Search results

1 – 10 of over 2000

Abstract

Details

Automated Information Retrieval: Theory and Methods
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-12266-170-9

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1996

PETER INGWERSEN

The objective of the paper is to amalgamate theories of text retrieval from various research traditions into a cognitive theory for information retrieval interaction. Set in a…

2448

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to amalgamate theories of text retrieval from various research traditions into a cognitive theory for information retrieval interaction. Set in a cognitive framework, the paper outlines the concept of polyrepresentation applied to both the user's cognitive space and the information space of IR systems. The concept seeks to represent the current user's information need, problem state, and domain work task or interest in a structure of causality. Further, it implies that we should apply different methods of representation and a variety of IR techniques of different cognitive and functional origin simultaneously to each semantic full‐text entity in the information space. The cognitive differences imply that by applying cognitive overlaps of information objects, originating from different interpretations of such objects through time and by type, the degree of uncertainty inherent in IR is decreased. Polyrepresentation and the use of cognitive overlaps are associated with, but not identical to, data fusion in IR. By explicitly incorporating all the cognitive structures participating in the interactive communication processes during IR, the cognitive theory provides a comprehensive view of these processes. It encompasses the ad hoc theories of text retrieval and IR techniques hitherto developed in mainstream retrieval research. It has elements in common with van Rijsbergen and Lalmas' logical uncertainty theory and may be regarded as compatible with that conception of IR. Epistemologically speaking, the theory views IR interaction as processes of cognition, potentially occurring in all the information processing components of IR, that may be applied, in particular, to the user in a situational context. The theory draws upon basic empirical results from information seeking investigations in the operational online environment, and from mainstream IR research on partial matching techniques and relevance feedback. By viewing users, source systems, intermediary mechanisms and information in a global context, the cognitive perspective attempts a comprehensive understanding of essential IR phenomena and concepts, such as the nature of information needs, cognitive inconsistency and retrieval overlaps, logical uncertainty, the concept of ‘document’, relevance measures and experimental settings. An inescapable consequence of this approach is to rely more on sociological and psychological investigative methods when evaluating systems and to view relevance in IR as situational, relative, partial, differentiated and non‐linear. The lack of consistency among authors, indexers, evaluators or users is of an identical cognitive nature. It is unavoidable, and indeed favourable to IR. In particular, for full‐text retrieval, alternative semantic entities, including Salton et al.'s ‘passage retrieval’, are proposed to replace the traditional document record as the basic retrieval entity. These empirically observed phenomena of inconsistency and of semantic entities and values associated with data interpretation support strongly a cognitive approach to IR and the logical use of polyrepresentation, cognitive overlaps, and both data fusion and data diffusion.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 52 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Abstract

Details

Automated Information Retrieval: Theory and Methods
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-12266-170-9

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1997

A. Macfarlane, S.E. Robertson and J.A. Mccann

The progress of parallel computing in Information Retrieval (IR) is reviewed. In particular we stress the importance of the motivation in using parallel computing for text…

Abstract

The progress of parallel computing in Information Retrieval (IR) is reviewed. In particular we stress the importance of the motivation in using parallel computing for text retrieval. We analyse parallel IR systems using a classification defined by Rasmussen and describe some parallel IR systems. We give a description of the retrieval models used in parallel information processing. We describe areas of research which we believe are needed.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 53 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1982

N.J. BELKIN, R.N. ODDY and H.M. BROOKS

We report the results of a British Library Research and Development Department‐funded design study for an interactive information retrieval system which will determine structural…

3542

Abstract

We report the results of a British Library Research and Development Department‐funded design study for an interactive information retrieval system which will determine structural representations of the anomalous states of knowledge (ASKs) underlying information needs, and attempt to resolve the anomalies through a variety of retrieval strategies performed on a database of documents represented in compatible structural formats. Part I discusses the background to the project and the theory underlying it, Part II (next issue) presents our methods, results and conclusions. Basic premises of the project were: that information needs are not in principle precisely specifiable; that it is possible to elicit problem statements from information system users from which representations of the ASK underlying the need can be derived; that there are classes of ASKs; and, that all elements of information retrieval systems ought to be based on the user's ASK. We have developed a relatively freeform interview technique for eliciting problem statements, and a statistical word co‐occurrence analysis for deriving network representations of the problem statements and abstracts. Structural characteristics of the representations have been used to determine classes of ASKs, and both ASK and information structures have been evaluated by, respectively, users and authors. Some results are: that interviewing appears to be a satisfactory technique for eliciting problem statements from which ASKs can be determined; that the statistical analysis produces structures which are generally appropriate both for documents and problem statements; that ASKs thus represented can be usefully classified according to their structural characteristics; and, that of thirty‐five subjects, only two had ASKs for which traditional ‘best match’ retrieval would be intuitively appropriate. The results of the design study indicate that at least some of our premises are reasonable, and that an ASK‐based information retrieval system is at least feasible.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 38 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Article
Publication date: 27 July 2010

Hassan Naderi and Beatrice Rumpler

This paper aims to discuss and test the claim that utilization of the personalization techniques can be valuable to improve the efficiency of collaborative information retrieval

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to discuss and test the claim that utilization of the personalization techniques can be valuable to improve the efficiency of collaborative information retrieval (CIR) systems.

Design/methodology/approach

A new personalized CIR system, called PERCIRS, is presented based on the user profile similarity calculation (UPSC) formulas. To this aim, the paper proposes several UPSC formulas as well as two techniques to evaluate them. As the proposed CIR system is personalized, it could not be evaluated by Cranfield, like evaluation techniques (e.g. TREC). Hence, this paper proposes a new user‐centric mechanism, which enables PERCIRS to be evaluated. This mechanism is generic and can be used to evaluate any other personalized IR system.

Findings

The results show that among the proposed UPSC formulas in this paper, the (query‐document)‐graph based formula is the most effective. After integrating this formula into PERCIRS and comparing it with nine other IR systems, it is concluded that the results of the system are better than the other IR systems. In addition, the paper shows that the complexity of the system is less that the complexity of the other CIR systems.

Research limitations/implications

This system asks the users to explicitly rank the returned documents, while explicit ranking is still not widespread enough. However it believes that the users should actively participate in the IR process in order to aptly satisfy their needs to information.

Originality/value

The value of this paper lies in combining collaborative and personalized IR, as well as introducing a mechanism which enables the personalized IR system to be evaluated. The proposed evaluation mechanism is very valuable for developers of personalized IR systems. The paper also introduces some significant user profile similarity calculation formulas, and two techniques to evaluate them. These formulas can also be used to find the user's community in the social networks.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 66 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 October 2017

Shawne D. Miksa

The purpose of this paper is to present the initial relationship between the Classification Research Group (CRG) and the Center for Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the initial relationship between the Classification Research Group (CRG) and the Center for Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR) and how this relationship changed between 1952 and 1970. The theory of normative behavior and its concepts of worldviews, social norms, social types, and information behavior are used to characterize the relationship between the small worlds of the two groups with the intent of understanding the gap between early classification research and information retrieval (IR) research.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a mixed method analysis of two groups as evidenced in published artifacts by and about their work. A thorough review of historical literature about the groups as well as their own published works was employed and an author co-citation analysis was used to characterize the conceptual similarities and differences of the two groups of researchers.

Findings

The CRG focused on fundamental principles to aid classification and retrieval of information. The CDCR were more inclined to develop practical methods of retrieval without benefit of good theoretical foundations. The CRG began it work under the contention that the general classification schemes at the time were inadequate for the developing IR mechanisms. The CDCR rejected the classification schemes of the times and focused on developing punch card mechanisms and processes that were generously funded by both government and corporate funding.

Originality/value

This paper provides a unique historical analysis of two groups of influential researchers in the field of library and information science.

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1997

Pia Borlund and Peter Ingwersen

The paper describes the ideas and assumptions underlying the development of a new method for the evaluation and testing of interactive information retrieval (IR) systems, and…

1981

Abstract

The paper describes the ideas and assumptions underlying the development of a new method for the evaluation and testing of interactive information retrieval (IR) systems, and reports on the initial tests of the proposed method. The method is designed to collect different types of empirical data, i.e. cognitive data as well as traditional systems performance data. The method is based on the novel concept of a ‘simulated work task situation’ or scenario and the involvement of real end users. The method is also based on a mixture of simulated and real information needs, and involves a group of test persons as well as assessments made by individual panel members. The relevance assessments are made with reference to the concepts of topical as well as situational relevance. The method takes into account the dynamic nature of information needs which are assumed to develop over time for the same user, a variability which is presumed to be strongly connected to the processes of relevance assessment.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 53 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 November 2006

Tefko Saracevic

In vol. 6, 1976, of Advances in Librarianship, I published a review about relevance under the same title, without, of course, “Part I” in the title (Saracevic, 1976). [A…

Abstract

In vol. 6, 1976, of Advances in Librarianship, I published a review about relevance under the same title, without, of course, “Part I” in the title (Saracevic, 1976). [A substantively similar article was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (Saracevic, 1975)]. I did not plan then to have another related review 30 years later—but things happen. The 1976 work “attempted to trace the evolution of thinking on relevance, a key notion in information science, [and] to provide a framework within which the widely dissonant ideas on relevance might be interpreted and related to one another” (ibid.: 338).

Details

Advances in Librarianship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-007-4

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2000

Micheline Beaulieu

The paper aims to explore the concepts of interaction and interactivity presented in different theoretical models in the fields of human‐computer interaction (HCI) and information

2613

Abstract

The paper aims to explore the concepts of interaction and interactivity presented in different theoretical models in the fields of human‐computer interaction (HCI) and information‐seeking/searching behaviour, and to relate these to information retrieval (IR) research. It is suggested that interaction in HCI is primarily concerned with establishing a user/system dialogue at the user interface and does not address the interactive characteristics of IR operational tasks. A distinction is made between general informationseeking models and information‐searching models for computerised systems. The former are deemed to provide a useful framework for characterising interaction at the task level, with the structural relationship between tasks as well as the dynamic transition from one task to another being key features of the interactive process. Although the latter are all concerned with how searchers interact with IR systems, each of the models examined represents user interaction at different levels of abstraction. Taken together they provide complementary views of a highly dynamic process. Three principal aspects of interaction are identified and discussed: interaction within and across tasks; the notion of interaction as task sharing; and interaction as a discourse. In conclusion the adoption of an interaction paradigm for IR research is advocated and examples of empirical work for supporting interactive searching and retrieval are provided.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 56 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 2000