Research tool how-to

The research tool gives you the ability to look one step further into a hit without leaving the platform. Use it to do a one-time search on a competitor, or if you want to find out more information on a hot issue in current discussions. The possibilities are endless.

1. To begin, navigate to the Research tab in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
2. Then, enter a keyword or keywords into the "Search" box. After you type in the keyword(s) hit "ENTER", this will tell the system that you want to search for that specific keyword(s).
3. Next, select the meeting date range. The default dates are set for 6 weeks worth of data; four weeks prior to ‘today’s’ date and two weeks post the search date to catch any agendas. 
1. The longest time period that you can search within at a time is 6 months. However, you can search as far back as September 1, 2020.
4. Then, select the state(s) that you would like to search in.
1. A reminder that you can only research within the locations that you are subscribed to. 
5. Once you have your search keywords, dates, and locations selected you can hit the Search button.

Filters within the Research Tool: 

• Within the research tool, you have the capability to apply your profile selections to your search criteria (i.e. locations and filters).
• Within the green box below, you have the option to select which filter profile selections you would like to apply to this search.
• By selecting topics, you limit the search function to only search within those topics.
1. You may apply any of your current filter profiles to automatically select the associated topics
2. You may also pick and choose individual topics to search within

Search Logic

Each bubble of text in the search bar will be treated as an individual keyword and is searched using an exact match. If you'd like to search multiple, separate keywords, hit "ENTER" or "TAB" between keywords to start a new text bubble.

This search will return snippets where the words "case" and "study" are both in the snippet, but not necessarily together. For example,

"...shall be obtained in each case before beginning the pertinent course of study"

This search will return snippets where the exact phrase "case study" is included. For example,

"Residential Case Study - University of Alaska Anchorage"

You can toggle the search logic between "AND" and "OR". The default is set to OR, which will return results where any of your search terms are found within a given snippet. When toggled to "AND" search logic, the tool will return results where all search terms were found within the same snippet.

You can use the "+" symbol to search on all stems of a word. For example, searching "misclass+" will return results that include "misclassified," "misclassify," "misclassification," etc.