Challenging conventional assumptions of automated information retrieval with real users: Boolean searching and batch retrieval evaluations

William Hersh, Andrew Turpin, Susan Price, Dale Kraemer, Daniel Olson, Benjamin Chan, Lynetta Sacherek

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two common assumptions held by information retrieval researchers are that searching using Boolean operators is inferior to natural language searching and that results from batch-style retrieval evaluations are generalizable to the real-world searching. We challenged these assumptions in the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) interactive track, with real users following a consensus protocol to search for an instance recall task. Our results showed that Boolean and natural language searching achieved comparable results and that the results from batch evaluations were not comparable to those obtained in experiments with real users.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)383-402
Number of pages20
JournalInformation Processing and Management
Volume37
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2001

Keywords

  • Evaluation
  • Information retrieval (IR)
  • Text retrieval Conference (TREC)
  • User studies

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Media Technology
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Library and Information Sciences

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