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Archer and the Global News Index

Quick Start Guide

Step 1: Log In

You must login with the ID and password provided to you by the Cline Center.

 Log in window with a line for the username and password and a button that says "Login"

If you do not have an Archer login, you can request one by filling out this form.

Step 2: Create a Collection

Click the green plus-sign icon at the top-left corner to create a new collection.

Collections can be renamed and are useful for storing related queries together. Queries, facets, and results are stored in snapshots.

Three icons displayed along a top row. The icons are of a green plus sign, a camera, and a red minus sign. A red circle surrounds the green plus sign. To the right, there is field titled "Collection Name" to enter a collection name and a gray button that says "Save" next to it. The date of creation is displayed underneath. A smaller image zooming into these icons explains what they do. The green plus sign adds a collection, the camera icon adds a snapshot to the selected collection, and the red minus icon removes the current selection.

Step 3: Create a Snapshot

Click the icon with a camera, directly to the right of the new collection icon, to create a new snapshot. 

The snapshot name cannot be changed. Each snapshot will be named for the collection and the current datetime.

Collections can contain multiple snapshots. You can delete individual snapshots within a collection, or you can delete entire collections (including all snapshots within it).

The same image as above. Three icons displayed along a top row. The icons are of a green plus sign, a camera, and a red minus sign. A red circle surrounds the camera icon. Below this there is a drop down menu that says “Tutorial.” To the right, there is field title "Collection Name" to enter a collection name and a gray button that says "Save" next to it. The date of creation is displayed underneath.

Step 4: Write a Query 

Within the snapshot, click on the Query tab to navigate to the window where you can write your query.

Click on the icons you need to build your query. There are 5 different parameters: "text query", "nominal field query", "date query", and "number range query" ; as well as the "geolocation filter." Click the "add grouping" icon to add parentheses that you can drag and drop. Click on the "raw query" icon to write a query in Lucene query syntax.

Click the Done icon when you are finished, and you will be redirected to the Dashboard to run the query and view the results. 

A menu bar along the top row that includes Dashboard, Query, Facets, and Plot. There is a red circle around the word “Query.” Below this, there is a row of icons. The icons are explained below. To the right of the icons are two buttons that say “Done” and “Revert.” There is a red circle that surrounds the button that says “Done.” Below the row of icons, is a row with three icons, one is a white piece of paper with a green arrow, an icon of a plus sign with arrows on each end, and an icon of a red minus sign. Next to the icons are a line of entry fields. The line reads with a drop-down menu with the word “and,” the start of a parentheses, a drop-down menu with the word “all,” an entry field that says “Enter terms or quoted phrases,” the work “In,” and finally a drop down menu with the word “content” and the parentheses close. There is a smaller image zooming into the first row of icons explaining their functions. This includes: an icon of a piece of paper with a green plus sign that adds text query, an icon of a numbered list that adds nominal field query, an icon of a calendar with a green plus sign that adds date query, an icon of a white square with a gray bar across the top and a green plus sign that adds raw query, an icon of a yellow bar with a green plus sign that adds number range query, an icon of a red location marker with a green plus sign that adds a geolocation filter, and an icon of triangle brackets that adds grouping.

Step 5: View the Results

To run the query and see the results, click on the blue refresh icon.

Click the settings icon to change what variables will be returned and the order that documents will be returned. 

To save the query, click the folder icon to the far left. To save the entire snapshot, including all results, click the camera icon. 

To download the results in a tab-delimited file, click the download icon.

A menu bar along the top row that includes Dashboard, Query, Facets, and Plot. Below this, there is a row of icons. The icons are explained below. The next line has two boxes that say “Retrieved” and “Total.” Below this there are four boxes that say “Aid,” “Title,” “Publication_Date,” and “Source_Name.” There is a smaller image zooming into the row of icons explaining their functions. These include: an icon of a folder with a green arrow and red exclamation mark that saves queries and facets, an icon of a blue backwards arrow that reverts unsaved changes to the query, an icon of a camera that compiles and saves a snapshot for this query, an icon of a blue arrowing pointing down that downloads selected fields to a tab delimited file, an icon of a blue refresh icon with a red exclamation point that runs the query again, and an icon of a gray gear that configures the query and results set.

Step 6: Create a Facet

Click on the Facets tab to create and edit facets. You can create as many facets as you want, but only the first ~5 will be visible in the Dashboard.

There are three types of facets. Click on the icon for the facet you wish to create, and select the variable from the dropdown menu.

Click Done when you are finished, and you will be redirected to the Dashboard to run the query and view the facets.

A menu bar along the top row that includes Dashboard, Query, Facets, and Plot. There is a red circle around the word “Facets.” Below is a row of three icons. To the right of these icons there are two buttons that say “Done” and “Revert.” There is a smaller image zooming into the row of icons explaining their functions. These include an icon of a calendar with a green plus sign that adds date range facets, an icon of a piece of paper with a green plus sign that adds field facets, and an icon of a stack of squares with a green plus sign that adds nested facets.

Step 7: View the Facets

To see each individual facet, click on its thumbnail image at the bottom of the Dashboard. This will take you to the Plot tab. 

Here, you can see the visualization in more detail and download a tab-delimited file of the facet's summary data.

A menu bar along the top row that includes Dashboard, Query, Facets, and Plot. Below this, there is a row of icons. These include: an icon of a folder with a green arrow and red exclamation mark that saves queries and facets, an icon of a blue backwards arrow that reverts unsaved changes to the query, an icon of a camera that compiles and saves a snapshot for this query, an icon of a blue arrowing pointing down that downloads selected fields to a tab delimited file, an icon of a blue refresh icon with a red exclamation point that runs the query again, and an icon of a gray gear that configures the query and results set. Below the icons are two boxes titled “Retrieved” and “Total” that will display numbers. Below these is a table that includes the following columns: aid, title, publication_date, and source_name. Below the table are varying images of different graphs: a line graph, a pie chart, and bar charts. There is a red circle around the line graph and a smaller image that zooms into the image. The zoomed in image shows an icon of a folder with a green arrow that downloads the raw data as a tab delimited file.

Helpful Resources

Documentation and Sample Data Set from the Cline Center

For a more detailed guide on how to use Archer, please refer to the Archer User Manual.