Personalised Information Retrieval and Access: Concepts, Methods and Practices

Citation

Du, J. (2009), "Personalised Information Retrieval and Access: Concepts, Methods and Practices", Online Information Review, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 211-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520910944508

The availability of more mobile computing devices has brought the possibility of anywhere‐anytime information access. However, the increasing volume of globally‐distributed information has resulted in a series of critical issues, such as information overload, information heterogeneity, uncertain information needs, information quality, as well as privacy and security. There are thus challenges surrounding mobile and ubiquitous computing. Personalisation and context awareness are of importance for the development of ubiquitous computing. This collection of papers is based on the motivation behind these issues, focusing on the theme of personalised information retrieval and access, including the main concepts, methods and practices.

The collection is organised into two sections and 13 chapters. All the chapters are well integrated. The first section, on concepts, includes five chapters providing a theoretical overview by presenting issues, definitions, and trends in certain research and practice. Chapter 1 discusses the issue of information overload and the creation of personalised ontologies as a countermeasure. As specific applications of context‐awareness and personalisation, collaborative filtering and recommendation are treated in Chapters 2 and 3 respectively. The latter further discusses information management issues such as heterogeneity, overload and dynamics, and then presents computer‐based solutions to deal with those information management problems. Chapter 4, Mining for Web Personalisation, offers an introduction to information personalisation and argues that personalisation can be a real opportunity to deal with web information overload. Chapter 5 contributes web clustering as an approach to support personalisation.

The second section, on methods and practices, consists of eight chapters which demonstrate particular solutions, including approaches, architectures, conceptual models and prototypes from multi‐views to deal with information personalisation. To solve the issues of information overload, heterogeneity and changing information needs, Chapter 6 proposes a conceptual structure acting as a bridge between personalised information needs and implementation of information services. Chapter 7 focuses on the privacy implications of context‐awareness as a part of ubiquitous computing. Chapter 8 proposes a user and context‐aware quality filter in order to tackle the increasing volume of web information and people uncertain information needs. Chapter 9 discusses personalised content‐based methods to retrieve image information. The four final chapters present the recent technologies (software components, service orientation, multi‐agent systems) on which personalised information services, context‐awareness and ubiquitous computing are grounded.

The main contribution of this book lies in covering cutting‐edge issues/topics plus solutions in the environment of global information retrieval and anywhere‐anytime information access. It can help improve our understanding of the current challenges of ubiquitous computing. Also, individuals and organisations will be able to harness the specific personalisation techniques and algorithms to design and model personalised information searching in a flexible and agile way.

The book is intended for IT professionals, students, researchers and practitioners, providing authoritative coverage of recent technological advances that are shaping the future of globally‐distributed information retrieval and anywhere‐anytime information access. While each chapter includes a list of references, there is also a composite list of references at the end of the book, which offers readers a full picture of resources concerning the theme of personalised information retrieval and access. In addition, each chapter ends with a list of additional reading that provides literature for readers' further study.