Search

The search task and the system both affect the demand on cognitive resources during information search. In some situations the demands may become too high for a person. This article has a three-fold goal. First, it presents and critiques methods to measure cognitive load. Second, it explores the distribution of load across search task stages. Finally, it seeks to improve our understanding of factors affecting cognitive load levels in information search. To this end, a controlled Web search experiment with 48 participants was conducted. Interaction logs were used to segment search tasks semiautomatically into task stages. Cognitive load was assessed using a new variant of the dual-task method. Average cognitive load was found to vary by search task stages. It was significantly higher during query formulation and user description of a relevant document as compared to examining search results and viewing individual documents. Semantic information shown next to the search results lists in one of the studied interfaces was found to decrease mental demands during query formulation and examination of the search results list. These findings demonstrate that changes in dynamic cognitive load can be detected within search tasks. Dynamic assessment of cognitive load is of core interest to information science because it enriches our understanding of cognitive demands imposed on people engaged in the search process by a task and the interactive information retrieval system employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on a study that investigated the efficacy of four different interactive information retrieval (IIR) systems, each designed to support a specific information-seeking strategy (ISS). These systems were constructed using different combinations of IR techniques (i.e., combinations of different methods of representation, comparison, presentation and navigation), each of which was hypothesized to be well suited to support a specific ISS. We compared the performance of searchers in each such system, designated “experimental,” to an appropriate “baseline” system, which implemented the standard specified query and results list model of current state-of-the-art experimental and operational IR systems. Four within-subjects experiments were conducted for the purpose of this comparison. Results showed that each of the experimental systems was superior to its baseline system in supporting user performance for the specific ISS (that is, the information problem leading to that ISS) for which the system was designed. These results indicate that an IIR system, which intends to support more than one kind of ISS, should be designed within a framework which allows the use and combination of different IR support techniques for different ISSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Granularity is a novel concept for presenting information in search result interfaces of hierarchical query-driven information retrieval systems in a manner that can support understanding and exploration of the context of the retrieved information (e.g., by highlighting its position in the granular hierarchy and exposing its relationship with relatives in the hierarchy). Little research, however, has been conducted on the effects of granularity of search results on the relevance judgment behavior of engineers. Engineers are highly motivated information users who are particularly interested in understanding the context of the retrieved information. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the design of systems with careful regard for granularity would improve engineers' relevance judgment behavior. To test this hypothesis, a prototype system was developed and evaluated in terms of the time needed for users to find relevant information, the accuracy of their relevance judgment, and their subjective satisfaction. To evaluate the prototype, a user study was conducted where participants were asked to complete tasks, complete a satisfaction questionnaire, and be interviewed. The findings showed that participants performed better and were more satisfied when the prototype system presented only relevant information in context. Although this study presents some novel findings about the effects of granularity and context on user relevance judgment behavior, the results should be interpreted with caution. For example, participants in this research were recruited by convenience and performed a set of simulated tasks as opposed to real ones. However, suggestions for further research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the role and effects of user-producer interaction (UPI) in the production of Web sites. The results of two empirical studies, one from a producer perspective and one from a user perspective, are presented. It is concluded that using UPI in the development of informative Web sites for a large public is a risky process, because it is hard to identify and define the most targeted users and their particular needs. The implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated several important issues in using implicit feedback techniques to assist searchers with difficulties in formulating effective search strategies. It focused on examining the relationship between types of behavioral evidence that can be captured from Web searches and searchers' interests. A carefully crafted observation study was conducted to capture, examine, and elucidate the analytical processes and work practices of human analysts when they simulated the role of an implicit feedback system by trying to infer searchers' interests from behavioral traces. Findings provided rare insight into the complexities and nuances in using behavioral evidence for implicit feedback and led to the proposal of an implicit feedback model for Web search that bridged previous studies on behavioral evidence and implicit feedback measures. A new level of analysis termed an analytical lens emerged from the data and provides a road map for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important in information retrieval (IR), information extraction, or classification tasks that morphologically related forms are conflated under the same stem (using stemmer) or lemma (using morphological analyzer). To achieve this for the English language, algorithmic stemming or various morphological analysis approaches have been suggested. Based on Cross-Language Evaluation Forum test collections containing 284 queries and various IR models, this article evaluates these word-normalization proposals. Stemming improves the mean average precision significantly by around 7% while performance differences are not significant when comparing various algorithmic stemmers or algorithmic stemmers and morphological analysis. Accounting for thesaurus class numbers during indexing does not modify overall retrieval performances. Finally, we demonstrate that including a stop word list, even one containing only around 10 terms, might significantly improve retrieval performance, depending on the IR model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of the 113 academic libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) was administered to investigate whether Web usability Policies/Standards/Guidelines (PSGs) are in place, the levels of difficulty surrounding implementation, the impact of PSGs on actual usability practice, e.g., testing, resources, etc., and the relationship between ARL ranking and usability practice or PSGs. The response rate was over 74%. Results show that 25 (30%) libraries have PSGs dedicated to Web usability. Seventy-one (85%) libraries have conducted usability testing on their main Web sites, online public access catalogs (OPAC), or lower-level pages. Nevertheless, only seven libraries performed iterative testing of these platforms at pre-, during, and post-design stages. Statistical analysis indicates that having PSGs does not affect the amount of usability testing performed or the resources available for library Web usability initiatives. In addition, ARL ranking has no or little impact on PSGs, testing, or resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-known similarity measures Jaccard, Salton's cosine, Dice, and several related overlap measures for vectors are compared. While general relations are not possible to prove, we study these measures on the “trajectories” of the form $||\overrightarrow X || = a||\overrightarrow Y ||$, where a > 0 is a constant and ||·|| denotes the Euclidean norm of a vector. In this case, direct functional relations between these measures are proved. For Jaccard, we prove that it is a convexly increasing function of Salton's cosine measure, but always smaller than or equal to the latter, hereby explaining a curve, experimentally found by Leydesdorff. All the other measures have a linear relation with Salton's cosine, reducing even to equality, in case a = 1. Hence, for equally normed vectors (e.g., for normalized vectors) we, essentially, only have Jaccard's measure and Salton's cosine measure since all the other measures are equal to the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal Web portfolios have become a popular information source and an effective method for individuals to present themselves to others in cyberspace. Thus, the quality of personal Web portfolios is critical and affects the perception that others have of the individuals. But how do we measure quality of personal Web portfolios? What are the important factors affecting quality of personal Web portfolios? This study presents the development of an instrument measuring factors affecting information quality of personal Web portfolios. The proposed instrument, based on the Information Quality framework, was refined and validated to assess its construct validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The proposed instrument can be used to guide those who want to design their personal Web portfolios and also to help those who need to evaluate the quality of personal Web portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadata and an appropriate metadata model are nontrivial components of information architecture conceptualization and implementation, particularly when disparate and dispersed systems are integrated. Metadata availability can enhance retrieval processes, improve information organization and navigation, and support management of digital objects. To support these activities efficiently, metadata need to be modeled appropriately for the tasks. The authors' work focuses on how to understand and model metadata requirements to support the work of end users of an integrative statistical knowledge network (SKN). They report on a series of user studies. These studies provide an understanding of metadata elements necessary for a variety of user-oriented tasks, related business rules associated with the use of these elements, and their relationship to other perspectives on metadata model development. This work demonstrates the importance of the user perspective in this type of design activity and provides a set of strategies by which the results of user studies can be systematically utilized to support that design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vector space model of information retrieval is one of the classical and widely applied retrieval models. Paradoxically, it has been characterized by a discrepancy between its formal framework and implementable form. The underlying concepts of the vector space model are mathematical terms: linear space, vector, and inner product. However, in the vector space model, the mathematical meaning of these concepts is not preserved. They are used as mere computational constructs or metaphors. Thus, the vector space model actually does not follow formally from the mathematical concepts on which it has been claimed to rest. This problem has been recognized for more than two decades, but no proper solution has emerged so far. The present article proposes a solution to this problem. First, the concept of retrieval is defined based on the mathematical measure theory. Then, retrieval is particularized using fuzzy set theory. As a result, the retrieval function is conceived as the cardinality of the intersection of two fuzzy sets. This view makes it possible to build a connection to linear spaces. It is shown that the classical and the generalized vector space models, as well as the latent semantic indexing model, gain a correct formal background with which they are consistent. At the same time it becomes clear that the inner product is not a necessary ingredient of the vector space model, and hence of Information Retrieval (IR). The Principle of Object Invariance is introduced to handle this situation. Moreover, this view makes it possible to consistently formulate new retrieval methods: in linear space with general basis, entropy-based, and probability-based. It is also shown that Information Retrieval may be viewed as integral calculus, and thus it gains a very compact and elegant mathematical way of writing. Also, Information Retrieval may thus be conceived as an application of mathematical measure theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the second part of a two-part article that examines 25 years of published research findings on end-user searching of online information retrieval (IR) systems. In Part 1 (Markey, 2007), it was learned that people enter a few short search statements into online IR systems. Their searches do not resemble the systematic approach of expert searchers who use the full range of IR-system functionality. Part 2 picks up the discussion of research findings about end-user searching in the context of current information retrieval models. These models demonstrate that information retrieval is a complex event, involving changes in cognition, feelings, and/or events during the information seeking process. The author challenges IR researchers to design new studies of end-user searching, collecting data not only on system-feature use, but on multiple search sessions and controlling for variables such as domain knowledge expertise and expert system knowledge. Because future IR systems designers are likely to improve the functionality of online IR systems in response to answers to the new research questions posed here, the author concludes with advice to these designers about retaining the simplicity of online IR system interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distributed memory parallel version of the group average hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithm is proposed to enable scaling the document clustering problem to large collections. Using standard message passing operations reduces interprocess communication while maintaining efficient load balancing. In a series of experiments using a subset of a standard Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) test collection, our parallel hierarchical clustering algorithm is shown to be scalable in terms of processors efficiently used and the collection size. Results show that our algorithm performs close to the expected O(n2/p) time on p processors rather than the worst-case O(n3/p) time. Furthermore, the O(n2/p) memory complexity per node allows larger collections to be clustered as the number of nodes increases. While partitioning algorithms such as k-means are trivially parallelizable, our results confirm those of other studies which showed that hierarchical algorithms produce significantly tighter clusters in the document clustering task. Finally, we show how our parallel hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithm can be used as the clustering subroutine for a parallel version of the buckshot algorithm to cluster the complete TREC collection at near theoretical runtime expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-documented limitations of journal impact factor rankings and perceptual ratings, the evolving scholarly communication system, the open-access movement, and increasing globalization are some reasons that prompted an examination of journal value rather than just impact. Using a single, specialized journal established in 1960, about education for the Information professions, the author discusses the fall from citation grace of the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science (JELIS) in terms of impact factor and declining subscriptions. Journal evaluation studies in Library and Information Science based on subjective ratings are used to show the high rank of JELIS during the same period (1984–2004) and explain why impact factors and perceptual ratings either singly or jointly are inadequate measures for understanding the value of specialized, scholarly journals such as JELIS. This case study was also a search for bibliometric measures of journal value. Three measures, namely journal attraction power, author associativity, and journal consumption power, were selected; two of them were redefined as journal measures of affinity (the proportion of foreign authors), associativity (the amount of collaboration), and calculated as objective indicators of journal value. The affinity and associativity for JELIS calculated for 1984, 1994, 2004, and consumption calculated for 1985 and 1994 show a holding pattern; however, they also reveal interesting dimensions for future study. Journal value is multidimensional and citations do not capture all the facets; costs, benefits, and measures for informative and scientific value must be distinguished and developed in a fuller model of journal value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a well-known gap between systems-oriented information retrieval (IR) and user-oriented IR, which cognitive IR seeks to bridge. It is therefore interesting to analyze approaches at the level of frameworks, models, and study designs. This article is an exercise in such an analysis, focusing on two significant approaches to IR: the lab IR approach and P. Ingwersen's (1996) cognitive IR approach. The article focuses on their research frameworks, models, hypotheses, laws and theories, study designs, and possible contributions. The two approaches are quite different, which becomes apparent in the use of independent, controlled, and dependent variables in the study designs of each approach. Thus, each approach is capable of contributing very differently to understanding and developing information access. The article also discusses integrating the approaches at the study-design level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a client interacts with an expert, e.g., a doctor, it falls upon the expert to ask questions that steer the process towards fulfilling the client's needs. This is most efficient given that the expert has more knowledge and a broader view of possible illnesses and treatments. On the other hand, when faced with an information retrieval (IR) task, most IR systems leave to the client the task of coming up with queries. We propose an information retrieval framework that assumes the responsibility of leading the users to the information, thus increasing efficiency and satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most organizations have reported dismal returns on their investments in knowledge portals—Intranet Web sites aimed at enabling the storage and exchange of explicit knowledge artifacts. In our research, we were surprised to find that knowledge workers have for the most part abandoned the use of knowledge portals. Moreover, in cases where they do turn to knowledge portals they use it as a last resort. In this brief communication, we call attention both to research and practice to help transform current knowledge portals to ones that are more sensitive to the issues faced by practitioners. To this end, we will elaborate on the need to pay attention to maintenance of knowledge management portals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports that the information-seeking process followed by museum administrators and orchestra administrators was essentially the same regardless of type and amount of information wanted. This study found that arts administrators do not consider information seeking to be a discrete management task, they rely heavily on direct personal experience to fill their information-seeking needs and they are "satisficers" when it comes to seeking information. The finding that arts administrators do not characteristically engage in a formal information-seeking process to support managerial activities has important implications. These administrators perceive themselves to be following a highly intuitive process based on personal experience or expertise to meet their information needs, but that process has not been explicitly structured or evaluated. This approach may serve well in familiar situations, in which the pertinent factors are internal or commonly known, or in situations where replicating past results is desirable. However, the intuitive approach may be of more limited success in situations where the complexity and the potential impact of the task or decision are high. The inexplicit information-seeking style identified in this research provides little opportunity for identifying the need for new, external information.

Cross-language information retrieval (CUR) is the retrieval of information written in one language based on a query expressed in another, e.g., typing a query in English to retrieve documents written in Finnish. For such a process to succeed, both translation and retrieval must be conducted in order to locate relevant items. Early research showed that CUR was feasible but its effectiveness was lower than that of monolingual retrieval. With the establishment of a TREC track in CUR, which led to a series of collaborative cross-language efforts in Europe and Japan, retrieval of information written in a language different from the language of the query was researched more widely. A study involving users from the beginning of the design process is described, and ft covers initial examination of user needs and tasks, preliminary design and testing of interface components, building, testing, and refining the interface, and, finally, conducting usability tests of the system. user-centered design approach to lead the development of a CUR system, called Clarity, toward its first stable prototype

Recently there has been much research done in the field of information retrieval concerning the various kinds of "fusion" and their applications. One method of fusion, called collection fusion, is the fusing of results from multiple, autonomous collections of data, and is often used in the context of metasearch and distributed Information Retrieval. This report examines some long-held beliefs about common, effective data fusion techniques. Prior work demonstrates that significant improvement is often seen when using standard data fusion algorithms on an arbitrary collection of result sets from different information retrieval systems . This belief is supported by the supposition that different document retrieval strategies will rank documents differently, returning different sets of relevant and non-relevant documents. If this is true, it follows that voting algorithms that boost score and rank of a relevant document that is agreed upon across component systems should indeed improve retrieval , and merging algorithms can also be used to increase the recall of relevant documents in the merged set.

Focuses on the development of a content-based bilingual web site to facilitate the sharing of resources and information between Speech and Language therapists. Aspects of information architecture; Abstract structural models; Results of the execution of card-sorting activity.

Examines a theory of information interaction, illustrating how information architecture (IA) along with other components contributes to the information interactivity. Model of information interactivity; Impact of the web on the information task; Relation between the information interaction and information architecture.

Suggests that Information Architecture (IA) design is primarily an inductive process. Steps involved the design process of IA; Reasons why the design process of IA is inductive; Nature of IA design described by Constructive Induction.

Examines the use of information architecture in a law enforcement agency. Description of two database systems in a law enforcement agency; Comparison between two law enforcement information systems; Reasons for the difficulty in switching into a new system.

Presents a matrix that can serve as a tool for designing the information architecture (IA) of a Web portal in a logical and systematic manner. Applied IA portion of the matrix; Application of the matrix using the example of a children's Web portal.

Discusses various aspects of information architecture curriculum. Functions of information architects; Pedagogical approaches employed in education which may be adopted for information architecture education.

Explores issues associated with the emergence of information architecture (IA) within the information systems. Definition of IA; Role of IA; Ways in which user experience should be addressed within the professional concerns of IA.

Explores the future of information architecture (IA). Challenges facing information architects; Impact of the growth of information technology on multinational corporations; Sources of tools, techniques and expertise of information architects.

Provides guidelines for designing a web site. Model for information architecture; Changing roles for information architects; Tool development; Modular design.