Measuring Search Engine Quality

The effectiveness of twenty public search engines is evaluated using TREC-inspired methods and a set of 54 queries taken from real Web search logs. The World Wide Web is taken as the test collection and a combination of crawler and text retrieval system is evaluated. The engines are compared on a range of measures derivable from binary relevance judgments of the first seven live results returned. Statistical testing reveals a significant difference between engines and high intercorrelations between measures. Surprisingly, given the dynamic nature of the Web and the time elapsed, there is also a high correlation between results of this study and a previous study by Gordon and Pathak. For nearly all engines, there is a gradual decline in precision at increasing cutoff after some initial fluctuation. Performance of the engines as a group is found to be inferior to the group of participants in the TREC-8 Large Web task, although the best engines approach the median of those systems. Shortcomings of current Web search evaluation methodology are identified and recommendations are made for future improvements. In particular, the present study and its predecessors deal with queries which are assumed to derive from a need to find a selection of documents relevant to a topic. By contrast, real Web search reflects a range of other information need types which require different judging and different measures.     

Reprographic rights in Singapore: the story of CLASS

The Copyright Licensing and Administration Society of Singapore was established in 1999. It is now profitable and commercially significant, perhaps uniquely so in Asia. Critical factors in its growth have included a statutory (non‐voluntary) photocopying licence provision for educational institutions in the Copyright Act; and widespread support from the local and international communities of rightsholders. Tentative consensus has been established with educators over a fair level of remuneration for copying. Further work needs to be done to extend or amend the current model for electronic copying, for the private sector and for other countries in the region.     

OPINION RESEARCH, LIBERALISM AND THE FRENCH RIGHT

During the rewriting of its program in the early 1980s, theRassemblement pour la République (RPR) carried out anumber of opinion surveys. The person in charge of this wasnot a member of the inner leadership circle; he warned the partyleader, Jacques Chirac, that themes forming a coherent ‘liberal’program for the transformation of the relationship between citizens,state, and the economy, were not popular with public opinion,which remained attached to progressive taxation and a comprehensivesocial welfare system. The party leadership ignored these warnings.Rather than attempting to align their policies with voter aspirations,their principal use of political communications techniques aimedat improving their leader's image. The person in charge of thiswork was a stranger to politics whose understanding of the waycultural or political attitudes are changed led him to interpretvery fatalistically the chances of influencing election outcomesby communications techniques. His methods were treated withfrank skepticism by party communications colleagues, his client'spersonality was particularly unamenable to his efforts, andhis one successful initiative—the rejuvenation of theexecutive committee—was operated at the cost of a rowin the party. In the case of the RPR, opinion research seemsto have played no role at all in an important party policy review,the causes of which should be sought elsewhere.     

"交通规划"课程思政教学改革探索与实践

随着建设交通强国的政策性、引领性文件相继出台,培育高素质、有担当、对党忠诚、对人民负责的交通科技人才,弘扬劳模精神和工匠精神,是交通领域人才培养的时代要求。以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导,充分利用交通发展历程中的人、事、物,交通工程专业本身的职业特点和使命担当,交通发展进程中的国家战略和行业需求及发展态势,通过价值引领与知识传授相结合,培育和引领交通工程专业学生的理想信念、政治信仰、价值取向、社会责任,全方位提高学生的能力和素质,是交通工程专业人才培养的新要求。交通规划课程具备国家层面、精神层面、个人素养、科学观和方法论等各个层面的德育元素和价值引领,进行交通规划课程思政教学改革和实践探索,有利于培养具有新时代特征的交通工程专业德育人才。     

新兴的数字化革命:打造图书馆员的领导力

香港大学图书馆领导研修班是为现任和未来图书馆领导而设的密集式培训班,预计参加者主要为现任或未来的馆长或助理馆长.研修班将采用英语作为主要讲授语言另辅以部分中文翻译,采取让学员透过一系列主题讲学、个案研究、小组活动及互动讨论的方式向其它馆员和资讯业专家学习.