Welcome to the Steelbiz help section

This help file introduces Steelbiz and some of the key features of the Steelbiz interface that will help you retrieve information related to steel construction. 

For general help and support on using Steelbiz, please contact The Steelbiz Help Desk For enquiries regarding your Steelbiz account, please contact The Steelbiz Administrator To report irregularities in any documents you find in Steelbiz, please send us your feedback

Please note: By logging in with Steelbiz you acknowledge and accept the term and conditions of the Steelbiz User Licence Agreement.

 

Contents

Welcome to the Steelbiz help section

Contents

What is Steelbiz?

Content Restrictions

The Steelbiz Interface

The Home Page

Advanced Search

Preferences

My Details

My Settings

My Searches

My Resources

Recent Additions / What’s New for me

Report a Bug

Premium Content

Resource Discovery

Search

Indexed Results

Classified Results

Language

Resource Presentation

 

What is Steelbiz?

Steelbiz is an information system created by The Steel Construction Institute that will give those involved in steel construction direct access, through the Internet, to up-to-date, high quality, technical information relevant to steel construction.  While at present the Steelbiz database contains mainly SCI publications, it will eventually be expanded to contain publications from other sources.  Steelbiz is a mechanism for bringing together a number of separate systems.  It can be seen as a gateway to information contained in a number of formats held on a variety of platforms.  

 

Finding resources is easy using either simple or advanced search tools.  Search results can be refined by index, classification or language.  You can also set some options before making a search to enhance your results.

 

The additional options give your more control over Steelbiz. (Note you need to be logged in to use them.)

Content Restrictions

The majority of content on Steelbiz be accessible by all users, but only some content will be printable by non-members.  Restricted content includes SCI Publications and Advisory Notes. Content falls into 1 of 3 access levels:

  1. Public’ – You do not need to login or provide any details to access this content.  You will be taken straight to that content.
  2. Guest’ ‑ To access this content, you will need to login by providing your email address.  If you are recognised as an SCI Member, you will be able to print all ‘Guest’ level content.  If you are not recognized, you will not be able to print certain documents.  (You will be given an option to have your membership status validated in the activation email.  If you click on this, you should be taken to the registration page.)
  3. Premium’ content such as spreadsheets containing programmable calculations will only be accessible by users recognised as SCI Members.  To access this content, you will need to login by providing your email address.

The Steelbiz Interface

The Home Page

The Home page is the initial state of the site, which you can also get to by clicking on the Steelbiz logo in other pages.  From this state you can go to Advanced Search, Preferences, Help or move straight into Resource Discovery.

 

On entering a search term and clicking “Search Steelbiz” you will be taken directly to a “Result List”.

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search Page allows you to create precise search queries by combining a number of terms with Boolean operators. It also allows you to limit which resources are searched by: Language; Resource Type and Resource Format.

 

Note, an advanced search is always a new search.  The list of results displayed under the ‘All Results’ tab can be refined using the simple search text box provided.

Preferences

The Preferences Page (available from the home page) provides a tabbed series of pages covering various aspects of Steelbiz that may be personalised by you to suit your requirements.  These aspects may be viewed and modified using the tools available under the ‘Preferences’ tab.  The Tools available to Steelbiz users are:

1.      My Details

2.      My Settings

3.      My Searches

4.      My Resources

5.      Recent Additions / What’s New for me 

6.      Report a Bug

My Details

The My Details page displays your email address and user status.  It also allows you to opt in or out of Steelbiz mailings.

 

My Settings

The My Settings page allows you to set up the way in which your subsequent Results Lists will be created and displayed.  It also allows you to change the interface language and set filters on the languages of the resources to be returned.

 

To facilitate the selection of multiple options from potentially long lists, Steelbiz uses a feature known as Include/Exclude Option Lists.  This is a system of two list boxes between which you can move items between to specify their choice.  By default, all options will be listed only in the Include box and the Exclude box will be empty. Note also that there is an option available called ‘unspecified’.  This option is always present in all Include/Exclude Option boxes, and it provides a way of choosing to either include or exclude resources that have no data regarding the current search option.  You are provided with four buttons to allow you to move options between the boxes.  Each button either moves all of the options with one click, or only the highlighted options.  You can highlight more than one option within each box by holding down the CTRL key as you click on different options.

My Searches

Lets you view the searches you have made while logged onto Steelbiz.  You can then pick one search and return the list of results for that search.

My Resources

Lets you view the resources you have opened on Steelbiz.  You can then pick one and open that resource by clicking on the hyper linked title.

Recent Additions / What’s New for me

The ‘Recent Additions’ tool lets you view a list of the most recent resources added to Steelbiz.  You can then pick one and open that resource by clicking on the hyper linked title.

 

The ‘What’s new for me’ screen lets you view a list of the most recent resources added to Steelbiz since your last login.  You can then pick one and open that resource by clicking on the hyper linked title.

 

Report a Bug

The Report a Bug page allows you to report a bug or problem with Steelbiz.  This feeds directly into the SCI’s bug tracking system.

Premium Content’

The ‘Premium Content’ link on the Home page allows you to run a search on Steelbiz that will return a set of results that are available only to SCI Members.

Resource Discovery

 

Search

From the Home page you users can search for resources using the free text field.  The words you enter in the input box will be compared against the entries in the catalogues.  The results list is shown under the ‘All Results’ tab.  This list indicates the total number of resources discovered, and allows you to sort the results by Relevance, Title or Date. 

 

Refining Results

A set of results displayed under the ‘All Results’ tab may be refined by performing another search using the text box provided. A search can be repeatedly refined.

 

Indexed Results

The Indexed Result List classifies all results for a particular query against the set of top level keywords from the Steelbiz thesaurus.  The proportion of resources identified against each keyword is indicated, and clicking on any of the keywords will display the full list of resources identified as relevant to that term.  Not all resources have been allocated keywords, therefore the number of results in the ‘Indexed’ list may be less than that given in the ‘All Results’ list.

 

Classified Results

The Classified Result List classifies all results for a particular query against the set of top level classifications.  The number of resources identified against each catalogue, class or category is indicated, and clicking on any of the classes will display the full list of resources identified as relevant to that class.  Not all resources have been allocated classification, therefore the number of results in the ‘Classified’ list may be less than that given in the ‘All Results’ list.

 

There are 5 top level classifications in Steelbiz:

  1. Steelbiz Shop
  2. Online Technical Information
  3. Products & Services Directory
  4. SEFIE Discussion Forums
  5. SCI Courses Catalogue

When you click on a sub class, the search results page displays a list of all Resources that reference that class.

Once a set of Classified Results set has been narrowed the list of results may be further refined via the ‘Indexed’ Results page.

 

Language

Results may be classified by language of the resource by clicking on the ‘Language’ tab. Not all resources have been allocated a language, therefore the number of results in the ‘By Language’ list may be less than that given in the ‘All Results’ list.

 

Resource Presentation

When you identify a specific resource you wish to explore, clicking on its title or description in the result list, that resource is then displayed in a new window.  Opening the resource in its own new window allows the current results list to persist on screen.