Query-biased web page summarisation: a task-oriented evaluation

We present a system that offers a new way of assessing web document relevance and new approach to the web-based evaluation of such a system. Provisionally named WebDocSum, the system is a query-biased web page summariser that aims to provide an alternative to the short, irrelevant abstracts typical of many web search result lists. Based on an initial evaluation the system appears to be more useful in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach

Finding relevant documents using top ranking sentences: an evaluation of two alternative schemes

In this paper we present an evaluation of techniques that are designed to encourage web searchers to interact more with the results of a web search. Two specific techniques are examined: the presentation of sentences that highly match the searcher's query and the use of implicit evidence. Implicit evidence is evidence captured from the searcher's interaction with the retrieval results and is used to automatically update the display. Our evaluation concentrates on the effectiveness and subject perception of these techniques. The results show, with statistical significance, that the techniques are effective and efficient for information seeking