BAYERN | SEARCH

Innovative search technology for Bavaria’s
e-government and state government portal

The content of Bavarian authorities and districts, as well as cities and towns, is made accessible using the search technologies developed by Cogia. However, this is not done in the familiar manner of market leader Google, with its endless, incomprehensible hit lists, but instead in line with the specific life situation of the citizens or companies. 

These display options are opened up by the innovative search technologies developed by Cogia, which take their orientation from the way people normally communicate. When we ask a question, we expect the answer to keep within the scope of what we implicitly mean and thus take account of the question’s context. Cogia search technology takes a similar approach. Users put forth their search questions and the system, which knows all possible answers at the time of the query, now offers them various contexts, various life situations and problems (marriage, moving, birth, etc.) in the form of a categorized hit display from which they can choose the answer they would like to view. In this way, the search process becomes targeted without making you keep on “clicking through” – and without having to enter complex search queries fraught with Boolean operators. 

Along with the traditional “teaser” covering the search term, there is also a function available to summarizes the most important five sentences in a document to promptly give users an idea of whether a hit is relevant. 

This Cogia search solution used by the state of Bavaria gives operators of e-government portals a way to consolidate and present relevant information from all areas of government, as well as from districts, cities and towns, structured cohesively according to real-life situations. This is an important step along the way to implementing a uniform EU administration directive and signifies a considerable enhancement of the usefulness and quality of public information services.