Going Beyond Search: Post-Query Processing

1. Going Beyond Search:Post-Query Processing A Case Study Presentation by Burch Kealey Professional Researcher Associate Professor, University of Nebraska at Omaha Creator-directEDGAR President AcademicEDGAR+ LLC

2. Case Study Using Search as a back-office tool, finding a flexible search engine to manipulate results and assist in research processes

3. Case Study • Academic Research is interesting but can be tedious • Work analyzing the United States’ largest companies and how corporate governance affects their value • Research requires identifying key bits of information from specific groups of publicly traded companies • Much harder to accomplish than expected • Work is tedious and time consuming • GO to SEC Site or use Demo movie

4. Case Study • Decision = Search is the answer • A search tool needs to be: • Flexible in the back end • Able to extract results, manipulate findings and re-enter into the search tool for additional searching • Powerful enough to search AND assist with analysis and processing of results • Capable of advanced search functions, including strong text mining capabilities • affordable

5. Case Study • The search for search • Evaluated X1 Technologies, Autonomy and Google and others • None of the competitors were able to offer sophisticated search combined with the ability to process information on a post-query basis • Hard coded solution wouldn’t work-research needs change too frequently • Volume of search results was overwhelming • All search technologies seemed equally adept at finding the bits and pieces • Focusing the search to only the relevant bits and pieces seemed impossible

6. Case Study • Search Domain limited to SEC Filings • More than 20,000 different companies make these filings • Research requires looking at a specific subset of that 20,000, subset changes with every research project • Other tools only allow very limited pre-search filtering e.g. [“search term” and (company1 or company2 or company 3 . . . . company X)] • When X is less than about 20 no real problems • In academic research X can be as large as 4,500

7. Case Study • Current Research Project • Ceteris paribus, are cross-sectional differences in audit fees associated with executive compensation structures more heavily weighted towards options? • Interesting because prior research has found that executives of firms that have had financial reporting problems received more options than their peers w/o financial reporting problems. • In a rational expectations equilibrium with competitive markets auditors should anticipate the effect of this compensation strategy on financial reporting choices and price the risk competitively.

8. Case Study • Current Process-Identify the sample • 21,630 initial companies • Filter Criteria • 12/31/ year-end • Trading on NYSE or NASDAQ • No-ADRs • Market Cap >800 million • 1,842 sample companies • Need twelve data items • Audit fees • Compensation • Going Concern • etc . .

9. Case Study • Current Process-those companies in the sample with a Going Concern modification in their audit report Intuitive search interface

10. Case Study • In seconds ISYS found more than 7,500 potentially relevant documents out of more than 6,000,000 in the set

11. Case Study • Search yielded more than 7,500 documents. • Even with an efficient search results window can you imagine the time involved in evaluating the relevance of those 7,500 hits? • Relevance has to be measured on two dimensions • Is it in my sample? Hard-not in context • Is this the right going concern? Easy-in context • Most tools require expert to perform clerk’s tasks-Not ISYS Clerk’s job Expert’s job

12. Case Study • ISYS Provides Microsoft Automation Objects • Allows manipulation of search results • Allow users with very basic skills to manipulate the search results in imaginative ways • Can be embedded using Add-In or Macros for easy distribution to wide-range of users with access to Office platform • ISYS approach allows me to be an expert in what I want from my search while fully utilizing their expertise in search • Eliminates time-shifting, clerical tasks are handled in an automatic manner so no delay

13. Case Study • Simple process to do the back end filtering

14. Case Study • Simple process to do the back end filtering (sample relevancy) From more than 7,500 documents to 676 in minutes

15. Case Study • Evaluation of Context Relevance is Simplified • Each instance of search term is highlighted • Each new documents open at the first instance of the search term within the document • No scrolling- buttons allow jumping • From one instance to the next • From one document to the next • Actual Data Collection has been simplified • Identifiers can be extracted from each document using MAO into EXCEL

16. Case Study • Evaluating Context Relevance

17. Case Study • Data Collection and Summary One to One correspondence between each line in the spread-sheet and each line in the ISYS Search results

18. Case Study • Summary of impact of ISYS adoption • Without using any search technology-simply document review, this task would have taken 150 or more hours • ISYS adoption and integration into process cut task time to less than two hours

19. Case Study • Best Practices/Lessons Learned • Opposed to contrary belief, search is very flexible and can be molded to fit nearly any situation (if using the right tool) • Search vendors with exceptional support staff bring an invaluable piece to the puzzle • When search goes beyond its input/output function, to offer post-query searches and other advanced features, the value it provides is immense

20. Questions? For any additional questions, please contact Mo Sheahan ISYS Search Software mo.sheahan@isys-search.com