From Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web

A key to the Web's success is the power of search. The elegant way in which search results are returned is usually remarkably effective. However, for exploratory search in which users need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics, there is substantial room for improvement. Human computer interaction researchers and web browser designers have developed novel strategies to improve Web search by enabling users to conveniently visualize, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. This monograph offers fresh ways to think about search-related cognitive processes and describes innovative design approaches to browsers and related tools. For instance, while key word search presents users with results for specific information (e.g., what is the capitol of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (related or previous work, conflicting information), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (group legal decisions by lead attorney). We also consider the both traditional and novel ways in which these strategies have been evaluated. From our review of cognitive processes, browser design, and evaluations, we reflect on the future opportunities and new paradigms for exploring and interacting with Web search results

A collaborative project as a learning opportunity for mathematics teachers

This paper analyses the evolution of Maria, a mathematics teacher involved in a long term collaborative project together with a researcher and two other teachers. The study aimed to understand teaching practices and to develop richer classroom communication processes. It follows a qualitative-interpretative approach, with data gathered through recording of meetings and interviews. We discuss to what extent this project became relevant for the professional practice of Maria. The results indicate the potential of collaboration to understand communication phenomena in the classroom, putting practices under scrutiny and developing richer communication interaction patterns between teacher and students

Observing Users - Designing clarity a case study on the user-centred design of a cross-language information retrieval system

This paper presents a case study of the development of an interface to a novel and complex form of document retrieval: searching for texts written in foreign languages based on native language queries. Although the underlying technology for achieving such a search is relatively well understood, the appropriate interface design is not. A study involving users (with such searching needs) from the start of the design process is described covering initial examination of user needs and tasks; preliminary design and testing of interface components; building, testing, and further refining an interface; before finally conducting usability tests of the system. Lessons are learned at every stage of the process leading to a much more informed view of how such an interface should be built

THE USE OF RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS IN WEB APPLICATIONS – THE TROI CASE

Avoiding digital marketing, surveys, reviews and online users behavior approaches on digital age are the key elements for a powerful businesses to fail, there are some systems that should preceded some artificial intelligence techniques. In this direction, the use of data mining for recommending relevant items as a new state of the art technique is increasing user satisfaction as well as the business revenues. And other related information gathering approaches in order to our systems thing and acts like humans. To do so there is a Recommender System that will be elaborated in this thesis. How people interact, how to calculate accurately and identify what people like or dislike based on their online previous behaviors. The thesis includes also the methodologies recommender system uses, how math equations helps Recommender Systems to calculate user’s behavior and similarities. The filters are important on Recommender System, explaining if similar users like the same product or item, which is the probability of neighbor user to like also. Here comes collaborative filters, neighborhood filters, hybrid recommender system with the use of various algorithms the Recommender Systems has the ability to predict whether a particular user would prefer an item or not, based on the user’s profile and their activities. The use of Recommender Systems are beneficial to both service providers and users. Thesis cover also the strength and weaknesses of Recommender Systems and how involving Ontology can improve it. Ontology-based methods can be used to reduce problems that content-based recommender systems are known to suffer from. Based on Kosovar’s GDP and youngsters job perspectives are desirable for improvements, the demand is greater than the offer. I thought of building an intelligence system that will be making easier for Kosovars to find the appropriate job that suits their profile, skills, knowledge, character and locations. And that system is called TROI Search engine that indexes and merge all local operating job seeking websites in one platform with intelligence features. Thesis will present the design, implementation, testing and evaluation of a TROI search engine. Testing is done by getting user experiments while using running environment of TROI search engine. Results show that the functionality of the recommender system is satisfactory and helpful

Inferring User Needs and Tasks from User Interactions

The need for search often arises from a broad range of complex information needs or tasks (such as booking travel, buying a house, etc.) which lead to lengthy search processes characterised by distinct stages and goals. While existing search systems are adept at handling simple information needs, they offer limited support for tackling complex tasks. Accurate task representations could be useful in aptly placing users in the task-subtask space and enable systems to contextually target the user, provide them better query suggestions, personalization and recommendations and help in gauging satisfaction. The major focus of this thesis is to work towards task based information retrieval systems - search systems which are adept at understanding, identifying and extracting tasks as well as supporting user’s complex search task missions. This thesis focuses on two major themes: (i) developing efficient algorithms for understanding and extracting search tasks from log user and (ii) leveraging the extracted task information to better serve the user via different applications. Based on log analysis on a tera-byte scale data from a real-world search engine, detailed analysis is provided on user interactions with search engines. On the task extraction side, two bayesian non-parametric methods are proposed to extract subtasks from a complex task and to recursively extract hierarchies of tasks and subtasks. A novel coupled matrix-tensor factorization model is proposed that represents user based on their topical interests and task behaviours. Beyond personalization, the thesis demonstrates that task information provides better context to learn from and proposes a novel neural task context embedding architecture to learn query representations. Finally, the thesis examines implicit signals of user interactions and considers the problem of predicting user’s satisfaction when engaged in complex search tasks. A unified multi-view deep sequential model is proposed to make query and task level satisfaction prediction

09101 Abstracts Collection -- Interactive Information Retrieval

From 01.03. to 06.03.2009, the Dagstuhl Seminar 09101 ``Interactive Information Retrieval \u27\u27 was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Right on Time: First Possession in Property and Intellectual Property

How should we allocate property rights in unowned tangible and intangible resources? This Article develops a model of original acquisition that draws together common law doctrines of first possession with original acquisition doctrines in patent, copyright, and trademark law. The common denominator is time: in each context, doctrine involves a trade-off between assigning entitlements to resources earlier or later in the process of their development and use. Early awards risk granting exclusivity to parties who may not be capable of putting resources to their best use. Late awards prolong contests for ownership, which may generate waste or discourage acquisition efforts in the first place. While the doctrinal resolution of these timing questions varies in different resource contexts, the determination depends upon a recurring and discrete set of functional considerations. This Article applies its theory to assess a host of doctrinal features in our patent, copyright, and trademark laws, to analyze recent intellectual property law developments, and to suggest directions for reform