers of each column describing the fields you demanded to display. By clicking on these headers, you will automatically order your search. The default order presented when you just clicked on the submit button is the ascending id number order.
The ascending order is represented with this icon : (the lower is the first, to the greatest, the last). At the opposite, this icon represents a descending order (the greater is the first, the lower is the last).

After the header come the results themselves.
To separate the members, they all begin with a blue line taking the whole width of the table. It contains three icons, the flag of the member's country, and eventually his function in EARSeL.
Here is the description of these three icons :

By clicking on this icon, you will open a new little window, displaying all the information that is recorded over this member. It is in the little window that you will be able to view the complete list of specialisations and fields of application of the member's company.
This little window also contains the elementary actions allowed over the member (editing and deleting) represented by the two following icons, which are the same as in the search icons.

This icon is a direct link to the edition page of this member. If you click on this icon in the little window, the link will close it and load the page in the main window, for more ease.

This icon has exactly the same result as the previous one, excepted that it will lead you to the member delete confirmation page.

Good search !