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iSchool Team wins Best Paper Award at ECIR



How can we more systematically assess whether an information retrieval system (e.g., a search engine), delivers an engaging user experience?  This is the question that has initiated a research project among PhD student, Mengdie Zhuang and her supervisors, Professor Elaine Toms, and Dr. Gianluca Demartini.



To date, search systems are evaluated using a range of isolated measures and metrics, mostly drawn from computer logfiles that contain keystrokes and mouse clicks. Some systems are assessed at the end of using the system with a questionnaire or interview.  When the system delivers a negative user experience, the system has no time to rectify its actions when the evaluation occurs at the end of using the system. This research team is looking at how one might examine the patterns of those actions so as to predict whether the user is likely to express a positive or negative assessment, combining both types of evaluations used to date.  The potential impact of this research is to shorten and simplify the evaluation process.



The first output from this research can be found in,  “The Relationship Between User Perception and User Behaviour in Interactive Information Retrieval Evaluation” which won Best Paper Award at the European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) which took place in Padova, Italy, March 20-23, 2016.  ECIR, in its 38th year, is the premier European conference that deals with new research in information retrieval.




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