The use of relevance criteria in partially relevant documents

This study investigates the use of relevance criteria in partially relevant documents by comparing it to the use of relevance criteria in relevant and not relevant documents. Participants, 12 social science graduate students, selected relevant and not relevant passages within 20 document representations and judged each document representation as a whole to be: relevant, partially relevant or non-relevant to their information need. Content analysis revealed 31 criteria, discussed positively and negatively, used by the participants when selecting passages and determining the document's relevance. Results indicate that partially relevant documents are selected based on the same criteria as relevant documents; they just do not meet as many criteria or do not satisfy the criteria to the same degree. Additionally, fewer than 50% of the documents judged relevant or not relevant were totally relevant or totally not relevant. These findings suggest possible solutions to problems with relevance feedback in information retrieval systems

How users assess web pages for information-seeking

In this paper, we investigate the criteria used by online searchers when assessing the relevance of web pages for information-seeking tasks. Twenty four participants were given three tasks each, and indicated the features of web pages which they employed when deciding about the usefulness of the pages in relation to the tasks. These tasks were presented within the context of a simulated work-task situation. We investigated the relative utility of features identified by participants (web page content,structure and quality), and how the importance of these features is affected by the type of information-seeking task performed and the stage of the search. The results of this study provide a set of criteria used by searchers to decide about the utility of web pages for different types of tasks. Such criteria can have implications for the design of systems that use or recommend web pages

User Perspectives on Relevance Criteria: A Comparison among Relevant, Partially Relevant, and Not-Relevant Judgments

This study investigates the use of criteria to assess relevant, partially relevant and not relevant documents. Each study participant identified passages within 20 document representations that were used in making relevance judgments, judged each document representation as a whole to be relevant, partially relevant or not relevant to their information need, and explained their decisions in an interview. Analysis revealed 29 criteria, discussed positively and negatively, used by the participants when selecting passages that contributed or detracted from a document's relevance. These criteria can be grouped into 6 categories: author, abstract, content, full text, journal or publisher and personal. Results indicate that multiple criteria are used when making relevant, partially relevant and not relevant judgments. Additionally, most criteria can have both a positive or negative contribution to the relevance of a document. The criteria most frequently mentioned by study participants in this study was content, followed by criteria concerning the full text document. These findings may have implications for relevance feedback in information retrieval systems, suggesting that users give relevance feedback using multiple criteria and indicate positive and negative criteria contributions. Systems designers may want to focus on supporting content criteria followed by full text criteria as this may provide the greatest cost benefit

Using Innovation Diffusion Theory to Guide Collaboration Technology Evaluation: Work in Progress

Cost effective development of collaboration technology requires evaluation methods that consider group practices and can be used early in a system’s life-cycle. To address this challenge we developed a survey to evaluate collaboration technology based on innovation dgusion theory. The theory proposes five attributes of innovations that influence technology adoption: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Selecting items from existing surveys related to these attributes, we developed a prototype multi-scale survey to help evaluate whether using a system face-to-face or distributively influences study participants’ attitudes towards system adoption. We have begun refining the survey instrument and report on this process, the proposed survey questions, and the reliability and validity of the survey instrument

Pyridinium Derivatives of 9,10-Endo-o-Phenylene-9,10-Dihydro-1,4-Anthraquinone

The compounds reported here were prepared for the purpose of determining the effects of active groups on the pyridine ring, and to determine the effects of substituted methyl groups on the nucleus. These compounds are to be tested for tuberculostatic activity

Factors that impact interdisciplinary natural science research collaboration

Interdisciplinary collaboration occurs when people with different educational and research backgrounds bring complementary skills to bear on a problem or task. The strength of interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration is its capacity to bring together diverse scientific knowledge to address complex problems and questions. However, interdisciplinary scientific research can be difficult to initiate and sustain. We do not yet fully understand factors that impact interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration. This study synthesizes empirical data from two empirical studies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration within the natural sciences in academia. Data analysis confirmed factors previously identified in various literatures and yielded new factors. A total of twenty factors were identified, and classified into four categories: personal, resources, motivation and common ground. These categories and their factors are described, and implications for academic policies and practices to facilitate and sustain interdisciplinary collaboration are discussed

Factors that impact interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration : Focus on the natural sciences in academia

Interdisciplinary collaboration occurs when people with different educational and research backgrounds bring complementary skills to bear on a problem or task. The strength of interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration is its capacity to bring together diverse scientific knowledge to address complex problems and questions. However, interdisciplinary scientific research can be difficult to initiate and sustain. We do not yet fully understand factors that impact interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration. This study synthesizes empirical data from two empirical studies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of interdisciplinary scientific research collaboration within the natural sciences in academia. Data analysis confirmed factors previously identified in various literatures and yielded new factors. A total of twenty factors were identified, and classified into four categories: personal, resources, motivation and common ground. These categorie s and their factors are described, and implications for academic policies and practices to facilitate and sustain interdisciplinary collaboration are discussed