Search (166 results, page 1 of 9)

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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

Search index usage in a large university online catalog system over a six-year period (representing about 15,3 million searches) was investigated using transaction monitor data. Mathematical models of trends and patterns in the data were developed and tested using regression techniques. The results of the analyses show a consistent decline in the frequency of subject index use by online catalog users, with a corresponding increase in the frequency of title keyword searching. Significant annual patterns in index usage were also identified. Analysis of the transaction data, and related previous studies of online catalog users, suggest a number of factors contributing to the decline in subject search frequency. Chief among these factors are user difficulties in formulating subject queries with LCSH, leading to search failure, and the problem of "information overload" as database size increases. This article presents the models and results of the transaction log analysis, discusses the underlying problems with subject searching contributing to the observed decline, and reviews some proposed improvements to online catalog systems to aid in overcoming these problems

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Abstract

Major Web search engines, such as AItaVista, are essential tools in the quest to locate online information. This article reports research that used transaction log analysis to examine the characteristics and changes in AItaVista Web searching that occurred from 1998 to 2002. The research questions we examined are (1) What are the changes in AItaVista Web searching from 1998 to 2002? (2) What are the current characteristics of AItaVista searching, including the duration and frequency of search sessions? (3) What changes in the information needs of AItaVista users occurred between 1998 and 2002? The results of our research show (1) a move toward more interactivity with increases in session and query length, (2) with 70% of session durations at 5 minutes or less, the frequency of interaction is increasing, but it is happening very quickly, and (3) a broadening range of Web searchers' information needs, with the most frequent terms accounting for less than 1% of total term usage. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of Web search engines.

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Abstract

Recreational reading among young people is reportedly on the decline in the United States. Some researchers have suggested that supporting children's strategies for book selection is crucial to encouraging children to engage with books, indicating that improving these strategies might increase the amount of reading they do. In response, this study explores how elementary-school children select books for recreational reading using a digital library. The work extends traditional models of relevance assessment with reader-response theory, employing the concept of aesthetic relevance: the potential of a document to provide a suitable reading experience. Individuals define aesthetic relevance in personal terms and apply it as they assess documents, much as they do in traditional relevance assessment. This study identified a total of 46 factors organized along seven dimensions that influence children's assessment of the aesthetic relevance of books during selection. The analysis yielded differences in the prevalence of the aesthetic-relevance factors that children mention at various stages of book selection. In addition, the children exhibited differences by age and subtle differences by gender in the frequency of mention of various aesthetic-relevance factors. Recommendations drawn from the findings are offered to improve systems design and literacy education in order to enhance children's access to books and to promote recreational reading.

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Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that queries to information retrieval systems will yield more relevant results if they contain multiple topic-related terms and use Boolean and phrase operators to enhance interpretation. Although studies have shown that the users of Web-based search engines typically enter short, term-based queries and rarely use search operators, little information exists concerning the effects of term and operator usage on the relevancy of search results. In this study, search engine users formulated queries on eight search topics. Each query was submitted to the user-specified search engine, and relevancy ratings for the retrieved pages were assigned. Expert-formulated queries were also submitted and provided a basis for comparing relevancy ratings across search engines. Data analysis based on our research model of the term and operator factors affecting relevancy was then conducted. The results show that the difference in the number of terms between expert and nonexpert searches, the percentage of matching terms between those searches, and the erroneous use of nonsupported operators in nonexpert searches explain most of the variation in the relevancy of search results. These findings highlight the need for designing search engine interfaces that provide greater support in the areas of term selection and operator usage

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Abstract

Queries submitted to the Excite search engine were analyzed for subject content based on the cooccurrence of terms within multiterm queries. More than 1000 of the most frequently cooccurring term pairs were categorized into one or more of 30 developed subject areas. Subject area frequencies and their cooccurrences with one another were tallied and analyzed using hierarchical cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. The cluster analyses revealed several anticipated and a few unanticipated groupings of subjects, resulting in several well-defined high-level clusters of broad subject areas. Multidimensional scaling of subject cooccurrences revealed similar relationships among the different subject categories. Applications that arise from a better understanding of the topics users search and their relationships are discussed

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Abstract

This article focuses on the relevance judgments made by health information users who use the Web. Health information users were conceptualized as motivated information users concerned about how an environmental issue affects their health. Users identified their own environmental health interests and conducted a Web search of a particular environmental health Web site. Users were asked to identify (by highlighting with a mouse) the criteria they use to assess relevance in both Web search engine surrogates and full-text Web documents. Content analysis of document criteria highlighted by users identified the criteria these users relied on most often. Key criteria identified included (in order of frequency of appearance) research, topic, scope, data, influence, affiliation, Web characteristics, and authority/ person. A power-law distribution of criteria was observed (a few criteria represented most of the highlighted regions, with a long tail of occasionally used criteria). Implications of this work are that information retrieval (IR) systems should be tailored in terms of users' tendencies to rely on certain document criteria, and that relevance research should combine methods to gather richer, contextualized data. Metadata for IR systems, such as that used in search engine surrogates, could be improved by taking into account actual usage of relevance criteria. Such metadata should be user-centered (based on data from users, as in this study) and contextappropriate (fit to users' situations and tasks).

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Abstract

The study reported here investigated the query expansion behavior of end-users interacting with a thesaurus-enhanced search system on the Web. Two groups, namely academic staff and postgraduate students, were recruited into this study. Data were collected from 90 searches performed by 30 users using the OVID interface to the CAB abstracts database. Data-gathering techniques included questionnaires, screen capturing software, and interviews. The results presented here relate to issues of search-topic and search-term characteristics, number and types of expanded queries, usefulness of thesaurus terms, and behavioral differences between academic staff and postgraduate students in their interaction. The key conclusions drawn were that (a) academic staff chose more narrow and synonymous terms than did postgraduate students, who generally selected broader and related terms; (b) topic complexity affected users' interaction with the thesaurus in that complex topics required more query expansion and search term selection; (c) users' prior topic-search experience appeared to have a significant effect on their selection and evaluation of thesaurus terms; (d) in 50% of the searches where additional terms were suggested from the thesaurus, users stated that they had not been aware of the terms at the beginning of the search; this observation was particularly noticeable in the case of postgraduate students.

Date

22. 7.2006 16:32:43

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Abstract

I started my professional career in library and information science because of my great interest in knowledge organization. The more experience I gained in the profession, the more I realized how crucial it is to understand which organization would be best for each group of users. This in turn requires an understanding of how users seek information. And so now my focus is an studying information seeking and searching behavior. Throughout the relatively long course of changing my focus, I followed Pauline Cochrane's writings. Now I can say that she has been among the first to have a "user-centered approach" to knowledge organization, and she has used the term three years before it became a mainstream phrase. The following is a short discussion about the usercentered approach which was presented in a workshop in 1997.

Date

22. 9.1997 19:16:05

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Abstract

The emergence of information portal systems in the past few years has led to a greatly enhanced Web-based environment for users seeking information online. While considerable research has been conducted an user information-seeking behavior in regular IR environments over the past decade, this paper focuses specifically an how users in a medical science and clinical setting carry out their daily information seeking through a customizable information portal system (MyWelch). We describe our initial study an analyzing Web usage data from MyWelch to see whether the results conform to the features and patterns established in current information-seeking models, present several observations regarding user information-seeking behavior in a portal environment, outline possible long-term user information-seeking patterns based an usage data, and discuss the direction of future research an user information-seeking behavior in the MyWelch portal environment.

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Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative study exploring: (1) strategies and behaviors of public library users during interaction with an OPAC; and (2) users' confidence in finding needed information on-line. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were employed to gather data from 32 public library users. the results found search behaviors, confidence, and other feelings varied, based on 3 types of searches: unknown-item searches; area searches; and known-item searches. Term generation was the most important factor in unknown-item search strategies. Speed and convenience palyed a role in area searches, and simplicity characterized known-item searches. Of the 3 types, unknown-item searchers experienced the most frustration and doubt; known-item searchers the most disappointment; and area searchers the most confidence and contentment. Knowledge of these differences may prove helpful for librarians and interface designers

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Abstract

The Web provides a massive knowledge source, as do intranets and other electronic document collections. However, much of that knowledge is encoded implicitly and cannot be applied directly without processing into some more appropriate structures. Searching, browsing, question answering, for example, could all benefit from domain-specific knowledge contained in the documents, and in applications such as simple search we do not actually need very "deep" knowledge structures such as ontologies, but we can get a long way with a model of the domain that consists of term hierarchies. We combine domain knowledge automatically acquired by exploiting the documents' markup structure with knowledge extracted an the fly to assist a user with ad hoc search requests. Such a search system can suggest query modification options derived from the actual data and thus guide a user through the space of documents. This article gives a detailed account of a task-based evaluation that compares a search system that uses the outlined domain knowledge with a standard search system. We found that users do use the query modification suggestions proposed by the system. The main conclusion we can draw from this evaluation, however, is that users prefer a system that can suggest query modifications over a standard search engine, which simply presents a ranked list of documents. Most interestingly, we observe this user preference despite the fact that the baseline system even performs slightly better under certain criteria.

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Abstract

Reports on a study, conducted at Maryland Univ., of end users of MEDLINE using PaperChase, a user friendly, menu driven software package, designed to be used with little or no training. Transaction logs. Transaction logs were examined to identify the types and frequency of apparent searching errors made by end users. The study is an extension of a previous study conducted at Michigan Univ. Results indicate that, despite the PaperChase system prompts that attempt to guide users to proper terminology, potentially costly errors are being made. Of particular concern are the misuses and failure to use the controlled vocabulary. Results suggest that a measure of end user training may be advisable

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Abstract

This article reprots the findings of an experiment employing a simulated scholarly use of an OPAC to determine the frequency of one-screen displays when a scholar searches for a known-item with so-called 'keywords' in an implied boolean system. The experiment revealed that a 'keyword' search formula comprising surname plus first and last title words produced a single screen 92.8% of the time, thereby reducing the failure of traditional title searching to produce single screens by nearly one half; such a formula also enables a scholar to search successfully with abbreviated, unsearchable bibliographic citations. Additional research should be carried out, for if it is further demonstrated that replacing traditional bibliographic catalog entries with transcribed title pages provides an improved known-item OPAC, users would benefit and libraries would enjoy huge savings

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Abstract

Reports an empirical study at the Queriniana Civic Library, Brescia, of interaction betwee researchers and printed catalogues during bibliographic data retrieval. The study sought to ascertain frequency of catalogue use; research success rate and time taken; and to identify user profiles. Data were obtained by a mixture of questionnaires, interviews and direct observation. Findings showed that 64% of the catalogue users were female; 70% were aged 19-30; 65% were university students or had good school grades; and hardly any were working class. University students preferred keyword access. 50% or all searches were successful. Most search failures related to subject catalogues, which usually required more time. Provides statistics on time spent in research

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Abstract

Reports results of a study that examined factors influencing the adoption and use of electronic networks by science and engineering faculty in 6 small universities in the southerneaster USA. Part of the study gathered data on the purpose, type, and extent of electronic communications. Data were gathered by mail questionnaire and by follow up site visits. Reports on 5 types of network use, electronic mail, electronic discussion groups, accessing remote databases, accessing remote computer facilities, and file transfer. For each service, data are reported for frequency of use by purpose: research, teaching administration, social and current awareness. Outlines preliminary use indicators for each service in terms of heavy and moderate use

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Abstract

Reports results of a questionnaire survey, conducted at Ilorin University Library, Nigeria, to investigate the patterns of student use, of the library's OPAC in the 4 reading rooms of the main library and their attitudes towards it. The questions focused on: frequency of use of the card catalogue; users' feelings about using the OPAC; effectiveness of the OPAC in retrieving relevant items; number of available terminals; training methods; and major inhibitors to OPAC use. 50 questionnaires were administered and 47 (94%) were returned. The study was designed to yield primarily descriptive results since there was very little baseline data with which to compare responses

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Abstract

Focuses on how satisfied Australian academics are when they use the Internet to search for information. Results validated magnitude estimates of user satisfaction with information seeking on the Internet. Testing the validity and reliability magnitude estimation as a technique for gathering and analysing interval data on satisfaction with information seeking was key to the investigation. Data for user satisfaction were then associated with end user characteristics like training, frequency of use and expectation of success. They have a high expectation of success when they engage in information seeking on the Internet and are satisfied with the process regardless of how frequently they use the network or whether or not they have formal training

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Abstract

Usability of Web sites has become an increasingly important area of research as Web sites proliferate and problems with use are noted. Generally, aspects of Web sites that have been investigated focus on such areas as overall design and navigation. The exploratory study reported on here investigates one specific component of a Web site-the index structure. By employing index usability metrics developed by Liddy and Jörgensen (1993; Jörgensen & Liddy, 1996) and modified to accommodate a hypertext environment, the study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of 20 subjects who used one existing index (the A-Z index on the FedStats Web site at http://www.fedstats.gov) and three experimental variants to complete five researcher-generated tasks. User satisfaction with the indexes was also evaluated. The findings indicate that a hypertext index with multiple access points for each concept, all linked to the same resource, led to greater effectiveness and efficiency of retrieval on almost all measures. Satisfaction measures were more variable. The study offers insight into potential improvements in the design of Web-based indexes and provides preliminary assessment of the validity of the measures employed