Introduction to the Site

TWI's website comprises a comprehensive database of thousands of :

frequently asked questions
technical articles
reports and papers
best practice guides
interactive toolkits
multimedia training courses

...etc., covering all aspects of joining technology. Whatever your requirements for joining, the site has something for you.

A great deal of information in the site is restricted to either registered users or TWI Industrial Members. This is because the information was generated by funding provided by Members. You are not required to login to the system when you start, but before you are allowed to see any restricted information, the system will ask you to enter your user ID and password.

Finding Information

TWI's website incorporates a database of thousands of content items, from simple promotional items on conferences/seminars, or TWI Membership, through all the information brought to you by JoinIT, such as FAQs, reports and papers, knowledge summaries, best practice guides, etc. The site provides three ways of finding information :

Browsing through the navigation menus
The simple search
A more advanced search mechanism

Navigation Using the Structured Menus

If you know what you are looking for, or you want to browse the site, you should use the structured navigation menu, the top level of which is displayed at the top of the screen (About TWI, Membership, Contact us, Industries, etc.). Clicking on one of these options takes you one level down in the structure (your browser's Back button takes you 'up' one level in the search).

You should note that :

The header, including the top level of the navigation structure, is available at all times (although it may have scrolled off the top of the screen). The TWI logo at the top of the screen functions as a link back to the Home page.
The string that is built up as you select items from the navigation structure is active, so you can move back up more than one level at a time by simply clicking on the item required.
You can go straight to the main JoinIT menu by clicking on the word JoinIT in the main menu bar at any time.

Click on Site map in the main menu bar to see a representation of the menu structure.

When you have reached the bottom level of a branch, the system shows you one of the following :

An item of content relevant to the area you are interested in.
A page of search results, which should all be relevant to your interest. See The Search Results, below.
A restricted search, similar to the advanced search, described below, but pre-filtered depending what part of the navigation structure you are in. See the Advanced search for more details.

The Search Results Page

Whether you have carried out a search by using the structured menus, described above, or by using a simple or advanced search, the system displays the Search Results page. This comprises a sorted list of content items that match the term or terms for which you have searched.

The following information is displayed :

An indication of the number of 'hits' and what is being shown on the current page, in the form Displaying X to Y of Z.
The title of each content item, shown as an active link.
An indication of relevance of the content item in percent. If you have carried out a search on keywords or content type, the relevance is always 100%. If you have carried out a free text search, the relevance is calculated using Salton's inverse cosine formula (see below).
A description of the content item.
If the content item is a .pdf file, an indication of size, in KB.
Content items restricted to Industrial Members or other groups are marked as such.
The nominal value of the content, in GBP. Promotional content has no intrinsic sales value and is marked '-'.
The price to you, in GBP. The price depends on the level of information in the content item and your category as a user. If you have not logged in to the system, it does not know who you are, so may be unable to display a price. Once you have logged in to the system, price to you will always be displayed, although it will mostly be zero.
When any content items represented by .pdf files are displayed, a link to download the Adobe Acrobat reader is displayed at the bottom of the page.
When the search results are displayed over more than one page, a list of active page links is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

The site uses Oracle Intermedia as a search engine, which in turn uses Salton's inverse cosine formula to calculate a relevance score for found items. This gives an indication of the number of times the search text appears in found documents. It also takes account of the number of times the search text appears throughout all content. Thus, the more the given text appears throughout the document set, the more times it must appear in a specific content item for that content item to be given a relevance of 100%.

Clicking on the title of a document displays that content item, providing you have access to that item. If you do not have access to that item, the system will tell you that.

The Simple Search

The simple search is available from the main menu bar. To carry out a simple search, type the word or phrase into the box and press Enter or click on Go.

The software displays the search results page, as described above.

Note that if you use multiple words separated by spaces, the system treats these as an 'OR' search. For example, if you search for laser welding, the system searches for laser or welding. In this case, you will find many hits and the search for welding would distort the search for laser. In general, it is not a good idea to include welding in any JoinIT search as almost all documents in the database include this term. Better, in this case, to search just for laser, as a search for welding is almost implied.

To search for a phrase, you need to include quotes (single or double) at the start and finish of the phrase.

See Free text searches for more information on building up more complex text searches using multiple words and operators.

The Advanced Search

The system also provides a facility to carry out more complex searches involving multiple parameters and operators. To start the advanced search, click on 'Advanced search' under the main menu bar. You may specify as many of each of the search terms as each search type permits (see below). If you specify multiple searches, these will be ANDed together. For example, (free text = steel) AND (Content type = FAQs), etc. A search is not started until you click on the Submit button. Use the Reset button to clear all your selections. Your search statemtn can be seen towards the bottom of the screen as you build it up.

Free Text Searches

Free text searches are the most flexible types of search. You can search for any pieces of text you like using either simple or complex search strategies. The most important advantage of free text searches is that searches are performed on the content files themselves, not just on the database index. In its simplest form, you can type a word in the box and click on Search or press Enter, just like a Simple search, described above.

If you want to search for a phrase, you need to include quotes (single or double) at the start and finish of the phrase.

Note that capitalisation is irrelevant in any text search. The system treats MIG, mig, Mig in exactly the same way.

Text Search Operators

The site uses text search facilities provided by Oracle Intermedia, which allows complex search strings to be built up. The following is a selection of some of the operators that can be used. For more information, consult Oracle Intermedia technical documentation.

AND (&)

Use of this operator means that each search term must appear at least once in found documents. The system displays the relevance (see above) of the lowest scoring search term.

Examples : aluminium&steel aluminium and steel

Fuzzy (?)

The fuzzy operator is used to specify a search for words that are spelt similarly. This could be useful, for example when searching for 'aluminium', to ensure documents including the alternative spelling 'aluminum' are found.

Examples : ?aluminium

NOT (~)

The Not operator is used to search for one term but not another. Note that ~ is the 'tilde' symbol.

Examples : friction ~ stir friction not stir

OR (|)

This is used to search for documents which include at least one of any of the search terms. The | symbol is usually accessed by pressing shift and \ together.

Examples : radiography|ultrasonic|lpi radiography or ultrasonic or lpi

Wildcards (% _)

The % wildcard specifies that any characters can appear in multiple positions represented by the wildcard. The _ (underscore) wildcard specifies that any single character can appear in that one position.

Examples : weld% (finds any words beginning with 'weld') _ig (finds mig, tig, etc.)

Within Title

If you find that a search is giving you too many hits to be useful, you can specify that you only want the search to be carried out within the title of the document. For example, if you search for the term copper using the free text search, the system finds over 500 documents, with 30 or more rating over 100% (the system does not additionally sort documents with search rankings of 100%). To ensure that you are only finding documents specifically related to copper, you can additionally use the following search :

{copper within title}

Note that the curly brackets '{ }' are essential in this search.

This only finds documents that have the word copper in the title (about ten documents).

Precedence

Complex queries are generally evaluated from left to right. When more than one operator is applied, the following precedence is followed :

Not (~)

AND (&)

OR (|)

Fuzzy (?)

Use round brackets ( ) if you are unsure of the order of precedence.

Content Types

This type of search allows you to specify the type of content you require, for example if you want a list of Technology Briefings or Best Practice Guides. Simply click on an item to select a content type, which becomes highlighted. Note that unlike the other menus, you can only specify one Content type.

Keywords

A list of keywords has been developed to help you find relevant content. The keyword list includes names of parent materials, joining processes etc. To select a keyword, click on the keyword, which becomes highlighted. You can select multiple keywords by using click and Ctrl-click. Selecting multiple keywords will AND the keywords together.

Author

This performs a free-text search of the Author field in the website content database, thus a search for hart finds items by Peter Hart of TWI and also items by K Hartke of EWI. The search is not case-sensitive. Authors are entered in the format 'family name and initials' so THOMAS, thomas and THOMAS W M work but wayne thomas does not.

Publication date

You can restrict your search to items published before or after a particular date. This applies to Bulletin articles, Connect articles, staff papers, Industrial Members' Reports and Technology briefings.

Remember that the search is not performed until you click on Submit.

Adminstration

How to Register for the Site

Registration is free, on-line and instant. You will automatically be sent a user ID and password by return email. If you work for a TWI Industrial Member Company and have specified this on the registration form, you will be assigned non-member access rights while we check the status of your company. As soon as we have verified this, your access rights will be modified to give you Industrial Member access (this may take up to 48 hours).

To register, click on the Login button on the Home page (click on the TWI logo at the top of the page you are viewing, to display the Home page).

Next, click on the Register now link on the login page.

Enter your details on the form and click submit. Please note that you must supply information to those fields marked with an asterisk (*). You will be sent an email message containing your new user ID (usually your email address) and password.

Logging In

To log in, click on the login button on the Home page (if you are not looking at the Home page, click on the TWI logo at the top of the page you are viewing, to display the Home page). Type your user ID and password into the boxes provided and click on the login button. If you have mistyped your access details, the system will display an error message.

If the system tells you it has not recognised your details, check that you have not used numerical digits rather than letters, or vice versa.

If you have forgotten your password, click on the relevant link on the Login page. You can now type your user ID in the box provided and click on Submit. The system will email your password to you.

User Accounts

To see a list of pages you have visited in the past, click on 'about this website', in the introductory text on the Home page and then on Pages you have visited. This lists the most recent 250 pages you have visited and each item in the list forms a hyperlink to the content item itself. The list does not include the home page, or other purely administrative pages.

Note that this facility is only available to registered users and you will have to login before viewing this list.

Changing your password

When you register to use the system, a password is automatically generated consisting of six characters from the letters a-z and numbers 0-9. To change your password to something more meaningful to you, click the appropriate link on the Login page.

Type your user ID into the box provided and select Change password from the drop-down menu in the Action box. Now type your existing password, then the new password twice for confirmation. Note that you can only use letters a-z and numbers 0-9 and you must use a minimum of six characters.

Troubleshooting

Although the Internet is more robust than in its earlier years, it is still a far from perfect technology and it is impossible to guarantee error-free operation of any Internet system. In order to build this site, advanced Internet techniques were used, which can potentially make JoinIT more prone to Internet-related problems. There are many potential sources of problems, including :

Your PC hardware
Your Operating System (MS Windows)
Your browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.)
Your network
Your Internet connection
The Internet
TWI's Internet connection
TWI's network
TWI's file server

... and even the JoinIT software itself.

If you do experience problems, have a look at the advice below before contacting the JoinIT support team. Also, please investigate whether the problem could be originating in any of the above list under your control (your browser, your operating system, your network, etc.) before contacting JoinIT support.

One other 'cure all' solution to many problems is to click on 'Refresh', which is usually on your button bar, or available via the 'View' options. Try clicking this several times if the first does not succeed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q.	I have forgotten my user ID and/or password.
A.	Most users have their email address as their user ID. If you have simply forgotten your password, click on the link on the login page. You will be prompted to enter your user ID, which is usually your email address. Your password will be emailed back to you.

Q.	Why will the system not accept my login details ?
A.	By far the most common problem with the system not accepting login details is the use of numbers rather than letters and vice versa. Passwords are generated automatically from letters a-z and numbers 0-9. The numbers 0 (zero) and 1 (one) can easily be mistaken for the letters l (for lima) and O (for oscar). When you are sent your password, you should also be sent a phonetic representation to help you distinguish between letters and numbers. In addition, you should always use lower-case characters in your password.

Q	I have downloaded a Members Report (.pdf file) and don't know how to access it.
A	You need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you already have it, click on the .pdf filename from within Windows Explorer. If this doesn't work, you need to set up an 'association' between Adobe Acrobat Reader and .pdf files (see your Windows Help). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it free of charge from Adobe's Internet site or by using the link from the search results page in this site.

Q	I cannot see the whole of a toolkit screen. Why is this ?
A	This happens if you have a PC with a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, and you have a large font selected. You should be able to run the site (and most other Internet applications, in fact) with small fonts. You can select the font size by using the facilities provided in the 'View' option in your browser.

One other thing to remember : your browser has cache facilities that enable it to store recently used pages, to avoid having to download a frequently used page over and over. If you have received one of the above messages that the system or part of the system has crashed, you may need to clear your cache, or your browser may keep displaying the error message, even if the problem has been solved. The cache can be cleared by using the Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Cache options in Netscape and Tools - Internet Options - General - Temporary Internet files in Internet Explorer.

If you still have problems, please email the JoinIT Support team at TWI who will attempt to solve your problem. Please supply as much information about your browser (e.g. name, version number) and PC (e.g. speed, memory) as you can.

Email : joinit_support@twi.co.uk

Hardware and Browser Issues

The site has been designed for use with version 4 and above of Netscape and Internet Explorer, and has been tested with both browsers. The system has not been designed for use with version 3.X of these browsers, so its use in this case may be unpredictable.

Despite claims of full compatibility between the browsers, they do behave slightly differently, so don't worry if the system doesn't quite look the same.

The system has been designed and tested to run on the following :

Processor:	Pentium or faster
Operating system:	Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000
Memory:	16MB (Windows 95/98), 32MB (Windows NT/2000)
Screen resolution:	800x600 at 256 colours

In addition, you should ideally have a 64k ISDN Internet connection or faster, although the system will function with slower connections.

The site should also function on other hardware and under other operating systems (e.g. MacOS and Unix) capable of running one of the browsers above and with equivalent processing power and speed of Internet connection. However, its use in these cases has not been extensively tested.

TWI Web-Site System Help

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