A study of search intermediary working notes: implications for IR system design

This paper reports findings from an exploratory study investigating working notes created during encoding and external storage (EES) processes, by human search intermediates using a Boolean information retrieval (JR) system. EES processes have been an important area of research in educational contexts where students create and use notes to facilitate learning. In the context of interactive IR, encoding can be conceptualized as the process of creating working notes to help in the understanding and translating a user's information problem into a search strategy suitable for use with an IR system. External storage is the process of using working notes to facilitate interaction with IR systems. Analysis of 221 sets of working notes created by human search intermediaries revealed extensive use of EES processes and the creation of working notes of textual, numerical and graphical entities. Nearly 70% of recorded working notes were textual/numerical entities, nearly 30% were graphical entities and 0.73% were indiscernible. Segmentation devices were also used in 48% of the working notes. The creation of working notes during EES processes was a fundamental element within the mediated, interactive IR process. Implications for the design of IR interfaces to support users' EES processes and further research is discussed

A Study of Cluster-based System for Information Exploration

Researchers always need to find publication to support their study. Traditionally, researchers will search in an information retrieval system where researchers input a query and obtain a ranked list of retrieved results. However, traditional information retrieval systems cannot help researchers if they are in anomalous state of knowledge. Due to linguistic barriers or lack of knowledge in a field, researchers may be unable to specify a query and thus, unable to do an efficient and effective publications search. A cluster-based information retrieval system will be designed to resolve the problem by presenting a topic map. The purpose of this study is to see whether such a system could help researchers in exploring information.Master of Science in Information Scienc

AGENTES INTELIGENTES PARA EL ACCESO A MATERIAL BIBLIOTECARIO A PARTIR DE DISPOSITIVOS MÓVILES

La información en centros de documentación como son las bibliotecas presentan ciertas limitaciones para encontrar y recuperar los datos de manera eficiente. Los sistemas de referencias de documentos han evolucionado para facilitar el registro de documentos mediante la definición de metadatos, conocidos como la descripción del recurso y la definición de formatos para su posterior lectura y clasificación. Sin embargo, el acceso a esta información es muy limitada y en algunas situaciones restringida dada la carencia de herramientas que faciliten la integración de servicios de búsqueda, como mecanismos de validación de registros eficientes. El objetivo de este artículo, es presentar una alternativa de acceso a consultas bibliotecarias que faciliten el acceso a registros a partir de agentes inteligentes mediante tecnologías Web y dispositivos móviles

Is Optical Optimal? Visualizing Document Sets to Facilitate Efficient Selection of Relevant Items

The visual representation of a cluster of similar text documents is typically accomplished with interactive information visualizations, yet some benefit can be derived even from static diagrams of the document collections. This study examines the comparative efficacy of text and diagram presentation formats for representing such collections, and attempts to determine the degree to which the format of an interface can affect users' ability to select relevant information being provided there. The hypothesis under examination holds that adults locate relevant documents more efficiently from a node-link diagram of the document set than from a textual list with the commonly used title-and- snippet format. Empirical data from a 40-person user study does not provide statistically significant support for the hypothesis; literature on similar studies helps to contextualize and explain this outcome, and directions for future study are suggested

Adaptive Visualization for Focused Personalized Information Retrieval

The new trend on the Web has totally changed todays information access environment. The traditional information overload problem has evolved into the qualitative level beyond the quantitative growth. The mode of producing and consuming information is changing and we need a new paradigm for accessing information.Personalized search is one of the most promising answers to this problem. However, it still follows the old interaction model and representation method of classic information retrieval approaches. This limitation can harm the potential of personalized search, with which users are intended to interact with the system, learn and investigate the problem, and collaborate with the system to reach the final goal.This dissertation proposes to incorporate interactive visualization into personalized search in order to overcome the limitation. By combining the personalized search and the interac- tive visualization, we expect our approach will be able to help users to better explore the information space and locate relevant information more efficiently.We extended a well-known visualization framework called VIBE (Visual Information Browsing Environment) and implemented Adaptive VIBE, so that it can fit into the per- sonalized searching environment. We tested the effectiveness of this adaptive visualization method and investigated its strengths and weaknesses by conducting a full-scale user study.We also tried to enrich the user models with named-entities considering the possibility that the traditional keyword-based user models could harm the effectiveness of the system in the context of interactive information retrieval.The results of the user study showed that the Adaptive VIBE could improve the precision of the personalized search system and could help the users to find out more diverse set of information. The named-entity based user model integrated into Adaptive VIBE showed improvements of precision of user annotations while maintaining the level of diverse discovery of information

Bubble World - A Novel Visual Information Retrieval Technique

With the tremendous growth of published electronic information sources in the last decade and the unprecedented reliance on this information to succeed in day-to-day operations, comes the expectation of finding the right information at the right time. Sentential interfaces are currently the only viable solution for searching through large infospheres of unstructured information, however, the simplistic nature of their interaction model and lack of cognitive amplification they can provide severely limit the performance of the interface. Visual information retrieval systems are emerging as possible candidate replacements for the more traditional interfaces, but many lack the cognitive framework to support the knowledge crystallization process found to be essential in information retrieval. This work introduces a novel visual information retrieval technique crafted from two distinct design genres: (1) the cognitive strategies of the human mind to solve problems and (2) observed interaction patterns with existing information retrieval systems. Based on the cognitive and interaction framework developed in this research, a functional prototype information retrieval system, called Bubble World, has been created to demonstrate that significant performance gains can be achieved using this technique when compared to more traditional text-based interfaces. Bubble World does this by successfully transforming the internal mental representation of the information retrieval problem to an efficient external view, and then through visual cues, provides cognitive amplification at key stages of the information retrieval process. Additionally, Bubble World provides the interaction model and the mechanisms to incorporate complex search schemas into the retrieval process either manually or automatically through the use of predefined ontological models

Grundlagen der Informationssuche, Informationsvisualisierung und Informationsverarbeitung für die Integration von interaktiven Visualisierungen in die Websuche

This article gives an overview of the foundations in the areas of Information Search, Information Visualization and Information Processing. They form the basis for developing the model in the previous article (Hienert 2014). The field of Information Search provides various models which describe how users search for information. Several characteristics and methods are presented which are part of the search process. A major challenge is the heterogenous information basis on the Web. The section Information Visualization describes the goals, benefits, processes, models and techniques of interactive visualizations. It can be shown that interactive visualizations are beneficial for the representation of large and complex information collections. The following section Information Processing shows how users process information. For this purpose, basic mechanisms of cognitive processing and properties are presented. Based on this, the process of cognitive processing of visualizations is described. Interactive Visualizations can expand the cognitive process in which an ongoing exchange between external and internal representation takes place. This article is a shortened and revised summary of the chapter in the dissertation of Hienert (2013)

Making Sense of Document Collections with Map-Based Visualizations

As map-based visualizations of documents become more ubiquitous, there is a greater need for them to support intellectual and creative high-level cognitive activities with collections of non-cartographic materials -- documents. This dissertation concerns the conceptualization of map-based visualizations as tools for sensemaking and collection understanding. As such, map-based visualizations would help people use georeferenced documents to develop understanding, gain insight, discover knowledge, and construct meaning. This dissertation explores the role of graphical representations (such as maps, Kohonen maps, pie charts, and other) and interactions with them for developing map-based visualizations capable of facilitating sensemaking activities such as collection understanding. While graphical representations make document collections more perceptually and cognitively accessible, interactions allow users to adapt representations to users’ contextual needs. By interacting with representations of documents or collections and being able to construct representations of their own, people are better able to make sense of information, comprehend complex structures, and integrate new information into their existing mental models. In sum, representations and interactions may reduce cognitive load and consequently expedite the overall time necessary for completion of sensemaking activities, which typically take much time to accomplish. The dissertation proceeds in three phases. The first phase develops a conceptual framework for translating ontological properties of collections to representations and for supporting visual tasks by means of graphical representations. The second phase concerns the cognitive benefits of interaction. It conceptualizes how interactions can help people during complex sensemaking activities. Although the interactions are explained on the example of a prototype built with Google Maps, they are independent iv of Google Maps and can be applicable to various other technologies. The third phase evaluates the utility, analytical capabilities and usability of the additional representations when users interact with a visualization prototype – VIsual COLlection EXplorer. The findings suggest that additional representations can enhance understanding of map-based visualizations of library collections: specifically, they can allow users to see trends, gaps, and patterns in ontological properties of collections