Update: much of this is obsolete now. If you want to create and maintain lists of knols, you can use the knol collections feature. If you require additional editorial controls, try moderated collections.
Use case - why would I want my own list of knols?
For many organizations, Knol presents a useful platform to organize informational resources. Here are a few sample use cases:- A local association of real estate professional would like to add an informational resources page to their public facing website. They ask their members to contribute articles about their topic of expertise ("Home financing", "Selling your house in Reno, NV", "Choosing your broker", etc.).
- A national birdwatchers club would like to enhance their website by providing birdwatching tour suggestions written by local members all over the country.
- A major health-care provider would like to include accurate articles written by their network of physicians as a resource for their members.
- The engineering department at a large university is planning to increase the visibility of their research activities by posting a series of articles to their website.
- An Italian political science graduate student runs an activist website, and would like to point its visitors to the set of relevant knols he has found browsing the web, in addition to her own knols written about politics.
Invariably, these examples require a way to restrict search over a selected set of knols, either written by the members of the organization themselves, or selected from the large number of published knols visible on the web.
How to make this work? (without hiring a team of developers)
You will need to do two things:- Select the knols you would like to include. You will need to create a list of URLs (web addresses) of all the knols you have selected. This can be done in any text editor: simply go to the knol you want to select, and copy the web address from your browser's URL field, then paste it into your list. Your URLs should look somewhat similar to this: http://knol.google.com/k/cedric-dupont/-/pasv7gesjsss/4
- Make this group of selected knols searchable to your audience by including a Custom Search Engine to your organization's website. This only takes a few steps (explained below) and requires absolutely no programming skills.
What's a Custom Search engine?
A custom search engine (CSE) allows you to use Google technology to create your own search engine. You can learn all about it on the the main CSE page, but the important thing is that it provides a straightforward way to satisfy the needs described above. If you follow the steps below, you will have your own "search box" on your website that does exactly what you want it to do. You can also look at a few examples[1]Step 1 - create your own search engine
Go to www.google.com/cse and after reading all about this Google product, click "Create a custom search engine". If you were not signed in to your Google account, you will be asked to sign in now. You will now be directed to a page similar to the screenshot below (click on the image for a larger view):
Step 2 - restrict the search to your selected knols (and other relevant web pages)
The important fields for this are "What do you want to search" and "Select some files". In my case, I am going to create a CSE that searches over a few of my own knols, so I paste in a list of URLs of knols I wrote. Note that each URL should be pasted on a separate line. You will be able to add/remove URLs later on, so don't worry about being exhaustive on the first spin.
Step 3 - try it out!
After clicking next, you will be able to try out a few searches to check that the search engine behaves the way you had intended. When you are done testing continue to the next step, where you will see something similar to this (without the red highlight, of course):
Step 4 - insert the search box into your website
After clicking "control panel" you are directed to a new page, where you need to select "Code" see highlighted link below:
Stay fresh!
Your list of appropriate knols is likely to grow and change with time. In order to stay updated, you will need to add and/or remove at a frequency that you deem appropriate. You can do this by logging into www.google.com/cse and accessing the control panel for your search engine. The "Sites" link (highlighted below) allows you to do some housekeeping on your list.
References
- A few examples of custom search engine implementations from people like you
http://www.google.com/coop/cse/examples/ GooglePicks
Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.
Invite as author
An interesting article
Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.
Invite as author
Knol certification by authors
Knol's main aim is to create authoritative articles about specific topics.
But the platform provides an opportunity for experimentation by authors to provide various formats. But unless the main objective is fulfilled to a large extent, Knol may not succeed in the first place to provide opportunity for other forms of expression by us (author community).
Therefore make an attempt to certify knols by any other author as an authoritative knol. If we can certify a great number of knols as authoritative articles we can make a noise about it in various forms of media. If we can't then we have to change our approach to creating knols. Start.
http://knol.google.c
This knol is an authoritative article - Self Certification the Author
Knol's main aim is to create authoritative articles about specific topics.
But the platform provides an opportunity for experimentation by authors to provide various formats. But unless the main objective is fulfilled to a large extent, Knol may not succeed in the first place to provide opportunity for other forms of expression by us (author community).
How many of your knols are original and authoritative articles on a specific topic? Self certify yourself. Make an entry of the knol that you self certify here.
http://knol.google.c
The author community has a role to play in the success of knol as a platform.