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There is a new advanced search on the parliament website. The new advanced search arranges results by relevancy (this is in line with simple search) with an option to reorder by date. Another key change is the introduction of stop words: if your search includes a commonly used word like ‘a’ or ‘and’ these will now not be included in the search. Finally, the performance should be improved by removing the default reverse chronological ordering from the results. Returning results in reverse chronological order was an added step to processing search.
If these changes are successful we will be looking at improving the layout of the advanced search screen and adding the Google search widget to the results page.
We’re working on getting RSS content out of the Parliament website, and hopefully we should have some positive developments on that by the end of the year.
Elsewhere, you can get all the RSS goodness you would want from our channels on Twitter, FriendFeed, Podcasts etc… They’re all listed below, and on the left-hand sidebar.
You’ll also see on that same sidebar that we’ve added our Google search gadget. You can use this to search the Parliament website from the comfort of your iGoogle page.
History of Parliament podcast channel
UPDATE: If you want to find out more about what RSS is and how you can get started with it, watch this video from Common Craft:
…. we believe this is called an ‘enhanced podcast’. At least, that’s what we’re calling them.
Our tours of the House of Commons Chamber and the Clock Tower (Big Ben) have both been given the treatment and are available from our YouTube channel.
You can watch/listen to our trip up Big Ben below:
Parliament’s new education website has officially launched: www.parliament.uk/education.
It’s actually been live for a few weeks, but we wanted to allow plenty of time to test the site with teachers and children, get some feedback and make a few adjustments. We hope you enjoy the result.
The re-design has brought together two separate, old sites that were looking a little tired. The new site is visually more clear and colourful, and we hope you agree that the improved navigation better communicates the role of Parliament’s Education Service.
The Education Service has recently grown, and is intent on increasing the number of children who visit Parliament to see democracy in action. For those schools across the UK who can’t make it to Westminster, the outreach team provides workshops and teacher training opportunities. The website serves to inform schools about these activities and also offers lots of free educational resources, from booklets to videos to games.
This is just the first stage of the new site. There’s loads of new content in the pipeline, and a major advantage of the new site is that we are able to update it much more easily. We’ll be working with schools and experts to make sure our new resources are engaging, relevant to children and matched to the school curricula across the different ages, especially linking to citizenship and political literacy.
Take a look at the new site yourself – we’d be delighted to hear your feedback.
www.parliament.uk/education
