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| Navigation |
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| Quick access to the entire site is available
through the left and top navigation bars that appear on every page. |
| The left navigation bar will "cascade"
to allow access to the information from every page. |
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| The top navigation bar allows access to this
information from every page. |
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| The short cuts menu on the top navigation bar
offers access to the most popular information. |
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| Table Sorting |
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| Any tables of information with underlined column
headings can be sorted both ascending or descending. Click once
to sort
A-Z,
click again to sort Z-A. In this example, clicking the project # column would sort the display in ascending project number order. |
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There are numerous methods to search the site - selecting the best method for you is an individual choice and depends on what type of results you want and the type of search information you already know.
Use the Site Search to perform a broad, full-text search over the entire site. This will return the most results, but may not be as useful without using any of the mechanisms described below to refine your search.
Use Browse By Topic to locate research projects within particular categories or to restrict your search term to a category. This is helpful when you already have an idea of which topic the project falls under.
Use the Research Center to follow links to content. This may be helpful when you don't know particular search terms that may be on a document but do know the general type of information that you are looking for, i.e., AwwaRF policies on research projects. In this example, following the link "Policies" on the Research Center page will likely lead to the results you desire.
Use the Project Center to perform a search on a narrow set of project information. This search is based directly on AwwaRF's database of projects - unlike the site search that looks for project references as text on pages. If you know the project number or order number, this is the fastest way to get directly to the order/profile page or project snapshot of an individual project.
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| Site Search |
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Use site search to search for terms on all AwwaRF web pages.
An entire site-wide search can be done using the site
search found on the top navigation bar on every
page. |
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 Basic Search Instructions |
Type in a few words or phrases. Try to use discriminating terms that are likely to be found only in the documents you seek. The more words you give, the better results you'll get. For example, energy management will provide more specific results than management.
Identify phrases with quotation marks and separate with commas. Example:
"energy management", "best practices"
A phrase is entered using double quotation marks, and only matches words which appear next to each other in the same order. Separate multiple phrases or proper names with a comma.
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| Narrowing Search Results |
Mixing case or using all caps in your search terms will produce different results. (Tip: If no results are returned, try your search terms in all lower case, which is least restrictive.)
The search results page allows you to search again within the results. This further narrows the returned results.
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Example: energy vs. Energy vs. ENERGY
Search within search results:
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| Advanced Search Instructions |
Click the Advanced link near the search box to access a page of advanced search options.
Enter additional conditions for as many options as you choose.
Search Fields are pre-defined sections of a Web page that searchers can specify to narrow results. In this example, the words Best Practices must appear in the page title of the Web page to be included in the results. |
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| Power User Search Instructions |
| Our Site Search is based on well known search technology. Searching techniques that work on Google and other standard search platforms apply to our search as well. For a good resource for learning to refine your searches, please see, http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html. |
You can restrict searches to certain portions of Web documents by using field syntax. The field syntax should be immediately followed by a colon, with no spaces after
the colon and before the search terms.
Example:
title:"Triple Bottom Line Reporting" finds pages with the phrase "Triple Bottom Line Reporting" in the in the page title of the Web page. The word, Title is a special syntax operator. It instructs the search engine to only search the html title of a page.
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Results page:
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Boolean queries use the logical operators AND, OR, NOT and ADJ (adjacent). Suppose you wanted to find a project about filtration and particularly slow sand filtration but nothing about giardia. Type this into the search box as: filtration, +"slow sand" -giardia
Tip: Putting a - immediately in front of a term excludes any results with that term. Example: -giardia will exclude it from results. Quotes around a phrase specify that all the words within the quotes must be present in the results. |
This query specifies that:
- All returned documents must contain the phrase "slow sand".
- Results should include the word filtration.
- None of the documents returned will contain giardia.
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| Searching Collections |
| Collections are pre-defined search areas that help focus search results to a particular group of documents. |
- AwwaRF Site - Check this box to search all documents on the AwwaRF Web site.
- Project Admin - Check this box to restrict search results to only documents pertaining to the administration of projects (proposal guidelines, contracts, etc.)
- Project Profiles/Order Reports - Check this box to restrict search results to only documents pertaining to published reports.
- Project Snapshots - Check this box to restrict search results to only documents pertaining to a project.
- Supporting Resources - Check this box to only search for results within the supporting resources section (presentations, papers, case studies, etc.)
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| Browse By Topic |
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This search can be initiated from the Site Search page, the Research Center page, or the Project Center page.
Use Browse By Topic to perform a topic search. This find projects within particular categories or restrict your search term to a category. It is also helpful for displaying AwwaRF research on a particular topic.
Projects are classified into more than 200 topics. There are seven main topics: Distribution Systems Operations, Health Effects,
Infrastructure, Management,
Treatment Technologies, Water Quality, and Water Resources. The main topics branch out into second and third levels of subtopics. Click on a topic or subtopic for a list of all related project snapshots. A project snapshot page serves as the home page for the particular project. |
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| Research Center |
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The Research Center page provides quick links to all pages within the Web site research section.
At a glance, you can see which pages will offer content you are interested in. For example, click "Proposal Guidelines" to quickly move to the page with all proposal guidelines. |
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| Project Center |
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Searching in the Project Center focuses on results specific to research projects. Unlike the site search, which is created when a "spider" crawls all the text on a page, this search is based directly on project information held in a database. When you enter a term into one of the search fields, you are directly querying the database table for items such as the project number, order number, year funded or project program type. The text search field only searches the project title and summary fields of the database table rather than all the text on a Web page. This search is most useful when you know something about the project you are looking for, such as the project number, order number, or words in the title.
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| For searches using text, the year the program was funded, or program type, you can sort results by columns and collapse or expand the amount of detail shown. |
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| Research reports are ordered from the project profile Web page of each completed project. Most commonly, you will find links to project profiles on the Order Reports page or on each individual project snapshot. You can also perform a full text search or browse by topic to locate a report. |
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| From a project snapshot, completed projects
will have a Project Profile / OrderReport link
on the project snapshot page. Click the Project Profile link to order the project's report. |
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Each project profile will specify what types of reports are available
to order.
In this example, AwwaRF subscribers may select a printed report
that will be shipped to them or a PDF for immediate download, both free of charge.
Non-subscribers may purchase the same printed report from IWA Publishing. |
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| Clicking on the "Order Report" link will add the report to your Shopping Cart. |
(Items in your cart which are noted as "preorder" will be shipped when they become available from our printer.) |
The Shopping Cart functionality allows you to:
- Order multiple copies of the same report. Enter the desired quantity and press "Recalculate Qty".
- Add multiple reports to your cart for a single checkout process. Press "Continue Shopping" and add any additional reports to your cart.
- Remove the item from your cart by clicking the "remove" link.
- When finished press "Checkout" to enter your shipping information.
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| While items are in your cart, you can view your cart by clicking the "view cart" image in the top navigational bar from any AwwaRF web page. When your cart is empty, this image will not display. (You must be logged in to view your cart.) |
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| User Names and Passwords |
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AwwaRF subscribers and other groups, such as principal investigators, may access the subscriber-only portion of the Web site with an AwwaRF user name and password. The login page is available by clicking Subscriber Only from the upper navigation bar.
Forgotten
passwords are e-mailed to the e-mail address AwwaRF has on
file for you. Once logged in, you may update your e-mail address and change your login preferences or communication preferences.
For uninterrupted site viewing, we recommend that
you login when you enter the site. |
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| Printing Pages |
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| Pages with a printer
icon near the upper left corner can be easily printed without all the surrounding images, saving ink and paper. Click the printer image for a printer
friendly page. To go back to the full screen, click the
printer image again or the back button of your browser. |
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| Organizational Acronyms |
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| List of organizational acronyms used by AwwaRF. |
| Major Sections of the Site |
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| Each major section has a home page (or portal page) for all the materials in that section. |
| Subscriber Only - This is the gateway to all subscriber-only matherial. Log in to enjoy uninterrupted access to all Web pages and to update e-mail, login, and communication preferences. |
| The Foundation - This section contains everything about
the organization, staff, subscribers, how to join, and
overview of the research programs. |
| News and Events - Here you will find
monthly activity reports; the newletters Drinking Water Research, and Research Direct; event calendar
and registration; press releases; and brochures. |
| Research - This section encompasses all Web information about past, present, and future projects; volunteer opportunities for committees and projects; and contracts and forms for researchers. It includes the Research Center and Project Center, as well as a direct link to requests for proposals. |
| What's New - The latest items of interest from the Foundation. Also available as an RSS feed. |
AwwaRF Research Addresses These Broad Topics
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| Distribution Systems Operations |
| Health Effects |
| Infrastructure |
| Management |
| Treatment Technologies |
| Water Resources |
| Water Quality |
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