{
  "altLabels": [
    "Federated Information Retrieval",
    "Distributed Information Retrieval"
  ],
  "definition": "A retrieval task or system pattern in which a query is sent to multiple search services, collections, indexes, or databases and their results are combined for the user.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "target": "retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "id": "federated-search",
  "kind": "Task",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "Federated Search",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1561/1500000010"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-12T22:23:29Z",
  "prefLabel": "Federated Search",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "target": "retrieval",
      "type": "broader"
    },
    {
      "note": "Federated search searches multiple sources and merges results; ad hoc retrieval is typically evaluated against one known fixed collection.",
      "target": "ad-hoc-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Result fusion is a combining operation; federated search is the broader multi-source search task or system pattern that often uses result fusion.",
      "target": "result-fusion",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "ranking",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "result-fusion",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/federated-search/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/federated-search.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/federated-search.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "Federated search commonly involves source selection, query dispatch or translation, result merging, and presentation of a unified result set. It is distinct from ad hoc retrieval over a single known collection.",
  "status": "published",
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/federated-search/"
}