71,840 research outputs found

    Thesaurus-assisted search term selection and query expansion: a review of user-centred studies

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    This paper provides a review of the literature related to the application of domain-specific thesauri in the search and retrieval process. Focusing on studies which adopt a user-centred approach, the review presents a survey of the methodologies and results from empirical studies undertaken on the use of thesauri as sources of term selection for query formulation and expansion during the search process. It summaries the ways in which domain-specific thesauri from different disciplines have been used by various types of users and how these tools aid users in the selection of search terms. The review consists of two main sections covering, firstly studies on thesaurus-aided search term selection and secondly those dealing with query expansion using thesauri. Both sections are illustrated with case studies that have adopted a user-centred approach

    A survey on the use of relevance feedback for information access systems

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    Users of online search engines often find it difficult to express their need for information in the form of a query. However, if the user can identify examples of the kind of documents they require then they can employ a technique known as relevance feedback. Relevance feedback covers a range of techniques intended to improve a user's query and facilitate retrieval of information relevant to a user's information need. In this paper we survey relevance feedback techniques. We study both automatic techniques, in which the system modifies the user's query, and interactive techniques, in which the user has control over query modification. We also consider specific interfaces to relevance feedback systems and characteristics of searchers that can affect the use and success of relevance feedback systems

    Spoken query processing for interactive information retrieval

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    It has long been recognised that interactivity improves the effectiveness of information retrieval systems. Speech is the most natural and interactive medium of communication and recent progress in speech recognition is making it possible to build systems that interact with the user via speech. However, given the typical length of queries submitted to information retrieval systems, it is easy to imagine that the effects of word recognition errors in spoken queries must be severely destructive on the system's effectiveness. The experimental work reported in this paper shows that the use of classical information retrieval techniques for spoken query processing is robust to considerably high levels of word recognition errors, in particular for long queries. Moreover, in the case of short queries, both standard relevance feedback and pseudo relevance feedback can be effectively employed to improve the effectiveness of spoken query processing

    Building a domain-specific document collection for evaluating metadata effects on information retrieval

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    This paper describes the development of a structured document collection containing user-generated text and numerical metadata for exploring the exploitation of metadata in information retrieval (IR). The collection consists of more than 61,000 documents extracted from YouTube video pages on basketball in general and NBA (National Basketball Association) in particular, together with a set of 40 topics and their relevance judgements. In addition, a collection of nearly 250,000 user profiles related to the NBA collection is available. Several baseline IR experiments report the effect of using video-associated metadata on retrieval effectiveness. The results surprisingly show that searching the videos titles only performs significantly better than searching additional metadata text fields of the videos such as the tags or the description

    Can a workspace help to overcome the query formulation problem in image retrieval?

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    We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that incorporates a workspace where users can organise their search results. A task-oriented and user-centred experiment has been devised involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. We study the workspace’s effect on two aspects: task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful with respect to both of the above aspects. The proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience

    A Personalized System for Conversational Recommendations

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    Searching for and making decisions about information is becoming increasingly difficult as the amount of information and number of choices increases. Recommendation systems help users find items of interest of a particular type, such as movies or restaurants, but are still somewhat awkward to use. Our solution is to take advantage of the complementary strengths of personalized recommendation systems and dialogue systems, creating personalized aides. We present a system -- the Adaptive Place Advisor -- that treats item selection as an interactive, conversational process, with the program inquiring about item attributes and the user responding. Individual, long-term user preferences are unobtrusively obtained in the course of normal recommendation dialogues and used to direct future conversations with the same user. We present a novel user model that influences both item search and the questions asked during a conversation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system in significantly reducing the time and number of interactions required to find a satisfactory item, as compared to a control group of users interacting with a non-adaptive version of the system

    Combining and selecting characteristics of information use

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    In this paper we report on a series of experiments designed to investigate the combination of term and document weighting functions in Information Retrieval. We describe a series of weighting functions, each of which is based on how information is used within documents and collections, and use these weighting functions in two types of experiments: one based on combination of evidence for ad-hoc retrieval, the other based on selective combination of evidence within a relevance feedback situation. We discuss the difficulties involved in predicting good combinations of evidence for ad-hoc retrieval, and suggest the factors that may lead to the success or failure of combination. We also demonstrate how, in a relevance feedback situation, the relevance assessments can provide a good indication of how evidence should be selected for query term weighting. The use of relevance information to guide the combination process is shown to reduce the variability inherent in combination of evidence

    Evaluating a workspace's usefulness for image retrieval

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    Image searching is a creative process. We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that supports creative search sessions by allowing the user to organise their search results on a workspace. The workspace’s usefulness is evaluated in a task-oriented and user-centred comparative experiment, involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. In particular, we focus on its effect on task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as a baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful in terms of both of the above aspects and that the proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience. This paper also highlights the influence of tasks on the users’ search and organisation strategy
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