BBC Bitesize is the biggest digital learning site in the UK, providing learning and revision materials for schoolchildren of all ages. Monterosa have worked on a number of projects with Bitesize over the years, so we were familiar with the site when the Bitesize team approached us with a problem to solve.
The BBC website search doesn’t work well for Bitesize. There are too many similar pages: children work on topics at different levels in their school lives, these topics can overlap between subjects, and depending on the exam boards which they are using, minor differences in the subject matter can make a big difference in an exam. A search for “tectonic plates” could relate to the Physics, General Science or Geography syllabus, for instance, and “Electricity” is covered to some extent by all science courses and at all levels in school.
The proposed solution was to develop an “Assisted Search” which would intelligently filter search results based on these criteria, to quickly drill down to relevant subject matter without offering confusing or potentially incorrect alternatives. The intelligence in the system came from manually (or semi-automatically) tagging all content pages with the subject, level, exam board and page type, as well as key terms covered in the content. The BBC had already begun a site-wide tagging initiative, so it was decided to collaborate with this project.
The resulting application is now being trialled within the BBC, due to launch in spring 2010. Early indications show that it can yield big improvements in the relevance of search results for all Bitesize subjects.
Technically the application is a Javascript/Ajax front end (with an accessible alternative), and a Mod-Perl/MySQL back-end.