Sample Sizes and Composition: Their Effect on Recall and Precision in IR Experiments with OPACs

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how samples of records for laboratory IR experiments on OPACs can be constructed so that results obtained from different experiments can be compared. The literature on laboratory IR experiments seems to indicate that the retrieval effectiveness (recall and precision) is affected by the way the samples of records for such experiments are generated. Especially the amount of records and the subject area coverage of the records seems to affect the retrieval effectiveness. This article contains suggestions for the construction of samples for laboratory IR experiments on OPACs and demonstrates that the retrieval effectiveness is affected by different sample size and composition.