Search (66 results, page 2 of 4)

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Abstract

Reports a study which examined and assessed the search techniques of trained end-users to determine whether or not they were searching the system affectively. 131 multilingual graduate students at Baruch College, City University of New York searched a full-text system and completed a survey that asked them to evaluate the system and describe their search strategy and techniques. 55% indicated dissatisfaction with their searches. Correlations between native language and searching results and satisfaction are shown. Findings suggest that computer-literate end users with prior experience searching other databases and formal training experience more difficulties than in commonly realized. Discusses the implications for training

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Abstract

This project analyzed 541,920 user queries submitted to and executed in an academic Website during a four-year period (May 1997 to May 2001) using a relational database. The purpose of the study is three-fold: (1) to understand Web users' query behavior; (2) to identify problems encountered by these Web users; (3) to develop appropriate techniques for optimization of query analysis and mining. The linguistic analyses focus an query structures, lexicon, and word associations using statistical measures such as Zipf distribution and mutual information. A data model with finest granularity is used for data storage and iterative analyses. Patterns and trends of querying behavior are identified and compared with previous studies.

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Abstract

In "Part 4. Cognitive Styles in Information Seeking,'' where Ford is the primary author, the results of the application of the Riding's Cognitive Styles Analysis and the Pask's holist/serialist portion of the Ford's Study Process Questionnaire to the 111 U.K. participants. were correlated using Spearman's coefficient with reports of focused thinking, degree of change in the intermediary's perception of the problem and personal knowledge, problem stage, degree of differentiating activity, change in problem perception, engagement in exploring activity, changes in questioning, valuing of serendipitous information, and other variables. The results would indicate that field independent individuals report clearer more focused thinking, see themselves in an earlier problem stage, and report higher levels of change in perception of the problem. Holists value serendipity and report engagement in Kuhlthau's exploring stage. They are seen by intermediaries as exhibiting fewer changes in questioning behavior. A fifth section will appear in a later issue.

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Abstract

User studies provide libraries with invaluable insight into their users' information needs and behaviors, allowing them to develop services that correspond to these needs. This insight has become even more important for libraries since the advent of the Internet. The Internet has brought about a development of information technologies and electronic information sources that have had a great impact on both the ways users search for information and the ways libraries manage information. Although humanists represent an important group of users for academic libraries, research studies into their information-seeking behavior since the advent of the Internet have been quite scarce (Ellis & Oldman, 2005) in the past decade. This study presents updated research on a group of humanists, Jewish studies scholars living in Israel, as information users in the digital age based on two categories: (a) the use of formal and informal information channels, and (b) the use of information technologies and their impact on humanistic research.

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Abstract

Search statements in this revision process can be viewed as a 'move' in the overall search strategy. Very little is known about how end users develop and revise their search strategies. A study was conducted to analyse the moves made in 244 data base searches conducted by 26 medical students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Students search INQUIRER, a data base of facts and concepts in microbiology. The searches were conducted during a 3-week period in spring 1990 and were recorded by the INQUIRER system. Each search statement was categorised, using Fidel's online searching moves (S. Online review 9(1985) S.61-74) and Bates' search tactics (s. JASIS 30(1979) S.205-214). Further analyses indicated that the most common moves were Browse/Specity, Select Exhaust, Intersect, and Vary, and that selection of moves varied by student and by problem. Analysis of search tactics (combinations of moves) identified 5 common search approaches. The results of this study have implcations for future research on search behaviours, for thedesign of system interfaces and data base structures, and for the training of end users

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Abstract

It is common to distinguish sharply between leisure reading undertaken purely for pleasure and utilitarian reading that satisfies what Peter Mann (1969, 53-61) has called `extrinsic' interests: reference materials for work and home such as medical books, cook books and repair manuals. We might suppose that information-seeking is concerned only with utilitarian reading. However, once we adopt a definition of information as something that fills in a gap in understanding or makes a difference to an individual's cognitive structure or helps people with their lives, it follows that we cannot deduce uses simply by looking at the texts themselves. Since meanings are constructed by readers, we must ask the readers about the uses they make of texts in the context of their lives. Findings from a research project focussed on 194 readers who read for pleasure indicate that for a broad understanding of the information behaviour of ordinary people, we need to think beyond reference books to include extended narrative forms, particularly biography, history, and fiction. People who are avid readers for pleasure report that during the course of wide reading they serendipitously encounter information that helps them in their lives

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Abstract

Subject content analysis of Web query terms is essential to understand Web searching interests. Such analysis includes exploring search topics and observing changes in their frequency distributions with time. To provide a basis for in-depth analysis of users' search interests on a larger scale, this article presents a query categorization approach to automatically classifying Web query terms into broad subject categories. Because a query is short in length and simple in structure, its intended subject(s) of search is difficult to judge. Our approach, therefore, combines the search processes of real-world search engines to obtain highly ranked Web documents based on each unknown query term. These documents are used to extract cooccurring terms and to create a feature set. An effective ranking function has also been developed to find the most appropriate categories. Three search engine logs in Taiwan were collected and tested. They contained over 5 million queries from different periods of time. The achieved performance is quite encouraging compared with that of human categorization. The experimental results demonstrate that the approach is efficient in dealing with large numbers of queries and adaptable to the dynamic Web environment. Through good integration of human and machine efforts, the frequency distributions of subject categories in response to changes in users' search interests can be systematically observed in real time. The approach has also shown potential for use in various information retrieval applications, and provides a basis for further Web searching studies.

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Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in relevance assessments, specifically the selection of relevance criteria by subjects as they move through the information search process. Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines the relevance criteria choices of 39 subjects in relation to search stage. Subjects were assigned a specific search task in a controlled test. Statistics were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the chi-square goodness-of-fit tests. Findings - The statistically significant findings identified a number of commonly reported relevance criteria, which varied over an information search process for relevant and partially relevant judgments. These results provide statistical confirmations of previous studies, and extend these findings identifying specific criteria for both relevant and partially relevant judgments. Research limitations/implications - The study only examines a short duration search process and since the convenience sample of subjects were from similar backgrounds and were assigned similar tasks, the study did not explicitly examine the impact of contextual factors such as user experience, background or task in relation to relevance criteria choices. Practical implications - The paper has implications for the development of search systems which are adaptive and recognize the cognitive changes which occur during the information search process. Examining and identifying relevance criteria beyond topicality and the importance of those criteria to a user can help in the generation of better search queries. Originality/value - The paper adds more rigorous statistical analysis to the study of relevance criteria and the information search process.

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Abstract

Meho and Tibbo show that the Ellis model of information seeking applies to a web environment by way of a replication of his study in this case using behavior of social science faculty studying stateless nations, a group diverse in skills, origins, and research specialities. Data were collected by way of e-mail interviews. Material on stateless nations was limited to papers in English on social science topics published between 1998 and 2000. Of these 251 had 212 unique authors identified as academic scholars and had sufficient information to provide e-mail addresses. Of the 139 whose addresses were located, 9 who were physically close were reserved for face to face interviews, and of the remainder 60 agreed to participate and responded to the 25 open ended question interview. Follow up questions generated a 75% response. Of the possible face to face interviews five agreed to participate and provided 26 thousand words as opposed to 69 thousand by the 45 e-mail participants. The activities of the Ellis model are confirmed but four additional activities are also identified. These are accessing, i.e. finding the material identified in indirect sources of information; networking, or the maintaining of close contacts with a wide range of colleagues and other human sources; verifying, i.e. checking the accuracy of new information; and information managing, the filing and organizing of collected information. All activities are grouped into four stages searching, accessing, processing, and ending.

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Abstract

Purpose - A common criticism of research into information seeking on the internet is that information seekers are restricted by the demands of the researcher. Another criticism is that the search topics, are often imposed by the researcher, and; particularly when working with children, domain knowledge could be as important as information-seeking skills. The research reported here attempts to address both these problems. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 15 children, aged 11 to 16, were each set three "think aloud" internet searches. In the first, they were asked to recall the last time they had sought information on the internet, and to repeat the search. For the second, they were given a word, asked to interpret it, then asked to search for their interpretation. For the third, they were asked to recall the last time they had been unsuccessful in a search, and to repeat the search. While performing each task, the children were encouraged to explain their actions. Findings - The paper finds that the factors that determined a child's ability to search successfully appeared to be: the amount of experience the child had of using the internet; the amount of guidance, both from adults and from peers; and the child's ability to explore the virtual environment, and to use the tools available for so doing. Originality/value - Many of the searches performed by participants in this paper were not related to schoolwork, and so some of the search approaches differed from those taught by teachers. Instead, they evolved through exploration and exchange of ideas. Further studies of this sort could provide insights of value to designers of web environments.

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Abstract

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the structure and components of queries written by experimental participants in a study that manipulated two factors found to affect end-user information retrieval performance: training in Boolean logic and the type of search interface. As reported previously, we found that both Boolean training and the use of an assisted interface improved the participants' ability to find correct responses to information requests. Here, we examine the impact of these training and interface manipulations on the Boolean operators and search terms that comprise the submitted queries. Our analysis shows that both Boolean training and the use of an assisted interface improved the participants' ability to correctly utilize various operators. An unexpected finding is that this training also had a positive impact on term selection. The terms and, to a lesser extent, the operators comprising a query were important factors affecting the participants' performance in query tasks. Our findings demonstrate that even small training interventions can improve the users' search performance and highlight the need for additional information retrieval research into how search interfaces can provide superior support to today's untrained users of the Web.

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Abstract

The aim of the work described in this paper is to evaluate the influencing effects of query-biased summaries in web searching. For this purpose, a summarisation system has been developed, and a summary tailored to the user's query is generated automatically for each document retrieved. The system aims to provide both a better means of assessing document relevance than titles or abstracts typical of many web search result lists. Through visiting each result page at retrieval-time, the system provides the user with an idea of the current page content and thus deals with the dynamic nature of the web. To examine the effectiveness of this approach, a task-oriented, comparative evaluation between four different web retrieval systems was performed; two that use query-biased summarisation, and two that use the standard ranked titles/abstracts approach. The results from the evaluation indicate that query-biased summarisation techniques appear to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach. The same methodology was used to compare the effectiveness of two of the web's major search engines; AltaVista and Google.

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Abstract

This article reports the results of a study of the role of individual differences in Internet searching. The dimensions of individual differences forming the focus of the research consisted of: cognitive styles; levels of prior experience; Internet perceptions; study approaches; age; and gender. Sixty-nine Masters students searched for information on a prescribed topic using the AItaVista search engine. Results were assessed using simple binary relevance judgements. Factor analysis and multiple regression revealed interesting differences, retrieval effectiveness being linked to: male gender; low cognitive complexity; an imager (as opposed to verbalizer) cognitive style; and a number of Internet perceptions and study approaches grouped here as indicating low self-efficacy. The implications of these findings for system development and for future research are discussed.

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Abstract

Researchers in the discipline of Higher Education have examined philosophical and psychological literature to develop epistemological development theories and models. They are primarily interested in understanding: "how individuals come to know, the theories and beliefs they hold about knowing, and the manner in which such epistemological premises are a part of and an influence on the cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning" (Hofer & Pintrinch, 1997). I propose to develop a theoretical framework for undergraduates' information seeking behavior based upon the insights into their knowledge construction offered through these models and theories of epistemological development. Epistemology is defined as "the philosophical study of the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge' (Moser, Mulder, & Trout, 1998). I will focus my paper on four major theories and models of undergraduates' epistemological development. I will present a new model of information seeking behavior incorporating these theories and models about how undergraduates construct knowledge and the consequent influence on their information seeking behavior

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Abstract

Given that time is money, Web searching can be a very expensive proposition. Even with the best search technology, the usefulness of search results depends on the searcher's ability to use that technology effectively. In an effort to improve this ability, our research investigates the effects of logic training, interface training, and the type of search interface on the search process. In a study with 145 participants, we found that even limited training in basic Boolean logic improved performance with a simple search interface. Surprisingly, for users of an interface that assisted them in forming syntactically correct Boolean queries, performance was negatively affected by logic training and unaffected by interface training. Use of the assisted interface itself, however, resulted in strong improvements in performance over use of the simple interface. In addition to being useful for search engine providers, these findings are important for all companies that rely heavily on search for critical aspects of their operations, in that they demonstrate simple means by which the search experience can be improved for their employees and customers.

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Abstract

Query reformulation is a key user behavior during Web search. Our research goal is to develop predictive models of query reformulation during Web searching. This article reports results from a study in which we automatically classified the query-reformulation patterns for 964,780 Web searching sessions, composed of 1,523,072 queries, to predict the next query reformulation. We employed an n-gram modeling approach to describe the probability of users transitioning from one query-reformulation state to another to predict their next state. We developed first-, second-, third-, and fourth-order models and evaluated each model for accuracy of prediction, coverage of the dataset, and complexity of the possible pattern set. The results show that Reformulation and Assistance account for approximately 45% of all query reformulations; furthermore, the results demonstrate that the first- and second-order models provide the best predictability, between 28 and 40% overall and higher than 70% for some patterns. Implications are that the n-gram approach can be used for improving searching systems and searching assistance.

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Abstract

In this article, we present an in-home observation and in-context research study investigating how 38 adolescents aged 14-17 search on the Internet. We present the search trends adolescents display and develop a framework of search roles that these trends help define. We compare these trends and roles to similar trends and roles found in prior work with children ages 7, 9, and 11. We use these comparisons to make recommendations to adult stakeholders such as researchers, designers, and information literacy educators about the best ways to design search tools for children and adolescents, as well as how to use the framework of searching roles to find better methods of educating youth searchers. Major findings include the seven roles of adolescent searchers, and evidence that adolescents are social in their computer use, have a greater knowledge of sources than younger children, and that adolescents are less frustrated by searching tasks than younger children.

Type

a

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Abstract

Reports on a study which found that an individual's search process and strategies are related to the nature of subsequent choices. Individuals who searched little information were more likely to choose risky, money loosing options. the findings, which demonstrate consistency between search and choice, indicate that different parts of the decision making process are coherent

Type

a

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Abstract

We report on a study that was undertaken to better understand search and navigation behavior by exploiting the close association between the process underlying users' query submission and the navigational trails emanating from query clickthroughs. To our knowledge, there has been little research towards bridging the gap between these two important processes pertaining to users' online information searching activity. Based an log data obtained from a search and navigation documentation system called AutoDoc, we propose a model of user search sessions and provide analysis an users' link or clickthrough selection behavior, reformulation activities, and search strategy patterns. We also conducted a simple user study to gauge users' perceptions of their information seeking activity when interacting with the system. The results obtained show that analyzing both the query submissions and navigation starting from query clickthrough, reveals much more interesting patterns than analyzing these two processes independently. On average, AutoDoc users submitted only one query per search session and entered approximately two query terms. Specifically, our results show how AutoDoc users are more inclined to submit new queries or resubmit modified queries than to navigate by linkfollowing. We also show that users' behavior within this search system can be approximated by Zipf's Law distribution.

Type

a

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Abstract

Thirty-one patrons, who were selected by Slone to provide a range of age and experience, agreed when approached while using the catalog of the Wake County library system to try searching via the Internet. Fifteen searched the Wake County online catalog in this manner and 16 searched the World Wide Web, including that catalog. They were subjected to brief pre-structured taped interviews before and after their searches and observed during the searching process resulting in a log of behaviors, comments, pages accessed, and time spent. Data were analyzed across participants and categories. Web searches were characterized as linking, URL, search engine, within a site domain, and searching a web catalog; and participants by the number of these techniques used. Four used only one, 13 used two, 11 used three, two used four, and one all five. Participant experience was characterized as never used, used search engines, browsing experience, email experience, URL experience, catalog experience, and finally chat room/newsgroup experience. Sixteen percent of the participants had never used the Internet, 71% had used search engines, 65% had browsed, 58% had used email, 39% had used URLs, 39% had used online catalogs, and 32% had used chat rooms. The catalog was normally consulted before the web, where both were used, and experience with an online catalog assists in web use. Scrolling was found to be unpopular and practiced halfheartedly.

Type

a