HURIDOCS Portal

From: "HURIDOCS" <info@huridocs.org>

Subject: European Country of Origin Network: new search feature

Date: 2008-02-15 14:19

Sommaire en français Le Réseau Européen d'Information sur les Pays d'Origine
(www.ecoi.net) fournit une information mise à jour sur les pays d'origine
des réfugiés. ECOI dispose d’une vaste base de données en anglais avec des
termes liés en allemand.  Le moteur de recherche fournit des résultats
significatifs grâce à un thésaurus de termes spécifiques, permettant la
réalisation de recherches bilingues et l'incorporation de termes liés.

 

Resumen en español La Red Europea de Información sobre Países de Origen
(www.ecoi.net) proporciona información actualizada sobre los países de
procedencia de los refugiados. ECOI cuenta con una amplia base de datos en
inglés con términos relacionados en alemán. Cuenta además con un motor de
búsqueda que proporciona resultados relevantes gracias a la incorporación de
un tesauro de términos específicos, que permite la realización de búsquedas
bilingües y la incorporación de términos relacionados.

 

 

The European Country of Origin Network ECOI.NET www.ecoi.net provides
up-to-date and publicly available country of origin information with a
special focus on the needs of asylum lawyers, refugee counsels and persons
deciding on claims for asylum and other forms of international protection.
Access to information is facilitated by a comprehensive search tool and
Topics & Issues files, offering thematically structured information on
asylum-relevant topics and issues for a set of focus countries.


ECOI.NETs new search feature improves relevance of results. It now considers
documents containing English and German terms related to your search terms.
This will improve the number of relevant results. This has been made
possible by linking a thesaurus to our search engine.


In cooperation with the Center for Translation Studies at the University of
Vienna   we have started
developing a bi-lingual thesaurus covering COI specific terminology. Our
main motivation is to improve access to information through our search
engine.


Bi-lingual Searches


One of the main challenges of retrieving information is to overcome language
barriers. The great majority of documents featured on ECOI.NET is in
English, around 20 percent of the information is in German. By linking the
bi-lingual thesaurus to our search engine related terms in the other
language will also be included in your search query (if they are contained
in the thesaurus).

Example: A search query for IDPs will also include equivalent German terms.
Therefore the search engine will also find documents containing the German
terms Binnenvertriebene, Binnenflüchtlinge or intern Vertriebene.


Inclusion of Related Terms


Often different terms are used to describe the same. Therefore synonyms and
different spellings of terms contained in our thesaurus will be included in
your search query.

Example: A search query for female genital cutting will include related
English terms. Therefore the search engine will also find documents
containing the terms FGM, female genital mutilation or female circumcision.

You may switch this feature off by deselecting the inclusion of related
terms under the advanced search options.

Contact us   for clarifications or
feedback on this new search feature.


Credits


We would like to thank the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in
Germany and the Federal Office for Migration in Switzerland for their
valuable input on structure and terms for our thesaurus. The International
Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology of UNHCR and FMO as well as the HURIDOCS
Micro-thesauri were of great help in identifying relevant terms to be
contained in our thesaurus.