EBSCO Changing Default Result Sort Order

In early August, EBSCO will be releasing changes to the EBSCOhost interface. Two big changes occurring are related to default result sort order and default search options.

Basically, EBSCO will be switching their default result sort order from date ranking to relevancy ranking. This option was released in January, but is now going to be the default sort order. Also, in order for this default change to occur, they will be changing the default phrase indexing to something they are calling W5. This means results will include the words entered into the search field within 5 words of each other.

These changes will occur automatically in early August. There is no set date yet for the release. If your institution wishes to opt out of these changes, please submit a comment to GALILEO via Contact Us. Your request must be received no later than July 30th. If you wish to opt out, we will submit this request to EBSCO on your institution’s behalf.

Here is the original announcement from EBSCO:

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Dear EBSCO Customer,

We have some important news concerning changes to two default settings on the EBSCOhost user interface, scheduled to be made at the beginning of August:

1) The Result List sort will be defaulted to Relevance, from the current Date Sort. Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly in favor of this approach to results, which we outlined in a communication this past January. For more information on EBSCO’s relevancy ranking and its impact on search results, please see this FAQ: (http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=3971)

2) To accommodate the new Result List sort default, we will also be changing the default search option from phrase indexing (all terms entered in the Find field are searched as though enclosed by quotation marks), to W5, which means that all results that contain the terms entered in the Find field within five words of each other will be returned.

You may have changed your Result List default sort to Relevance back in January. If not, we will do this for you when we activate these changes.

Please act quickly, as we need to have your completed Opt Out form by July 31 in order to suppress these two popular changes in your account. Otherwise, you need do nothing and when the changes are activated, they will become part of your profiles.

Sincerely,

Marcie Brown

Technical Communications Manager