Re-examining the potential effectiveness of interactive query expansion

Much attention has been paid to the relative effectiveness of interactive query expansion versus automatic query expansion. Although interactive query expansion has the potential to be an effective means of improving a search, in this paper we show that, on average, human searchers are less likely than systems to make good expansion decisions. To enable good expansion decisions, searchers must have adequate instructions on how to use interactive query expansion functionalities. We show that simple instructions on using interactive query expansion do not necessarily help searchers make good expansion decisions and discuss difficulties found in making query expansion decisions

A model for structured document retrieval : empirical investigations

Documents often display a structure, e.g., several sections, each with several subsections and so on. Taking into account the structure of a document allows the retrieval process to focus on those parts of the document that are most relevant to an information need. In previous work, we developed a model for the representation and the retrieval of structured documents. This paper reports the first experimental study of the effectiveness and applicability of the model

A study of interface support mechanisms for interactive information retrieval

Advances in search technology have meant that search systems can now offer assistance to users beyond simply retrieving a set of documents. For example, search systems are now capable of inferring user interests by observing their interaction, offering suggestions about what terms could be used in a query, or reorganizing search results to make exploration of retrieved material more effective. When providing new search functionality, system designers must decide how the new functionality should be offered to users. One major choice is between (a) offering automatic features that require little human input, but give little human control; or (b) interactive features which allow human control over how the feature is used, but often give little guidance over how the feature should be best used. This article presents a study in which we empirically investigate the issue of control by presenting an experiment in which participants were asked to interact with three experimental systems that vary the degree of control they had in creating queries, indicating which results are relevant in making search decisions. We use our findings to discuss why and how the control users want over search decisions can vary depending on the nature of the decisions and the impact of those decisions on the user's search

Report on the Glasgow IR group (glair4) submission

This year's submission from the Glasgow IR group (glair4) is to the category B automatic ad hoc section. Due to pressures of time and unexpected complications, our intended application of a technique known as generalised imaging [Crestani 95] was not completed in time for the TREC deadline. Therefore, the submission is the output of an IR system running a simplistic retrieval strategy, similar to last year's submission though with some intended improvements. It would appear from comparison with other category B submissions that this strategy is relatively successful. The following sections of this report contain a description of the retrieval strategy used, a analysis of the results, and finally, a discussion of our intentions for TREC 6

Search procedures revisited

Search Procedures reflects on a series of studies carried out over a four year period in the late 1970s. It was published at an interesting time for Information Retrieval. Written before Information Retrieval became synonymous with online information seeking it focuses on Information Retrieval within Public Libraries, then the major location for everyday information seeking. While many of his contemporaries focused on information seeking in academic or special library settings, Peter chose instead to focus a setting that was visited by a more diverse set of people with a broader range of information needs

A framework for investigating the interaction in information retrieval

To increase retrieval effectiveness, information retrieval systems must offer better supports to users in their information seeking activities. To achieve this, one major concern is to obtain a better understanding of the nature of the interaction between a user and an information retrieval system. For this, we need a means to analyse the interaction in information retrieval, so as to compare the interaction processes within and across information retrieval systems. We present a framework for investigating the interaction between users and information retrieval systems. The framework is based on channel theory, a theory of information and its flow, which provides an explicit ontology that can be used to represent any aspect of the interaction process. The developed framework allows for the investigation of the interaction in information retrieval at the desired level of abstraction. We use the framework to investigate the interaction in relevance feedback and standard web search

Context generation and information retrieval

The interaction between a user and an information retrieval system can be viewed as a dialogue in which both participants are trying to interpret the others' actions in the light of previous experience. The sys- tem then must try to generate a context in which to interpret the user's response to the presented mate- rial. This notion of context operates on a principle of relevance. Information that the system believes is relevant to the user, or that the user has indicated as relevant will form the basis of the system's notion of the context. This paper presents a way of represent- ing a context that can use both the systems knowl- edge about itself and the user's response to generate a view of the retrieval session

The effects on topic familiarity on online search behaviour and use of relevance criteria

This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of topic familiarity on the assessment behaviour of online searchers. In particular we investigate the effect of topic familiarity on the resources and relevance criteria used by searchers. Our results indicate that searching on an unfamiliar topic leads to use of more generic and fewer specialised resources and that searchers employ different relevance criteria when searching on less familiar topics

Web document summarisation: a task-oriented evaluation

We present a query-biased summarisation interface for Web searching. The summarisation system has been specifically developed to act as a component in existing Web search interfaces. The summaries allow the user to more effectively assess the content of Web pages. We also present an experimental investigation of this approach. Our experimental results shows the system appears to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach

A study on the use of summaries and summary-based query expansion for a question-answering task

In this paper we report an initial study on the effectiveness of query-biased summaries for a question answering task. Our summarisation system presents searchers with short summaries of documents. The summaries are composed of a set of sentences that highlight the main points of the document as they relate to the query. These summaries are also used as evidence for a query expansion algorithm to test the use of summaries as evidence for interactive and automatic query expansion. We present the results of a set of experiments to test these two approaches and discuss the relative success of these techniques