Search results

In response to its mission of identifying and describing problems of interdisciplinary searching, and of proposing remedies and solutions, the ICSTI Group on Interdisciplinary Searching gathered the relevant information through a questionnaire addressed to the database builders, online system vendors, search intermediaries and end users; analysed and organised the input; and presented a report. The report discusses the problems within six distinct categories: coverage and technical content of the database; bibliographic information; textual content; numeric data; file organisation, and interdisciplinary searching on multiple hosts. Under each category, problems are first listed in a generic way and then described in greater detail. Numerous specific examples are given with explanations, whenever feasible, of the reasons for their occurrence. For each category, possible remedies and solutions are listed. The most essential recommendations that have emerged deal with the need for greater standardisation at every stage in building the databases and in organising access to them. A number of bodies and groups working on international and national standards, and on solving other specific aspects of the problems, have been identified. The needs for close co‐operation, exchange of good documentation, extensive training and mutual understanding are most evident.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for a target searching problem in a two-dimensional region with time constraints. The proposed model facilitates the search operation by minimizing the mission time and fuel usage, and the search operation is performed by a set of agents divided into a number of groups.

The authors have applied optimization techniques, Cartesian product, inclusion–exclusion principle, cooperative strategy, Shapley value, fuzzy Shapley function and Choquet integral to model the problem.

The proposed technique optimizes the placement of base stations that minimizes the sortie length of the agents. The results show that the cooperative strategy outperforms the non-cooperative strategy. The Shapley values quantify the rewards of each group based on their contributions to the search operation, whereas the fuzzy Shapley values determine the rewards of each group based on their contributions and level of cooperation in the search operation.

The proposed model can be applied to model many real-time problems such as patrolling in international borders, urban areas, forests and managing rescue operations after natural calamities, etc. Therefore, defence organizations, police departments and other operation management sectors will be benefitted by applying the proposed approach.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, determining the optimal locations of base stations in a region is not explored in the existing works on target searching problems with fuel constraints. The proposed approach to cooperatively search the targets in a region is new. Introducing the Shapley function and fuzzy Shapley function is a novel idea to quantify the rewards of each group based on their contributions and level of cooperation in the search operation. This paper addresses these unexplored areas.

Seekers who visit professional virtual communities (PVCs) are usually motivated by knowledge-seeking, which is a complex cognitive process. How do seekers search for knowledge, and how is their search linked to prior knowledge or PVC situation factors? From the cognitive process and interactional psychology perspectives, this study investigated the three-way interactions between seekers’ expertise, task complexity, and perceptions of PVC features (i.e. knowledge quality and system quality) on knowledge-seeking strategies and resultant outcomes.

A field experiment was conducted with 119 seekers in a PVC using a 2 × 2 factorial design of seekers’ expertise (i.e. expert versus novice) and task complexity (i.e. low versus high).

The study reveals three significant insights: (1) For a high-complexity task, experts adopt an ask-directed searching strategy compared to novices, whereas novices adopt a browsing strategy; (2) For a high-complexity task, experts who perceive a high system quality are more likely than novices to adopt an ask-directed searching strategy; and (3) Task completion time and task quality are associated with the adoption of ask-directed searching strategies, whereas knowledge seekers’ satisfaction is more associated with the adoption of browsing strategy.

We draw on the perspectives of cognitive process and interactional psychology to explore potential two- and three-way interactions of seekers’ expertise, task complexity, and PVC features on the adoption of knowledge-seeking strategies in a PVC context. Our findings provide deep insights into seekers’ behavior in a PVC, given the popularity of the search for knowledge in PVCs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of spatial intelligence in predicting the web information searching behavior and performance of high school students.

The population of this study consisted of all female students who were studying in the eighth and ninth grades of Shiraz University School. The students searched an educational website by using keywords to find some answers to two tasks (one simple task and one complex task).

The findings of this study revealed that among the five components of spatial intelligence, the three components of spatial orientation, perceptual speed and flexibility of closure could better predict the web searching behavior and performance of the students. To elaborate, spatial orientation could predict the query length and the search time; perceptual speed was helpful in predicting the reformulation of the question, the number of results pages observed, the number of links viewed, and success; flexibility of closure also predicted the success in the search.

The results of this study can help researchers and others understand the searching behavior and performance of children and the cognitive factors which affect them. The results can also help teachers and school librarians to teach students the necessary skills and design interactive systems that take into account adolescents’ different cognitive approaches. While other studies have focused on adults’ and university students’ behavior, this study examined the adolescents’ behavior. Furthermore, although the previous studies have attempted to investigate just one dimension of the searching process, i.e., either behavior or performance, this study simultaneously focused on both dimensions and examined both searching behavior and performance through keyword searching strategy.

This study seeks to investigate users' virtual reference queries in concert with their search histories to better understand user needs and motivations.

The paper initially examines one semester of data, including both search histories and user questions, from a database platform virtual reference service. These data were used to develop categories of frequently occurring search problems. One year of further data (n=90) is then coded and analyzed with these categories for problems exhibited in search histories and user questions.

It was found that one‐third of users display a misunderstanding of what content they could expect to find in library databases. Users treated the databases examined as a one‐stop shop for their daily information needs. There was a positive correlation between number of databases simultaneously searched and number of searches users performed before seeking help. Additionally, it was found that users recognize when they have problems with search strategy, but they are disproportionally concerned with term selection as the cause of their trouble rather than other problems with search mechanics (i.e. Boolean operators.)

The results of this study illustrate commonalities in users' expectations of what they may search for, find, or do in a database. It shows what tends to lead users to seek help with their searching, exposes how the systems can lead users astray, and illustrates basic misunderstandings of what content can be found in library databases.

This study is the first virtual reference study that examines users' search histories in concert with their reference queries.

Semantic technologies are a potential approach to enhancing the use of the web of knowledge. An experiment was conducted to investigate the roles of two semantic techniques, namely concept recommendation and mind maps, for females and males This paper aims to document this research.

The study compared the searching behaviours and perceptions of searching strategies in the search environment with techniques to reveal the gender difference in the use of semantic technologies. The study further investigated how the techniques influenced female and male students' searching experiences by comparing their searching behaviours and strategies in two different environments, one developed with the semantic technologies and one without.

Although the techniques were helpful for both female and male students in improving their perceptions of searching strategies, there were gender differences in sense of disorientation, problem solving and searching patterns. In particular, the techniques facilitated females to search for information beyond similarity holes, but did not demonstrate such an effect on males. However, they supported males to organize information for better use.

The study is only a small‐scale investigation. Further studies need to be conducted with a larger sample to obtain robust evidence.

In this paper, the effects of semantic technologies are evaluated from the perspectives of education and the human factor, rather than only in terms of technical performance.

At this point in its short history, online information retrieval possesses many of the characteristics of an art. In spite of much that is logical and orderly about it, there are few specific rules of action or well‐defined procedures that are known to apply in all retrieval situations. Except in the simplest of cases, online searching is more uncertain and tentative than this.. It is largely guided by heuristics rather than algorithms.

The need for subject access on OPACs has been widely recognised since their early development in the USA (Markey, 1984; Matthews, 1985b). Many OPACs in UK academic libraries provide subject access to catalogue records, mostly through search strategics such as keyword access or subject headings searches. However, users do find subject searching more difficult than known‐item searching (Markey, 1985; Bagnall and Jeffreys, 1986) so most OPAC systems provide help screens to assist users in their searches.