How to contribute

Join the RAT community and contribute to data-driven search engine research.

The Result Assessment Tool (RAT) consists of a core providing functionality for designing and conducting studies, scrapers for various search systems, and classifiers for analysing search results.

Want to provide your own extension, either scraper or classifier?

On this page, we offer everything you need to get started.

GitHub Repository

The RAT GitHub repository is at https://github.com/rat-software. It contains the latest version’s code, documentation and instructions for setting up your own installation. Further technical details on RAT are at https://osf.io/5v48w.

Additional scrapers and classifiers, some not yet included in the main software, can be found in the RAT Extensions repository at https://github.com/rat-extensions.

Guide for setting up a classifier

The Classifier application allows you to configure and use classifiers for various data sources. It is a flexible tool that enables you to define and manage custom classifiers using a database.

For detailed instructions, see https://github.com/rat-software/rat-software/tree/main/backend/classifier

Guide for setting up a scraper

The Scraper application provides a framework for scraping search results from different sources. To add new scrapers, follow the provided template, as adding a new scraper can be complex.

For detailed instructions, see https://github.com/rat-software/rat-software/tree/main/backend/scraper

Want to contribute to the RAT core?

Please contact us at rat@searchstudies.org.

Questions?

If you have any questions on how to contribute or join the RAT Community, please don't hestitate to contact us!