INTRODUCTION
The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is an open search engine with mostly open-access (OA) journals. This means that anyone can download the full text of the document without authenticating or paying money.
Here are a few ways to use BASE for content marketing:
GETTING STARTED WITH BASE
To date, BASE contains more than 300 million documents from more than 10,000 content providers. It can be used in two ways: a basic and an advanced search.
When starting your basic search, enter a keyword or phrase that relates to your business’s products or services or the problem you solve. Click the magnifying glass to view the results. Each result will list the metasearch items, including the title, author, brief description, publisher, year, source, document type and content provider. Within the results, one thing to keep in mind is that the documents that are marked as Open Access by the content providers have an open key lock icon next to them.
The platform offers advanced searching capabilities, which can help tailor your content based on what is relevant to your business. This is one of the unique aspects of BASE, compared to other search engines like Google.
To access this feature, click on “Advanced search” from the main menu. From here, you can narrow your search with numerous parameters, including but not limited to, the entire document, title, author, ORCID iD, subject headings, DOI, (Part of) URL, document type and terms of re-use.
Once you receive the results, you can add it to your favorites, view your saved favorites, save a search and view your saved searches. This can help if you want to build up a library of content to use in the future.
BASE also has other features like Search History, which shows you the time, search term, options (e.g. additional filters) and results for each of your searches. Other options include Email this Search and Save Search.
HOW TO USE BASE FOR CONTENT MARKETING
Your content can carry more weight when you cite facts and figures in it. Thus, you can use BASE to find research or reports on your intended topic. For example, if you’re writing a story on change management, enter that keyword into your basic search, then on the right-hand side under Document Type, select reports. This will give you the option to add facts and figures to your content from more than 60,000 reports.
A related way to use BASE is to offer your position or take on a certain journal article to demonstrate your expertise. Let’s say that you are looking for an educator’s view on change management. Within the example listed above, further filter your search results by clicking ‘Subject’ and selecting “education.” From here, there are more than 400 hits to choose from.
Also, consider converting the information you find in the journals into charts, infographics, tables, etc., to enhance your articles, whitepapers, videos, etc. Of course, make sure to cite the source of the data you’re presenting.