The Influence of Commercial Intent of Search Results on Their Perceived Relevance

We carried out a retrieval effectiveness test on the three major web search engines (i.e., Google, Microsoft and Yahoo). In addition to relevance judgments, we classified the results according to their commercial intent and whether or not they carried any advertising. We found that all search engines provide a large number of results with a commercial intent. Google provides significantly more commercial results than the other search engines do. However, the commercial intent of a result did not influence jurors in their relevance judgments

Finding the far right online: an exploratory study of white supremacist websites

White supremacists and the Far Right political movement in the UK have, had considerable success in spreading their messages through Web sites. Some of these Web sites clearly contribute to an enabling environment for racially motivated violence in our towns and cities and possibly help to underpin also the rise of, and support for, the Far Right in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. From a position that acknowledges the enduring issue of white hegemony in Western societies, this paper provides a number of research-based recommendations for further research and future policy and practice in tackling white supremacist racial hatred on the Net

Report on the Information Retrieval Festival (IRFest2017)

The Information Retrieval Festival took place in April 2017 in Glasgow. The focus of the workshop was to bring together IR researchers from the various Scottish universities and beyond in order to facilitate more awareness, increased interaction and reflection on the status of the field and its future. The program included an industry session, research talks, demos and posters as well as two keynotes. The first keynote was delivered by Prof. Jaana Kekalenien, who provided a historical, critical reflection of realism in Interactive Information Retrieval Experimentation, while the second keynote was delivered by Prof. Maarten de Rijke, who argued for more Artificial Intelligence usage in IR solutions and deployments. The workshop was followed by a "Tour de Scotland" where delegates were taken from Glasgow to Aberdeen for the European Conference in Information Retrieval (ECIR 2017

Living Knowledge

Diversity, especially manifested in language and knowledge, is a function of local goals, needs, competences, beliefs, culture, opinions and personal experience. The Living Knowledge project considers diversity as an asset rather than a problem. With the project, foundational ideas emerged from the synergic contribution of different disciplines, methodologies (with which many partners were previously unfamiliar) and technologies flowed in concrete diversity-aware applications such as the Future Predictor and the Media Content Analyser providing users with better structured information while coping with Web scale complexities. The key notions of diversity, fact, opinion and bias have been defined in relation to three methodologies: Media Content Analysis (MCA) which operates from a social sciences perspective; Multimodal Genre Analysis (MGA) which operates from a semiotic perspective and Facet Analysis (FA) which operates from a knowledge representation and organization perspective. A conceptual architecture that pulls all of them together has become the core of the tools for automatic extraction and the way they interact. In particular, the conceptual architecture has been implemented with the Media Content Analyser application. The scientific and technological results obtained are described in the following

Internet skills performance tests: are people ready for eHealth?

Background:\ud Despite the amount of online health information, there are several barriers that limit the Internet’s adoption as a source of health information. One of these barriers is highlighted in conceptualizations of the digital divide which include the differential possession of Internet skills, or “eHealth literacy”. Most measures of Internet skills among populations at large use self-assessments. The research discussed here applies a multifaceted definition of Internet skills and uses actual performance tests.\ud \ud Objective:\ud The purpose of this study was to assess how ready a sample of the general population is for eHealth. More specifically, four types of Internet skills were measured in a performance test in which subjects had to complete health-related assignments on the Internet.\ud \ud Methods:\ud From November 1, 2009, through February 28, 2010, 88 subjects participated in the study. Subjects were randomly selected from a telephone directory. A selective quota sample was used divided over equal subsamples of gender, age, and education. Each subject had to accomplish assignments on the Internet. The Internet skills accounted for were categorized as operational (basic skills to use the Internet), formal (navigation and orientation), information (finding information), and strategic (using the information for personal benefits). The tests took approximately 1.5 hours and were conducted in a University office, making the setting equally new for all. Successful completion and time spent on the assignments—the two main outcomes—were directly measured by the test leader.\ud \ud Results:\ud The subjects successfully completed an average of 73% (5.8/8) of the operational Internet skill tasks and an average of 73% (2.9/4) of the formal Internet skill tasks. Of the information Internet skills tasks, an average of 50% (1.5/3) was completed successfully and, of the strategic Internet skills tasks, 35% (0.7/2). Only 28% (25/88) of the subjects were able to successfully complete all operational skills tasks, 39% (34/88) all formal skills tasks, 13% (11/88) all information skills tasks, and 20% (18/88) both the strategic skill tasks. The time spent on the assignments varied substantially. Age and education were the most important contributors to the operational and formal Internet skills. Regarding the formal Internet skills, years of Internet experience also had some influence. Educational level of attainment was the most important contributor to the information and strategic Internet skills.\ud \ud Conclusions:\ud Although the amount of online health-related information and services is consistently growing, it appears that the general population lacks the skills to keep up. Most problematic appear to be the lack of information and strategic Internet skills, which, in the context of health, are very important. The lack of these skills is also problematic for members of younger generations, who are often considered skilled Internet users. This primarily seems to account for the operational and formal Internet skills. The results of the study strongly call for policies to increase the level of Internet skills