Open-domain conversational search assistants: the Transformer is all you need

Information Retrieval Journal - On the quest of providing a more natural interaction between users and search systems, open-domain conversational search assistants have emerged, by assisting users...     

Evaluating the effectiveness of relevance feedback based on a user simulation model: effects of a user scenario on cumulated gain value

We propose a method for performing evaluation of relevance feedback based on simulating real users. The user simulation applies a model defining the user’s relevance threshold to accept individual documents as feedback in a graded relevance environment; user’s patience to browse the initial list of retrieved documents; and his/her effort in providing the feedback. We evaluate the result by using cumulated gain-based evaluation together with freezing all documents seen by the user in order to simulate the point of view of a user who is browsing the documents during the retrieval process. We demonstrate the method by performing a simulation in the laboratory setting and present the “branching” curve sets characteristic for the presented evaluation method. Both the average and topic-by-topic results indicate that if the freezing approach is adopted, giving feedback of mixed quality makes sense for various usage scenarios even though the modeled users prefer finding especially the most relevant documents.     

Enhancing web search in the medical domain via query clarification

The majority of Internet users search for medical information online; however, many do not have an adequate medical vocabulary. Users might have difficulties finding the most authoritative and useful information because they are unfamiliar with the appropriate medical expressions describing their condition; consequently, they are unable to adequately satisfy their information need. We investigate the utility of bridging the gap between layperson and expert vocabularies; our approach adds the most appropriate expert expression to queries submitted by users, a task we call query clarification. We evaluated the impact of query clarification. Using three different synonym mappings and conducting two task-based retrieval studies, users were asked to answer medically-related questions using interleaved results from a major search engine. Our results show that the proposed system was preferred by users and helped them answer medical concerns correctly more often, with up to a 7 % increase in correct answers over an unmodified query. Finally, we introduce a supervised classifier to select the most appropriate synonym mapping for each query, which further increased the fraction of correct answers (12 %).     

Topic-independent modeling of user knowledge in informational search sessions

Information Retrieval Journal - Web search is among the most frequent online activities. In this context, widespread informational queries entail user intentions to obtain knowledge with respect to...     

The role of trust in e-Government effectiveness,operational effectiveness and user satisfaction: Lessons from Saudi Arabia in e-G2B

Electronic government (e-Government) systems are becoming an essential strategic tool in the delivery of e-Government-to-Business services (e-G2B). The purpose of this research is to explore direct and indirect effects of trust in online services on the satisfaction of the e-Government service users and other perceptions such as e-G2B system effectiveness and the operational effectiveness of organizations. Based on a sample of e-G2B service users from Saudi Arabia, our preliminary findings suggest that the effects of trust on user satisfaction are mediated by e-G2B system effectiveness measures (e.g., System Quality, Service Quality, and Information Quality) and by operational effectiveness. In addition, we find that operational effectiveness and information quality are the most important drivers of user satisfaction. In contrast to previous research, our results show a negative relationship between trust in online services and service quality and suggest that this finding may have important implications for theory and practice.     

End user searching: A Web log analysis of NAVER,a Korean Web search engine

Transaction logs of NAVER, a major Korean Web search engine, were analyzed to track the information-seeking behavior of Korean Web users. These transaction logs include more than 40 million queries collected over 1 week. This study examines current transaction log analysis methodologies and proposes a method for log cleaning, session definition, and query classification. A term definition method which is necessary for Korean transaction log analysis is also discussed. The results of this study show that users behave in a simple way: they type in short queries with a few query terms, seldom use advanced features, and view few results' pages. Users also behave in a passive way: they seldom change search environments set by the system. It is of interest that users tend to change their queries totally rather than adding or deleting terms to modify the previous queries. The results of this study might contribute to the development of more efficient and effective Web search engines and services.     

Using the clinical question to teach search strategy: fostering transferable conceptual skills in user education by active learning

相似文献   

Patient-based benefit-risk assessment of medicines: development,refinement, and validation of a content search strategy to retrieve relevant studies

Introduction:Poor indexing and inconsistent use of terms and keywords may prevent efficient retrieval of studies on the patient-based benefit-risk assessment (BRA) of medicines. We aimed to develop and validate an objectively derived content search strategy containing generic search terms that can be adapted for any search for evidence on patient-based BRA of medicines for any therapeutic area.Methods:We used a robust multistep process to develop and validate the content search strategy: (1) we developed a bank of search terms derived from screening studies on patient-based BRA of medicines in various therapeutic areas, (2) we refined the proposed content search strategy through an iterative process of testing sensitivity and precision of search terms, and (3) we validated the final search strategy in PubMed by firstly using multiple sclerosis as a case condition and secondly computing its relative performance versus a published systematic review on patient-based BRA of medicines in rheumatoid arthritis.Results:We conceptualized a final search strategy to retrieve studies on patient-based BRA containing generic search terms grouped into two domains, namely the patient and the BRA of medicines (sensitivity 84%, specificity 99.4%, precision 20.7%). The relative performance of the content search strategy was 85.7% compared with a search from a published systematic review of patient preferences in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. We also developed a more extended filter, with a relative performance of 93.3% when compared with a search from a published systematic review of patient preferences in lung cancer.     

Exploring user experience in digital libraries through questionnaire and eye-tracking data

In the field of digital libraries, research on user experience is sparse, especially in terms of emotions, impressions, and stimulation evoked by interaction with the digital library. Given the many different methods and tools available for assessing user experience, two questionnaires and eye-tracking were explored to see how each can contribute to understanding user experience in digital libraries. An eye-tracking study with 30 participants was carried out using two digital libraries. Analysis of the questionnaires revealed that overall, one digital library was experienced more positively, with the difference most evident in the hedonic quality. The eye-tracking data revealed different gaze patterns in the two digital libraries, with significant difference in measure values particularly on the search boxes. When eye-tracking was combined with the questionnaire data, several correlations were found, indicating that the search box position and the intuitiveness of the homepage had an impact on the user experience.     

Retrieval quality vs. effectiveness of specificity-oriented search in XML collections

Content-only queries in hierarchically structured documents should retrieve the most specific document nodes which are exhaustive to the information need. For this problem, we investigate two methods of augmentation, which both yield high retrieval quality. As retrieval effectiveness, we consider the ratio of retrieval quality and response time; thus, fast approximations to the 'correct' retrieval result may yield higher effectiveness. We present a classification scheme for algorithms addressing this issue, and adopt known algorithms from standard document retrieval for XML retrieval. As a new strategy, we propose incremental-interruptible retrieval, which allows for instant presentation of the top ranking documents. We develop a new algorithm implementing this strategy and evaluate the different methods with the INEX collection.     

A pilot survey of user satisfaction with the online search service in South West Thames Regional libraries

相似文献   

网络信息资源检索策略与方法

国内外众多网站都开辟了有关于检索策略与方法的专栏，本汇集一些具有代表性的网站，以使网络用户系统地学习到网络信息检索方法和技巧。     

ERIC user services: Changes and evaluation for the future

Presents findings on the state of ERIC user services and evaluation efforts performed so far. Recommends changes to strengthen ERIC’s competitive edge and identifies areas of user services critical to ERIC’s strategic goals. Offers an evaluation plan to produce benchmark data for future assessment and inform ERIC’s decision on its future direction.