Personalization via collaboration in web retrieval systems: a context based approach

World Wide Web is a source of information, and searches on the Web can be analyzed to detect patterns in Web users' search behaviors and information needs to effectively handle the users' subsequent needs. The rationale is that the information need of a user at a particular time point occurs in a particular context, and queries are derived from that need. In this paper, we discuss an extension of our personalization approach that was originally developed for a traditional bibliographic retrieval system but has been adapted and extended with a collaborative model for the Web retrieval environment. We start with a brief introduction of our personalization approach in a traditional information retrieval system. Then, based on the differences in the nature of documents, users and search tasks between traditional and Web retrieval environments, we describe our extensions of integrating collaboration in personalization in the Web retrieval environment. The architecture for the extension integrates machine learning techniques for the purpose of better modeling users' search tasks. Finally, a user-oriented evaluation of Web-based adaptive retrieval systems is presented as an important aspect of the overall strategy for personalization

Combining relevance information in a synchronous collaborative information retrieval environment

Traditionally information retrieval (IR) research has focussed on a single user interaction modality, where a user searches to satisfy an information need. Recent advances in both web technologies, such as the sociable web of Web 2.0, and computer hardware, such as tabletop interface devices, have enabled multiple users to collaborate on many computer-related tasks. Due to these advances there is an increasing need to support two or more users searching together at the same time, in order to satisfy a shared information need, which we refer to as Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval. Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval (SCIR) represents a significant paradigmatic shift from traditional IR systems. In order to support an effective SCIR search, new techniques are required to coordinate users' activities. In this chapter we explore the effectiveness of a sharing of knowledge policy on a collaborating group. Sharing of knowledge refers to the process of passing relevance information across users, if one user finds items of relevance to the search task then the group should benefit in the form of improved ranked lists returned to each searcher. In order to evaluate the proposed techniques we simulate two users searching together through an incremental feedback system. The simulation assumes that users decide on an initial query with which to begin the collaborative search and proceed through the search by providing relevance judgments to the system and receiving a new ranked list. In order to populate these simulations we extract data from the interaction logs of various experimental IR systems from previous Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) workshops

Improving Ontology Recommendation and Reuse in WebCORE by Collaborative Assessments

In this work, we present an extension of CORE [8], a tool for Collaborative Ontology Reuse and Evaluation. The system receives an informal description of a specific semantic domain and determines which ontologies from a repository are the most appropriate to describe the given domain. For this task, the environment is divided into three modules. The first component receives the problem description as a set of terms, and allows the user to refine and enlarge it using WordNet. The second module applies multiple automatic criteria to evaluate the ontologies of the repository, and determines which ones fit best the problem description. A ranked list of ontologies is returned for each criterion, and the lists are combined by means of rank fusion techniques. Finally, the third component uses manual user evaluations in order to incorporate a human, collaborative assessment of the ontologies. The new version of the system incorporates several novelties, such as its implementation as a web application; the incorporation of a NLP module to manage the problem definitions; modifications on the automatic ontology retrieval strategies; and a collaborative framework to find potential relevant terms according to previous user queries. Finally, we present some early experiments on ontology retrieval and evaluation, showing the benefits of our system

Competences for collaboration and knowledge sharing in digital society - a case study with an erasmus intensive programme

With the advent of social and collaborative environments, students became more active and participative - they not only have access to contents but also create and share them, becoming proactive. Communication has evolved, and with this evolution came the new media and the possibility of live conferencing, video sharing, social networking, collaborative tools, allowing the student to create, work collaboratively and communicate in a more direct way with their peers and their teachers. Instead of merely searching for information, applications such as bookmarking, feeds, tweeter and pinboards, digital portfolios, etc., along with the possibility of creating your own personal webpage, today’s Web gives students also the chance to create a PLE - A Personal Learning Environment. A PLE “recognizes that learning is continuing and seeks to provide tools to support that learning” (Attwell, 2007). The Individuals are responsible for the management of their own learning environment and for the selection of tools and contexts where learning will take place. Students need to acquire certain skills and competences, specific of a digital and connected society, in order to “effectively benefit from e-government, e-learning and e-health services, and participate actively in the knowledge society as co-creators, and not simply consumers, as highlighted by the European e-skills strategy” (McCormack, 2010). To only possess hard skills (that comes with experience and formal education) may not be enough to get someone a job. Besides e-skills and e-literacy competences, soft and social skills are also required. These can be practiced and enhanced in virtual environments. Digital literacy, and therefore e-skills, are transversal competences needed to every citizen. In this paper we will present the results of a case study carried out with attendees of an Erasmus Intensive Programme, which has promoted the development of digital literacies among participants. The Programme took place during 2013 summer and involved students and teachers (of teacher education and social service fields) from 3 different countries. The classes covered different tools and 12 tutors were involved. The main objectives were to provide students with information and communication technologies (ICT) skills for a digital society, namely: • Identification of students’ competencies in ICT; • Present students with different available collaboration tools by exploring the web 2.0; • Selection of specific tools to create students' personal learning environment (PLE); • Acquire necessary knowledge to master the selected tools; • Work collaboratively with the web 2.0 tools; • Establish methods for instruction and course design based on Web 2.0 (teacher education) with the goal to integrate technology enhanced learning and individual knowledge management in educational processes. At the end attendees were able to: • Master the different tools & services; • Be capable to use and select the most adequate web 2.0 tools & services; • Create and manage their PLE; • Share and to work collaboratively; • Be digitally skilled.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio