A study of the use of simulated work task situations in interactive information retrieval evaluations

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pia Borlund
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Work Task ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Information Retrieval ◽  
Test Instrument ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report a study of how the test instrument of a simulated work task situation is used in empirical evaluations of interactive information retrieval (IIR) and reported in the research literature. In particular, the author is interested to learn whether the requirements of how to employ simulated work task situations are followed, and whether these requirements call for further highlighting and refinement. Design/methodology/approach – In order to study how simulated work task situations are used, the research literature in question is identified. This is done partly via citation analysis by use of Web of Science®, and partly by systematic search of online repositories. On this basis, 67 individual publications were identified and they constitute the sample of analysis. Findings – The analysis reveals a need for clarifications of how to use simulated work task situations in IIR evaluations. In particular, with respect to the design and creation of realistic simulated work task situations. There is a lack of tailoring of the simulated work task situations to the test participants. Likewise, the requirement to include the test participants’ personal information needs is neglected. Further, there is a need to add and emphasise a requirement to depict the used simulated work task situations when reporting the IIR studies. Research limitations/implications – Insight about the use of simulated work task situations has implications for test design of IIR studies and hence the knowledge base generated on the basis of such studies. Originality/value – Simulated work task situations are widely used in IIR studies, and the present study is the first comprehensive study of the intended and unintended use of this test instrument since its introduction in the late 1990’s. The paper addresses the need to carefully design and tailor simulated work task situations to suit the test participants in order to obtain the intended authentic and realistic IIR under study.

Gender, knowledge and motivation for wine purchasing

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Peixeira Marques ◽  
Ana Teresa Bernardo Guia
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Gender Effects ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Alternative Formulation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Subjective Knowledge

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to verify if the gender effects described in the wine consumer behaviour literature, namely, concerning information search and the motivations to buy, may be explained by the mediating effect of subjective knowledge, taking into consideration that the importance of knowledge in the decision process is gender specific. Design/methodology/approach A path analysis was modelled with an exogenous variable (gender), a mediating variable (subjective knowledge) and four dependent variables (need for information and three motivational dimensions). The model was assessed with empirical data obtained from a sample of 523 shoppers in large supermarkets in the areas of Lisbon and Oporto, Portugal. Structured interviews were conducted at checkout, collecting information on the relevant variables. Scales measuring the latent variables (knowledge, information and motivation) were previously validated through confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 217 wine consumers. Findings Subjective knowledge fully mediates the effects of gender on motivation and information needs. Men think of themselves as more knowledgeable in wines and the mediation effect explains why, compared to women, they use less personal information sources and are more motivated to purchase wine. Practical implications The authors suggest promotion programmes in large supermarkets focussing on opportunities for wine knowledge development. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature by introducing and validating an alternative formulation of gender effects on wine shopping, emphasising the role of the purchaser’s perceived or subjective knowledge.

A study of user profile representation for personalized cross-language information retrieval

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Zhou ◽  
Séamus Lawless ◽  
Xuan Wu ◽  
Wenyu Zhao ◽  
Jianxun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Query Expansion ◽  
User Profile ◽  
User Profiles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Cross Language Information Retrieval ◽  
Cross Lingual ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Representation Techniques ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Purpose – With an increase in the amount of multilingual content on the World Wide Web, users are often striving to access information provided in a language of which they are non-native speakers. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive study of user profile representation techniques and investigate their use in personalized cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) systems through the means of personalized query expansion. Design/methodology/approach – The user profiles consist of weighted terms computed by using frequency-based methods such as tf-idf and BM25, as well as various latent semantic models trained on monolingual documents and cross-lingual comparable documents. This paper also proposes an automatic evaluation method for comparing various user profile generation techniques and query expansion methods. Findings – Experimental results suggest that latent semantic-weighted user profile representation techniques are superior to frequency-based methods, and are particularly suitable for users with a sufficient amount of historical data. The study also confirmed that user profiles represented by latent semantic models trained on a cross-lingual level gained better performance than the models trained on a monolingual level. Originality/value – Previous studies on personalized information retrieval systems have primarily investigated user profiles and personalization strategies on a monolingual level. The effect of utilizing such monolingual profiles for personalized CLIR remains unclear. The current study fills the gap by a comprehensive study of user profile representation for personalized CLIR and a novel personalized CLIR evaluation methodology to ensure repeatable and controlled experiments can be conducted.

Show you the money – firms investing in worker safety have better financial performance: insights from a mapping review

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saymon Ricardo de Oliveira Sousa ◽  
Cristiane Melchior ◽  
Wesley Vieira Da Silva ◽  
Roselaine Ruviaro Zanini ◽  
Zhaohui Su ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Performance ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Safety Measures ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mapping Review ◽  
Overall Performance

PurposeThis study aims to (1) investigate the association between companies' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance and (2) discuss the importance of occupational safety to overall performance.Design/methodology/approachOccupational safety is often considered to be a practice that can yield suboptimal return on investment. However, it is not known whether this belief is substantiated by evidence. A mapping review of the eligible research literature (N = 36) regarding firms' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance, published between 1945 and2018, was carried out in the Web of Science database.FindingsBy dispelling myths regarding return on investment associated with occupational safety, the findings of this study underscore financial gains firms can obtain by promoting occupational safety measures in their organizations.Originality/valueThese issues are important because they can help policymakers understand the pressures companies face in terms of occupational safety and financial performance sustainability.

Exploring multiple diversification strategies for academic citation contexts recommendation

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-842
Author(s):  
Haihua Chen ◽  
Yunhan Yang ◽  
Wei Lu ◽  
Jiangping Chen
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Semantic Distance ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
User Interests ◽  
Information Retrieval Evaluation ◽  
Diversification Strategies ◽  
Citation Contexts

Purpose Citation contexts have been found useful in many scenarios. However, existing context-based recommendations ignored the importance of diversity in reducing the redundant issues and thus cannot cover the broad range of user interests. To address this gap, the paper aims to propose a novelty task that can recommend a set of diverse citation contexts extracted from a list of citing articles. This will assist users in understanding how other scholars have cited an article and deciding which articles they should cite in their own writing. Design/methodology/approach This research combines three semantic distance algorithms and three diversification re-ranking algorithms for the diversifying recommendation based on the CiteSeerX data set and then evaluates the generated citation context lists by applying a user case study on 30 articles. Findings Results show that a diversification strategy that combined “word2vec” and “Integer Linear Programming” leads to better reading experience for participants than other diversification strategies, such as CiteSeerX using a list sorted by citation counts. Practical implications This diversifying recommendation task is valuable for developing better systems in information retrieval, automatic academic recommendations and summarization. Originality/value The originality of the research lies in the proposal of a novelty task that can recommend a diversification context list describing how other scholars cited an article, thereby making citing decisions easier. A novel mixed approach is explored to generate the most efficient diversifying strategy. Besides, rather than traditional information retrieval evaluation, a user evaluation framework is introduced to reflect user information needs more objectively.

The quality of the metacommunication of the interface and search system of the CAPES Portal of e-Journals

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-409
Author(s):  
Gracielle Mendonça Rodrigues Gomes ◽  
Beatriz Valadares Cendon
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Search System ◽  
Inspection Method ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Information Retrieval Systems

Purpose The study aims to propose the use of the semiotics inspection method (SIM) which is an interpretative and qualitative method from semiotics engineering (SE) for the evaluation of the communicability of systems and to evaluate digital libraries and information retrieval systems (IRS). The paper presents the results of the application of this method in the evaluation of the quality of the communicability of the interface and search system of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Portal of e-Journals, a major scientific digital library in Brazil. There are proposed solutions to improve this system included. Design/methodology/approach The study used the SIM to evaluate the system. Two evaluators inspected the system. They performed the comparison and the analysis of three types of metamessages (metalinguistic, static and dynamic). The metamessages generated by the evaluators were contrasted to find inconsistencies and ambiguities in the CAPES Portal of e-Journals. Finally, the last step of the method was the final assessment about the inspection. Findings The evaluators identified 52 problems of communicability. These problems were ranked according to severity ratings established by Nielsen (1994). They were grouped in ten types of problems present in the interface and in the search system of the CAPES Portal of e-Journals. Originality value This research contributes theoretically to the field of information retrieval and to the area of human–computer interaction and, in particular, to the theory of SE by adapting SE methods that allow the evaluation of communicability to the context of the scientific IRS. Results obtained through scientific methods should contribute to development of the interface and search tools of IRS to better support query formulation and retrieval of relevant information and more efficiently satisfy the information needs of individuals.

scholarly journals Australian motor sport enthusiasts’ leisure information behaviour

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (6) ◽  
pp. 1078-1113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Information Management ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Motor Sport ◽  
Information Behaviour

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts, examining: their information needs; their information seeking and sharing; what personal information they had; and their satisfaction with their information seeking and personal information management efforts. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory study examined participants’ information behaviour from a postpositivist and inductive research approach. An online survey was completed by 81 motor sport enthusiasts. The quantitative survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, whilst the qualitative data were analysed using thematic coding. Findings The research findings highlighted that enthusiasts engaged in mixed serious leisure. They required information before, during and after race events, and sought this primarily from online sources, as well as from other individuals. Totally, 90 participants shared information about their interest in motor sport with family, friends and fellow enthusiasts, primarily via e-mails (69 per cent) and Facebook (49 per cent). They also gathered information about motor sport, including photographs and memorabilia. Participants were satisfied with their information management strategies for their personal collections. Research limitations/implications Participants were limited to motor sport enthusiasts in Australia, hence findings cannot be generalised more broadly. Practical implications Understandings of enthusiasts’ information behaviour provide information management professionals with insights to work with this user community. Originality/value This study fills a gap in the literature about leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts in Australia. It identifies and provides a typology of the 12 categories of information needed by enthusiasts. Provides a preliminary motor sport information behaviour model guided by the conceptual frameworks of the everyday life information seeking model; general models on information behaviour; and the information problem solving behaviour model.

Mapping coronavirus research: quantitative and visualization approaches

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fayaz Ahmad Loan ◽  
Ufaira Yaseen Shah
Keyword(s):  
Web Of Science ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Collaborative Networks ◽  
Authorship Pattern ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The People ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
The Web

PurposeThe present study aims to measure the global research landscape on coronavirus indexed in the Web of Science from 1989 to 2020. The study examines growth rates, authorship trends, institutional productivity, collaborative networks and prominent authors, institutions and countries.Design/methodology/approachThe research literature on coronavirus published globally and indexed in the Web of Science core collection was retrieved using the term “Coronavirus” and its related and synonymous terms (e.g. COVID-19, SARS-COV, SARS-COV-2 and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus) as per the Medical List of Subject Headings. A total of 5,625 publications were retrieved; however, the study was restricted to articles only (i.e. 4,471), and other document types were excluded. Quantitative and visualization techniques were used for data analysis and interpretation. VOSViewer software was employed to map collaborative networks of authors, institutions and countries.FindingsA total of 4,471 articles have been published on coronavirus by 99 countries of the world with the maximum contribution from the USA, followed by the People's Republic of China. The United States, China, Canada, Netherlands and Germany are the front runners in the collaborative network and form strong sub-networks with other countries as well. More than 1,000 institutions collaborate in the field of coronavirus research among 99 contributing countries. The authorship pattern shows that 97.5% of publications are contributed by authors in collaboration in which 77.5% of publications are contributed by four or more than four authors. The range between degree of collaboration (DC) varies from 0.89 in 1993 to 1 in 2000 with an average of 0.96 from 1989 to 2020. The results confirm that the coronavirus research is carried out in teamwork at the individual, institutional and global levels with high magnitude and density of collaboration. The relative growth of the literature has shown inconsistency as a decreasing trend has been observed from 2007 onwards, thereby increasing the doubling time from 4.2 in the first ten years to 17.3 in the last ten years.Research limitationsThe study is limited to the publications indexed in the Web of Science; the findings cannot be generalized across other databases.Practical implicationsThe results of the study may help medical scientists to identify the progress in COVID-19 research. Besdies, it will help to identify the prolific authors, institutions and countries in the development of research.Social implicationsThe current COVID-19 pandemic poses urgent and prolonged threats to the health and well-being of the population worldwide. It has not only attacked the health of the people but the economy of nations as well. Therefore, it is feasible to know the research landscape of the disease to conquer the problem.Originality/valueThe current COVID-19 pandemic poses urgent and prolonged threats to the health and well-being of the population worldwide. It has not only attacked the health of the people but also the economy of nations as well. Therefore, it is feasible to know the research landscape of the disease to conquer the problem.

Order effect in interactive information retrieval evaluation: an empirical study

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Landvad Clemmensen ◽  
Pia Borlund
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Order Effect ◽  
Test Design ◽  
Performance Parameters ◽  
Search Behaviour ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Information Retrieval ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Information Retrieval Evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report a study of order effect in interactive information retrieval (IIR) studies. The phenomenon of order effect is well-known, and it is the main reason why searches are permuted (counter-balanced) between test participants in IIR studies. However, the phenomenon is not yet fully understood or investigated in relation to IIR; hence the objective is to increase the knowledge of this phenomenon in the context of IIR as it has implications for test design of IIR studies. Design/methodology/approach – Order effect is studied via partly a literature review and partly an empirical IIR study. The empirical IIR study is designed as a classic between-groups design. The IIR search behaviour was logged and complementary post-search interviews were conducted. Findings – The order effect between groups and within search tasks were measured against nine classic IIR performance parameters of search interaction behaviour. Order effect is seen with respect to three performance parameters (website changes, visit of webpages, and formulation of queries) shown by an increase in activity on the last performed search. Further the theories with respect to motivation, fatigue, and the good-subject effect shed light on how and why order effect may affect test participants’ IR system interaction and search behaviour. Research limitations/implications – Insight about order effect has implications for test design of IIR studies and hence the knowledge base generated on the basis of such studies. Due to the limited sample of 20 test participants (Library and Information Science (LIS) students) inference statistics is not applicable; hence conclusions can be drawn from this sample of test participants only. Originality/value – Only few studies in LIS focus on order effect and none from the perspective of IIR.

Untangling search task complexity and difficulty in the context of interactive information retrieval studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 1118-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Wildemuth ◽  
Luanne Freund ◽  
Elaine G. Toms
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Information Retrieval ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Analytical Review

Purpose – One core element of interactive information retrieval (IIR) experiments is the assignment of search tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical review of current practice in developing those search tasks to test, observe or control task complexity and difficulty. Design/methodology/approach – Over 100 prior studies of IIR were examined in terms of how each defined task complexity and/or difficulty (or related concepts) and subsequently interpreted those concepts in the development of the assigned search tasks. Findings – Search task complexity is found to include three dimensions: multiplicity of subtasks or steps, multiplicity of facets, and indeterminability. Search task difficulty is based on an interaction between the search task and the attributes of the searcher or the attributes of the search situation. The paper highlights the anomalies in our use of these two concepts, concluding with suggestions for future methodological research related to search task complexity and difficulty. Originality/value – By analyzing and synthesizing current practices, this paper provides guidance for future experiments in IIR that involve these two constructs.

Cultural information needs of long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members: use of collective and personal information sources about the home country

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Krtalic
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Information Management ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Personal Information Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThis paper presents findings from a study that explored why and how long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members seek and use information about their country of origin and how they manage personal information about their cultural heritage legacy.Design/methodology/approach15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from the Croatian community in New Zealand.FindingsThe main findings reveal two categories of information needs related to a home country: internally motivated and externally motivated. Information is accessed through a network of family and friends, cultural societies and embassies. These information sources are perceived as reliable and trustworthy, and able to offer an interpretation of information along with access to information. The findings highlight the value of personal collections as information sources and the impact of personal information management practices on preserving and sharing information about one's cultural heritage.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the discussion about information needs and practices of immigrant communities by offering arguments that focus on (1) long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members, and (2) seeking information about home country culture and heritage, and (3) the role of personal collections and personal information management in maintaining personal cultural heritage. The results of this study may be of use to libraries, archives and museums in designing and offering their services to expatriates of their country and immigrants in their country, and to the wider information management sector developing services in personal information management.

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