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Design and empirical evaluation of search software for legal professionals on the WWW
Abstract
Our research focuses on designing effective search aids for legal researchers interested in law-related information on the world wide web. In this paper we report on the design and evaluation of two software systems developed to explore models for browsing and searching across a user-selected set of WWW sites. A directory services tool, LIBClient, provides a hierarchical index of legal information resources in an interface emphasizing ease-of-use by Internet novices and management of multiple-site searching. To study the relative effectiveness of LIBClient in the hands of legal professionals, nineteen law students were observed using LIBClient and, in separate trials, the popular general-purpose search services to perform known-item searches within a fixed time limit. The experiment indicates the value of LIBClient for focused searching, most properly as a supplement to general-purpose search engines. Motivated by observations from the LIBClient study, a second retrieval experiment explores the effectiveness of a radically different LIBClient design in which the LIBClient interface is combined with a crawler-enhanced search engine, IRISWeb. The LIBClient–IRISWeb system enables full-text searching using natural language queries across a set of WWW pages collected by the IRISWeb crawler. The page harvesting process relies on a cascading set of filters to define the final set of WWW pages to be collected, including user selections in LIBClient, search results from site-specific search engines, and the hyperlink structure at target sites. To evaluate the LIBClient–IRISWeb method, the queries used in the user study are submitted to the system, with excellent retrieval results. In conclusion, our research points to the promise of WWW search tool designs that tightly couple directed browsing with query-based search capabilities using new forms of search automation.
... The study proposed in this paper is a new approach to web-based evaluation and involves one-to-one sessions during which users work through a series of simulated work tasks on a number of systems. Interactive evaluative studies of web search tools are rare, and only a few have been carried out in recent years (Dempsey, Vreeland, Summer, & Yang, 2000; Gordon & Pathak, 1999). However, they either consider only one type of search task (i.e. the search for law-related information on the world wide web (Dempsey et al., 2000) ), or use expert searchers rather than end-users representative of the general web populace (Gordon & Pathak, 1999). ...
... Interactive evaluative studies of web search tools are rare, and only a few have been carried out in recent years (Dempsey, Vreeland, Summer, & Yang, 2000; Gordon & Pathak, 1999). However, they either consider only one type of search task (i.e. the search for law-related information on the world wide web (Dempsey et al., 2000) ), or use expert searchers rather than end-users representative of the general web populace (Gordon & Pathak, 1999). The Dempsey et al. study was restricted to the webÕs legal information resources and focused solely on legal professionals, those likely to be most interested in the retrieval of such information. ...
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.
... Recall and precision, especially, were still the two primary evaluation metrics of search engine effectiveness. Other popular objective measures are coverage [20,37,41], overlap [1,19,20,41], search time [31,35,36], and validity of links [19,20,27,35,36]. Less frequently applied objective measures consist of response time [27,28], recency [28], expected search length [29], relevance ranking [36,39], accuracy [30,31], cost [27], reliability [32], and stability [40]. ...
... Other popular objective measures are coverage [20,37,41], overlap [1,19,20,41], search time [31,35,36], and validity of links [19,20,27,35,36]. Less frequently applied objective measures consist of response time [27,28], recency [28], expected search length [29], relevance ranking [36,39], accuracy [30,31], cost [27], reliability [32], and stability [40]. ...
In cyberspace, the emergence and increasing importance of search engine prompts numerous evaluation studies in regard to its effectiveness. Based on a user-oriented perspective, the paper is aimed to derive functional requirements of search engines rooted in Herzberg's Two Factor Theory. A survey, with 758 valid participants, was conducted to investigate the impacts of various functions of search engines on user's behavior. The empirical results showed that user's expectations of functional requirements are distinguished into two categories: motivation factors and hygiene factors. Hygiene factors of search engine "attract" users to try a search engine in the first place, but it is the motivation factors that "retain" users to continue using the same search engine.
... A number of evaluation studies of web search tools have been carried out, e.g. [2, 3, 5]. These studies either only consider one type of search task,[2], use expert searchers rather than representative end-users, [3] , or are based on statistical analyses of web logs rather than interactive aspects of searching, [5]. ...
... [2, 3, 5]. These studies either only consider one type of search task,[2], use expert searchers rather than representative end-users, [3] , or are based on statistical analyses of web logs rather than interactive aspects of searching, [5]. Hence the methods used in these studies are not appropriate for our study of the effectiveness of a new interaction technique. ...
In this paper we present a query-biased summarisation interface for web searching. The summarisation system has been specifically developed to act as a component in existing web search interfaces. The summaries allow the user to more effectively assess the content of web pages. We also present an experimental investigation of this approach. Our experimental results shows the system appears to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach. Keywords : Summarisation, evaluation, WWW.
... Many lawyers are increasingly using various forms of information technologies to perform their varied tasks more efficiently. Software resources that facilitate searching legal literature and identifying legal texts relevant to a specific case at hand, are for example DocFox, AbacusNext, and so forth (Dempsey et al. 2000). Lawyers are increasingly using computers to organise and index their materials. ...
This study was carried out to examine the information needs, information uses, information sources and information-seeking behaviour of lawyers in Oyo State, Nigeria. Data were collected from a sample of 103 lawyers, using a questionnaire and a self-completed interview schedule. Case preparation was a major reason for lawyers’ information needs. A majority of the lawyers need information in order to enhance their performance and gain more knowledge. The quest for additional information is the main motive in searching for information by professionals and non-professionals alike. Knowing more and becoming well-informed on various aspects of society, constitute the major reasons why lawyers seek for information. Lawyers visit their personal information collection first, and consult available electronic sources before they resort to other sources. The major types of information needed by lawyers, largely relate to the following: weekly law reports, recent decisions of the Supreme Court, and information related to clients. The most consulted sources of information were personal experience, textbooks, journals, colleagues and partners, as well as firm case studies and court records. Creating ways to improve the capacity of lawyers to use digital resources by way of training, and expansion of the legal education curriculum to include ICT, will go a long way to address the challenges lawyers have in finding and using the information they need.
... There are many heuristic methods of completing this task, and most librarians have go-to searches to quickly see how a search engine functions. 69 These techniques are important, but they don't go far enough in exploring the experience of using a search tool as a nonexpert user. ...
Usability and user experience are an important factor in the overall value of products and services offered by law libraries. User experience evaluation tools can help librarians make better decisions for their users when choosing databases to purchase or subscribe to, designing a library website, or selecting and implementing discovery layers. This article describes an array of evaluation tools and discusses how and when they can be implemented in the law library context.
... Tomando como punto de partida la aparente necesidad de herramientas de recuperación web específicas para determinadas comunidades de usuarios, como los juris-tas, en el caso que nos ocupa, Dempsey et al. (14) diseñan y evalúan a pequeña escala software de recuperación jurídica en entorno web. LIBClient, con el motor de búsqueda IRISWeb, el sistema permite la búsqueda a texto completo en lenguaje natural sobre las páginas recogidas por medio del motor IRISWeb. ...
Se presentan las principales líneas de investigación sobre recuperación de información jurídica agrupadas en cinco bloques: investigaciones evaluativas, estudios del comportamiento del usuario en la búsqueda de información legal, aplicaciones de la inteligencia artificial en la recuperación de información jurídica, trabajos que atienden al procesamiento en lenguaje natural y, por último, la gestión de la documentación jurídica mediante el empleo de lenguajes de marcas. Se constata la limitada atención prestada a la recuperación de información jurídica en nuestro país, así como la complementariedad evidente entre algunas de las áreas de investigación reseñadas.
... An important aspect is the knowledge of how and where to seek information [3]. Although legal research entails much more than just information seeking, the vast majority of lawyers often engage in some form of information seeking and synthesising [15], [16], [17]. Plessis and Toit [3] argue that many legal researchers nowadays do not ignore the change that was brought forward by the advent of the Internet, computerised legal databases, CD-ROMs and other electronic media channels. ...
Information Technology (IT) is fast becoming useful in implementing time, case, manpower and cost management strategies within judicial services. The legal system environment has adopted IT not just to save costs and time but also to give organizations a competitive edge and to ensure security as well. The Legal Business Information System is a fully operational and integrated system for a legal department. The mission of the department is to provide innovative and quality services in insolvency and trustee matters. Very few legal business information system implementations are documented in literature. Therefore this paper will facilitate understanding of system implementation in this sector.
... Medengine (http:// www.themedengine.com), and Medical Matrix (http://www.medmatrix.org) for medical use, provide a hierarchical organization of resources, most often developed by human cataloguers who select, index, and annotate links (Callery & Tracy-Proulx, 1997). Careful organization of resources present directory in services enables rapid discovery and browsing of resources by topic or category a more intuitive mode of access than keyword selection and query refinement for users (Dempsey, Vreeland, Sumner, & Yang, 2000). In contrast to directory-based services, querybased search engines, such as Excite (http://www.excite.com), ...
The purpose of this study is to develop a Web assisted knowledge construction (WAKC) system as an individual knowledge construction tool for Internet users. The system is based on the theory of constructivist knowledge analysis of tasks (CKAT). The CKAT integrates constructivist reflection cycle and knowledge analysis of tasks. The conceptual model of CKAT includes four different stages: knowledge objective, knowledge gathering, knowledge analysis, and task knowledge structure. In order to match these four stages, this research designs an assisted knowledge construction system that includes four systematic sub-functions: the keyword function, the URL resource function, the analysis function, and the construction function. After understanding users' perceptions toward the WAKC system, users have highly positive behavioral intention to use the system as a Web-based assisted knowledge construction tool.
... In essence, information retrieval can be divided into two different paradigms: the system-focused approach and the user-focused approach. Numerous studies have been developed based on the system-focused approach to investigate the usage or effectiveness of Web interaction on usersÕ search for information (Dempsey, Vreeland, Sumner, & Yang, 2000; Gordon & Pathak, 1999; Greisdorf, 2003; Khoo, Myaeng, & Oddy, 2001; Mowshowitz & Kawaguchi, 2002; Savolainen, 1999). In contrast, only few studies adopt the user-focused approach to evaluate the effects of search engines on individual information retrieval (Liaw & Huang, 2003; Spink, 2002). ...
Although search engines are essential tools for finding information on the World Wide Web, the effective use of search engines for information retrieval (IR) is a crucial challenge for any Internet user. Based on the user-focused approach, this study investigates individual information retrieval behaviors using information processing theory. The results show that experience with search engines significantly affects users’ attitudes toward search engines for information retrieval, the query-based service is more popular than the directory-based service, users are not completely satisfied with the precision of retrieved information and the response time of search engines, and users’ motivation is a key factor that predicts their intention to use search engines for information retrieval. Furthermore, this study proposes a conceptual model for investigating individual attitudes toward search engines for information retrieval.
... Directory services, such as Yahoo!, provide a hierarchical organization of resources, most often developed by human cataloguers who select, index, and annotate links (Callery & Tracy-Proulx, 1997). Directory services' careful organization of resources enables rapid discovery and browsing of resources by topic or category a more intuitive mode of access than keyword selection and query refinement for users (Dempsey, Vreeland, Sumner, & Yang, 2000). In addition, assembling resource links using human indexers offers high quality control when filtering the chaotic resources on the Web (Walters, Demas, Stewart, & Weintraub, 1998). ...
After the Internet has gained great popularity at homes and schools, there is much information on the Web. Today, one of the primary uses of the Internet is information retrieval from search engines. The main purpose of the current study is to develop and examine an individual attitude model towards search engines as a tool for retrieving information. This model integrates individual computer experience with perceptions. In addition, it also combines perception theories, such as technology acceptance model (TAM) and motivation, in order to understand individual attitudes toward search engines. The results show that individual computer experience, quality of search systems, motivation, and perceptions of technology acceptance are all key factors that affect individual feelings to use search engines as an information retrieval tool.
... Tomando como punto de partida la aparente necesidad de herramientas de recuperación web específicas para determinadas comunidades de usuarios, como los juris-tas, en el caso que nos ocupa, Dempsey et al. (14) diseñan y evalúan a pequeña escala software de recuperación jurídica en entorno web. LIBClient, con el motor de búsqueda IRISWeb, el sistema permite la búsqueda a texto completo en lenguaje natural sobre las páginas recogidas por medio del motor IRISWeb. ...
Research on the legal information retrieval is presented in five main blocks: evaluation research, papers about users behaviour, artificial intelligence techniques in legal information retrieval, studies on natural language processing and the legal information management by means of mark-up languages. We verify a limited interest in our country to legal information retrieval, and finally we consider the evident complementarity among some of the mentioned investigation areas.
Se presentan las principales líneas de investigación sobre recuperación de información jurídica agrupadas en cinco bloques: investigaciones evaluativas, estudios del comportamiento del usuario en la búsqueda de información legal, aplicaciones de la inteligencia artificial en la recuperación de información jurídica, trabajos que atienden al procesamiento en lenguaje natural y, por último, la gestión de la documentación jurídica mediante el empleo de lenguajes de marcas. Se constata la limitada atención prestada a la recuperación de información jurídica en nuestro país, así como la complementariedad evidente entre algunas de las áreas de investigación reseñadas.
... Appropriate questions had to be chosen carefully. As was shown by Dempsey et al. [2] it is often difficult to find a neutral question when designing a study. They discovered that certain key variables (such as proper names) were excellent discriminators and greatly affected the results. ...
When searching on the Web, users often reformulate their queries after viewing the results and viewing some of the pages. After one or two reformulations the user may implicitly realize patterns and relationships between the multiple search results. We believe that these patterns can be used to identify interesting results. We have developed the prototype Search Engine Similarity (SES) tool which explicitly visualizes the similarity between multiple searches. We describe an experiment to determine whether explicitly visualizing the relationships between multiple searches will let users browse more effectively. Our results show that explicit difference visualizations can enhance the search process for some tasks.
The growing interest in web informotion seeking/seorching studies, ond their importance for web site design. search
engines, intranets, portals, etc. warrants. a research agenda for web information seeking/searching studies in South Africa.
A research framework directs research projects and should include: the rationale for and purpose of a study. descriptive
information, links to related studies and traditional information retrieval, links to research paradigms and theoretical
models, research methodology and methods, rationale for analysing the data, actual statistical analysis, interpretation
and findings. and explicit reference to the practical impact of and need for further research. It should build on the
importance of research in a particular context, and acknowledge the existing body of research literature. Suggestions are
offered for practical and theoretical research projects relevant to the South African context. Although we can benefit from
isolated projects, a research agenda, as suggested, may add greater impetus to our research efforts and understanding of
the phenomenon under investigation.
How do legal scholars seek, find, and manage information in the course of producing a scholarly article or book? While the topic of legal research has been explored in the literature, few studies have been conducted exploring the research process of legal scholars, and the variety of information work that they do when they produce scholarship. This article organizes and addresses the most important research questions for understanding the research process of legal scholars. The article also addresses practical applications of this work for librarians, including the process of assessing faculty service and collection needs. Finally, it suggests a path for exploring these research questions with an empirical study, using qualitative methods.
In the practice of law the products and applications of information and communication technologies, such as intranet infrastructures; document, content and case management systems; workflow management systems; artificial intelligence technologies; and business intelligence tools are becoming increasingly important means of communication, of information distribution, and of sharing knowledge. This article examines the degree of impact the changing legal information environment has on the legal research process and to find out what benefit legal research will gain from information and knowledge management. It looks into the process of electronic or digital legal research and seeks answers to some questions with regard to the skills that lawyers, who are successful legal researchers in the print information environment, possibly will need to also be successful researchers in a digital information environment. It also reports the results of an empirical, explorative study identifying the extent as well as some barriers and concerns with regard to the utilisation of KM systems in South African law firms.
Current awareness services are designed to keep users informed about recent developments based around user need profiles. In organisational settings, they may operate through both electronic and social interactions aimed at delivering information that is relevant, pertinent and current. Understanding these interactions can reveal the tensions in current awareness dissemination and help inform ways of making services more effective and efficient. We report an in-depth, observational study of electronic current awareness use within a large London law firm. The study found that selection, re-aggregation and forwarding of information by multiple actors gives rise to a complex sociotechnical distribution network. Knowledge management staff act as a layer of “intelligent filters” sensitive to complex, local information needs; their distribution decisions address multiple situational relevance factors in a situation fraught with information overload and restrictive time-pressures. Their decisions aim to optimise conflicting constraints of recall, precision and information quantity. Critical to this is the use of dynamic profile updates which propagate back through the network through formal and informal social interactions. This supports changes to situational relevance judgements and so allows the network to ‘self-tune’. These findings lead to design requirements, including that systems should support rapid assessment of information items against an individual’s interests; that it should be possible to organise information for different subsequent uses; and that there should be back-propagation from information consumers to providers, to tune the understanding of their information needs.
The Internet contains many legal resources which supplement more established online sources, but effective resource discovery tools are critical for end users (10). The Directory of Internet-Accessible Legal Resources (DIALeR), http://legalsearch.ils.unc.edu/, was developed to aid in rapid discovery and navigation between high-quality legal sites. The resources in the DIALeR (MS SQL) database were selected by law librarians with an eye towards finding reputable WWW sites that are building significant repositories of public domain documents. The back-end DIALeR interface enables these librarians to easily build, modify, and customize a tree structure of legal topics. The current interface includes portions of the tree that closely follow long-established print indices of the law. For the user, the DIALeR design facilitates the location of document archives, databases, and other topically focused WWW sites via nagivation through a client interface to the underlying database of resources. Constructed from custom COM component software and Active Server Page (ASP) scripts, the DIALeR client interface mimics the well- known Explorer tool for navigating the file system in MS Windows. Menu items showing a plus-sign (+) can be expanded into sub-items; those with a minus-sign (-) can be contracted; and final items (annotated hyperlinks leading to relevant WWW sites) appear in a separate right-hand frame. While DIALeR's human selection and indexing of resources aids first-order resource discovery, finer-grain searching is achieved through local search tools available at individual sites, e.g., full-text search engines are commonly found at text-rich legal sites.
From a user-centered perspective, an effective search engine needs to attract new users to try out its features, and retain those users so that they continue using the features. In this article, we investigate the relations between users'motivation for using (i.e., trying out and continuing to use) a search engine and the engine's functional features. Based on Herzberg's two-factor theory (F. Herzberg, 2003; F. Herzberg, M. Bernard, & B. Snyderman, 1959), the features can be categorized as hygiene factors and motivation factors. Hygiene factors support the query process and provide a basic “task context” for information seeking that allows users to access relevant information. Motivation factors, on the other hand, help users navigate (i.e., browse) and comprehend the retrieved information, related to the “task-content” aspect of information seeking. Given the consistent findings that hygiene factors induce work motivation for a shorter period of time, it is hypothesized that hygiene factors are more effective in attracting users; while motivation factors are more effective in retaining than in attracting users. A survey, with 758 valid participants, was conducted to test the hypotheses. The empirical results provide substantial support for the proposed hypotheses and suggest that the two-factor theory can account for the motivation for using a search engine.
The project proposes and tests a comprehensive and systematic model of user evaluation of Web search engines. The project contains two parts. Part I describes the background and the model including a set of criteria and measures, and a method for implementation. It includes a literature review for two periods. The early period (1995–1996) portrays the settings for developing the model and the later period (1997–2000) places two applications of the model among contemporary evaluation work. Part II presents one of the applications that investigated the evaluation of four major search engines by 36 undergraduates from three academic disciplines. It reports results from statistical analyses of quantitative data for the entire sample and among disciplines, and content analysis of verbal data containing users' reasons for satisfaction. The proposed model aims to provide systematic feedback to engine developers or service providers for system improvement and to generate useful insight for system design and tool choice. The model can be applied to evaluating other compatible information retrieval systems or information retrieval (IR) techniques. It intends to contribute to developing a theory of relevance that goes beyond topicality to include value and usefulness for designing user-oriented information retrieval systems.
We explore the idea of automatically using the concepts of a thesaurus to improve search results. Our focus is on improving average precision figures, not recall. This is of interest because there is a tendency to accept the view that thesauri are recall-enhancing devices that are not good for improving precision figures.In our approach, the query terms are used to match concepts in the thesaurus. These concepts are then used to find other related concepts (narrow, broad, synonym), which are interpreted as independent sources of evidential knowledge. Each source of evidence is used to produce a separate concept-based ranking of the documents in the collection. These partial rankings are then combined into a final ranking. For this, we use a Bayesian belief network.To validate our ideas we do a case study in the juridical domain. Using a juridical thesaurus and a test collection containing more than 500 hundred thousand juridical documents, obtained from the legal court system in Brazil, we compare our concept-based ranking with the standard vectorial ranking. The results indicate improvements in average precision figures of roughly 30%.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 263-288). Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (Information science))--Rand Afrikaans University, 2004.
Advances in the information and communication technologies have led to the availability of a range of primary and secondary legal research publications online via the Internet, rather than on other storing devices such as compact discs or publications in the print media. Not only has information and communication technology (ICT) impacted on the availability of legal information resources, but its effects are also noticed in various law-related areas such as legal practice management, legal education, corporate governance and the law per se. The question addressed by this article is whether the application of ICTs has an effect on the practice of law, and specifically whether information and knowledge management affects the processes of legal research in modern legal practice. Various issues are considered in this regard, including what the concept of knowledge management (KM) entails in a law firm and what the current KM trends in South African law firms are. The article investigates global trends in the application of ICTs for legal research purposes, what the specific applications of KM in support of legal research may be, how information technology applications and KM systems and strategies can support the legal research process, and what the benefits of KM are to legal research. It finally discusses the impact technology has had on the skills required of competitive legal professionals.
We present a query-biased summarisation interface for Web searching. The summarisation system has been specifically developed to act as a component in existing Web search interfaces. The summaries allow the user to more effectively assess the content of Web pages. We also present an experimental investigation of this approach. Our experimental results shows the system appears to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach
The best aggregations of Web resources combine authoritative information, effective retrieval mechanisms, and dependability of access. The worst can be incomplete, inaccurate, and difficult to use. Libraries can expand their Web holdings and maintain high-quality information services by selecting aggregations based on objective standards of content, coherence, and functionality. These three criteria can also be used to plan the most effective presentation of aggregated resources in the library's catalog or Web pages.
A subject gateway, in the context of network-based resource access, can be defined as some facility that allows easier access to network-based resources in a defined subject area. The simplest types of subject gateways are sets of Web pages containing lists of links to resources. Some gateways index their lists of links and provide a simple search facility. More advanced gateways offer a much enhanced service via a system consisting of a resource database and various indexes, which can be searched and/or browsed through a Web-based interface. Each entry in the database contains information about a network-based resource, such as a Web page, Web site, mailing list or document. Entries are usually created by a cataloguer manually identifying a suitable resource, describing the resource using a template, and submitting the template to the database for indexing.
World-Wide Web proxy servers that cache documents can potentially reduce three quantities: the number of requests that reach popular servers, the volume of network traffic resulting from document requests, and the latency that an end-user experiences in retrieving a document. This paper examines the first two using the measures of cache hit rate and weighted hit rate (or fraction of client-requested bytes returned by the proxy). A client request for an uncached document may cause the removal of one or more cached documents. Variable document sizes and types allow a rich variety of policies to select a document for removal, in contrast to policies for CPU caches or demand paging, that manage homogeneous objects. We present a taxonomy of removal policies. Through trace-driven simulation, we determine the maximum possible hit rate and weighted hit rate that a cache could ever achieve, and the removal policy that maximizes hit rate and weighted hit rate. The experiments use five traces of 37 to 185 days of client URL requests. Surprisingly, the criteria used by several proxy-server removal policies (LRU, Hyper-G, and a proposal by Pitkow and Recker) are among the worst performing criteria in our simulation; instead, replacing documents based on size maximizes hit rate in each of the studied workloads.
NECI Research Institute has developed a metasearch engine that
improves the efficiency of Web searches by downloading and analyzing
each document and then displaying results that show the query terms in
concert. The paper discusses the features of the NECI metasearch engine
The recent explosion of on-line information in Digital Libraries and on the World Wide Web has given rise to a number of query-based search engines and manually constructed topical hierarchies. However, these tools are quickly becoming inadequate as query results grow incomprehensibly large and manual classification in topic hierarchies creates an immense bottleneck. We address these problems with a system for topical information space navigation that combines the query-based and taxonomic systems. We employ machine learning techniques to create dynamic document categorizations based on the full-text of articles that are retrieved in response to users' queries. Our system, named SONIA (Service for Organizing Networked Information Autonomously), has been implemented as part of the Stanford Digital Libraries Testbed. It employs a combination of technologies that takes the results of queries to networked information sources and, in real-time, automatically retrieve, parse and organize the...
this paper as we address, among other things:
This article examines the indexing and retrieval rates of five search tools on the World Wide Web. Character strings were planted in the Project Whistlestop Web site. Daily searches for the strings were performed for six weeks using Lycos, Infoseek, Alta Vista, Yahoo, and Excite. The HTML title tag was indexed in four of the five search tools. Problems encountered included insufficient and inconsistent indexing.
After pointing out that all segments of the legal community are concerned about the poor quality of legal research, Professor Dunn argues that legal writing programs and CALR are the major causes of the problem. He illustrates that legal research is more than a course; it is a concept. He concludes with a proposal for changing the way legal research instruction is offered in law schools.
Library users' research interests and needs are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. This type of research presents searchers with obstacles that differ from disciplinary research. Using the information search process (ISP) developed by Carol C. Kithlthau as a theoretical model, this study compares the impact of manual and online search methods on the interdisciplinary search task in terms of the relevance of retrieved items, user effort, user satisfaction, user confidence and future use. This comparative investigation examines two senior-level journalism classes researching judicial decisions related to the mass media. One class used printed legal reference sources; the other class used LEXIS, a full-text legal database. The results of this study indicate that online search methods are more effective than manual search methods when users are working outside their areas of specialization.
This article examines searcher behavior and affective response to a hypertext-based bibliographic information retrieval system called HyperLynx for searchers with different search skills and backgrounds. Search times and number of nodes visited were recorded for five specified search queries, and views of the system were recorded for each searcher. No significant differences were found in search times our user satisfaction with the system, indicating that a hypertext-based approach to bibliographic retrieval could be approapriate for a variety of searcher experience levels. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Technology has created and expanded many tools for legal research. That means that selecting the best research tool for a problem is no long a matter of using the only resource published! Designing a research processor framework is one of the most important skills a legal researcher can develop. This chapter discusses integrating print and electronic tools, using a research strategy, and managing your legal research.
This study examines the search tactics used by Web users to start their searches and deal with search problems such as too many postings and no relevant postings. Four search topics were developed to allow for comparison of search tactics used in four types of searches. The tactics analyzed include search statements, number of search statements, starting points, and tactics to solve the two search problems mentioned above. Search statements were searched in Alta Vista to determine their success and their nature was analyzed. With regard to the tactics used to address search problems, t-tests and chi-square tests found no difference between searches for texts and searches for graphic information, and between known-item searches and subject searches. Some of Web users' search tactics were similar to those for online searching or online catalog searches, but several tactics were unique to Web searching.
An exploratory study was conducted of elementary school children searching a full-text electronic encyclo- pedia on CD-ROM. Twenty-eight third and fourth graders and 24 sixth graders conducted two assigned searches, one open-ended, the other one closed, after two demon- stration sessions. Keystrokes captured by the com- puter and observer notes were used to examine user information-seeking strategies from a mental model perspective. Older searchers were more successful in finding required information, and took less time than younger searchers. No differences in total number of moves were found. Analysis of search patterns showed that novices used a heuristic, highly interactive search strategy. Searchers used sentence and phrase queries, indicating unique mental models for this search sys- tem. Most searchers accepted system defaults and used the AND connective in formulating queries. Transi- tion matrix analyses showed that younger searchers generally favored query refining moves and older searchers favored examining title and text moves. Sug- gestions for system designers were made and future re- search questions were identified.
Drawing upon existing research and previous attempts at modeling the int'orma- tion-seeking behavior 01 specific pt-ofessional groups, this article posits au origi- nal model of information seeking that is applicable to all professionals. The model was developed through a careful analysis and interpretation of empirical studies on the information habits and practices of three groups: engineers, health care professionals, and lawyers. The general model and its six major components are presented in detail. These six components are (1) work roles, ('I) associated tasks, and (3) characteristics of information needs and three fac- tors affecting information seeking: (4) awareness, (5) sources, and (6) outcomes. In turn, each component contains a number of variables that are described with examples from the literature. The complexity of the information-seeking process is conceptualized in terms of the interaction and simultaneous occur- rence of the model's components and variables, including a feedback mecha- nism. The article concludes with suggestions as to the potential usefulness of the model.
Library staff at State University of New York at Albany surveyed 96 patrons in a 2-month period regarding their Internet usage. Gender, college status, and prior experience were sources of differences in searching and browsing behavior and in attitudes toward Internet usefulness. Libraries should actively create new Internet access points and individualized training. Contains 15 tables. (LAM)
Describes study that was designed to explore whether elementary students of different ages could effectively use selected electronic information services. The performances of students in grades two-three and grades four-six in using an online encyclopedia are compared, examples of searches are presented, and suggestions for further research are included. (12 references) (LRW)
Describes a study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that analyzed the transaction logs of medical students' searches of a factual database to determine the overall frequency of search moves, the interaction between the problem statement and students' search strategies, the search moves selected, and the tactics used by students. (13 references) (LRW)
World Wide Web sites consisting mainly of links to other Internet resources have begun to proliferate. These sites are valuable to library users and researchers because they bring together in a single Web site links to a comprehensive array of information resources. Because libraries may elect to include bibliographic records for these sites in their online catalogs, catalogers should be aware of some of the main aspects of cataloging this new type of resource. Catalogers should be aware of the main types and different characteristics of these sites, how to describe them in a bibliographic record, and how to assign appropriate subject headings and subdivisions for them.
A new edition of Fundamentals of Legal Research was published in June by Foundation Press (ISBN 978-1-59941-218-4). This classic textbook has been revised to include the latest research methods and resources. Fundamentals of Legal Research provides a comprehensive introduction and guide to all aspects of legal research, integrating traditional paper resources with Internet and other electronic resources. In addition to general chapters on federal and state court reports, statutes, digests, citators, secondary sources, and legal citation form, the Ninth Edition includes specialized chapters on research in administrative law, constitutional law, electronic sources, federal legislative histories, international and human rights law, tax law, and the United Kingdom. This edition includes a new chapter on legal writing, an updated glossary of research terms, and revised tables and appendixes. Because of its depth and breadth, Fundamentals of Legal Research is an excellent text for both beginning and advanced legal research classes. Legal Research Illustrated, Ninth Edition (ISBN 987-1-59941-335-8) is a soft-cover abridgment of Fundamentals of Legal Research. Not included in the abridgment are chapters on legal research in the United Kingdom and federal tax research that are included in Fundamentals of Legal Research. The abridgment also omits the extensive table of legal abbreviations and a discussion of legal research in the territories of the United States.Both books are designed for use with Barkan, Mersky and Dunn's Assignments to Fundamentals of Legal Research, 9th and Legal Research Illustrated, 9th (edited by Mary Ann Nelson, University of Iowa Law Library), ISBN 978-1-59941-349-5.
This study applies theories about organizational information processing and about valuing information to better understand the influences on method of access and on effects of using online information. Interviews in four organizations indicated that users manage such systems in different ways suitable to the organization's problem-solving needs and personnel skills, in order to obtain considerable benefits and overcome some problems. Questionnaire data showed that type of database and organizational differences strongly influenced access method, but access method had no independent influence on usage or on perceived outcomes. Counter to expectations based upon the difficulties in assessing the cost/benefit ratio of information obtained from external sources, task variables had little independent influence on access method, usage, or outcomes. The moderate relationship between using online information in one's work and the two outcome factors seems generalizable across organizations. Differences in tasks, especially amount of information in one's task, appeared to influence the relationship between use and outcomes.
This review looks briefly at the history of World Wide Web search engine development, considers the current state of affairs, and reflects on the future. Networked discovery tools have evolved along with Internet resource availability. World Wide Web search engines display some complexity in their variety, content, resource acquisition strategies, and in the array of tools they deploy to assist users. A small but growing body of evaluation literature, much of it not systematic in nature, indicates that performance effectiveness is difficult to assess in this setting. Significant improvements in general-content search engine retrieval and ranking performance may not be possible, and are probably not worth the effort, although search engine providers have introduced some rudimentary attempts at personalization, summarization, and query expansion. The shift to distributed search across multitype database systems could extend general networked discovery and retrieval to include smaller resource collections with rich metadata and navigation tools. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Relevance feedback is an automatic process, introduced over 20 years ago, designed to produce improved query formulations following an initial retrieval operation. The principal relevance feedback methods described over the years are examined briefly, and evaluation data are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the various methods. Prescriptions are given for conducting text retrieval operations iteratively using relevance feedback. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The coverage and recency of the major World Wide Web search engines was analyzed, yielding some surprising results. The coverage
of any one engine is significantly limited: No single engine indexes more than about one-third of the “indexable Web,” the
coverage of the six engines investigated varies by an order of magnitude, and combining the results of the six engines yields
about 3.5 times as many documents on average as compared with the results from only one engine. Analysis of the overlap between
pairs of engines gives an estimated lower bound on the size of the indexable Web of 320 million pages.
Traditional search engines do not consider document quality in
ranking search results. The paper discusses the Hyperlink Vector Voting
method which adds a qualitative dimension to its rankings by factoring
in the number and descriptions of hyperlinks to the document
We describe the design, prototyping and evaluation of ARC, a system for automatically compiling a list of authoritative web resources on any (sufficiently broad) topic. The goal of ARC is to compile resource lists similar to those provided by Yahoo! or Infoseek. The fundamental difference is that these services construct lists either manually or through a combination of human and automated effort, while ARC operates fully automatically. We describe the evaluation of ARC, Yahoo!, and Infoseek resource lists by a panel of human users. This evaluation suggests that the resources found by ARC frequently fare almost as well as, and sometimes better than, lists of resources that are manually compiled or classified into a topic. We also provide examples of ARC resource lists for the reader to examine. Keywords: Search, taxonomies, link analysis, anchor text, information retrieval. 1. Overview The subject of this paper is the design and evaluation of an automatic resource compiler. An autom...
Given the dynamic nature and the quantity of information on the WWW, many individual users and organizations compile and use focused WWW resource lists related to a particular topic or subject domain. The IRISWeb system extends this concept such that any user-defined set of WWW pages (a virtual collection) can be retrieved, indexed, and searched using a powerful full-text search engine with a relevance-feedback interface. This capability adds full-text searching to highly customized subsets of the WWW. Here we describe the IRISWeb software and an experiment that highlights its potential. KEYWORDS: Search engines, WWW, virtual collection, LIBClient, subject gateway, IRISWeb. INTRODUCTION Under the guidance of Professor William Shaw, a research group within the School of Information and Library Science has been investigating various aspects of operationalizing relevance feedback for the past three years[1]. Earlier versions of IRIS were successfully used to perform TREC experiments[2]...
This paper presents the results of a study conducted at Georgia Institute of Technology that captured client-side user events of NCSA's XMosaic. Actual user behavior, as determined from clientside log file analysis, supplemented our understanding of user navigation strategies as well as provided real interface usage data. Log file analysis also yielded design and usability suggestions for WWW pages, sites and browsers. The methodology of the study and findings are discussed along with future research directions. Keywords Hypertext Navigation, Log Files, User Modeling Introduction With the prolific growth of the World-Wide Web (WWW) [Berners-Lee et.al, 1992] in the past year there has been an increased demand for an understanding of the WWW audience. Several studies exist that determine demographics and some behavioral characteristics of WWW users via selfselection [Pitkow and Recker 1994a & 1994b]. Though highly informative, such studies only provide high level trends in Web use (e...
Combining multiple document representations and multiple relevance feedback methods to improve retrieval performance
- K Yang
Yang, K. (1997). Combining multiple document representations and multiple relevance feedback methods to
improve retrieval performance. Master's thesis, School of Information and Library Science, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Relaxing assumptions, stretching the vision. D-Lib Magazine
- R Larsen
Larsen, R. (1997). Relaxing assumptions, stretching the vision. D-Lib Magazine, April.
Toward a qualitative search engine Information-seeking strategies of novices using a full-text electronic encyclopedia Elementary students' use of electronic information services: An exploratory study Analytical searching vs browsing in hypertext information retrieval systems
- Y Li
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Li, Y. (1998). Toward a qualitative search engine. IEEE Internet Computing, 2(4), 24±30. Marchionini, G. (1998). Information-seeking strategies of novices using a full-text electronic encyclopedia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(1), 54±66. Marchionini, G., & Teague, J. (1987). Elementary students' use of electronic information services: An exploratory study. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 20(2), 139±155. Qui, L. (1993). Analytical searching vs browsing in hypertext information retrieval systems. Canadian Journal of Library and Information Science, 18, 1±13.
Search engine watch. Meckler Media Corporation
- D Sullivan
Sullivan, D. (1998). Search engine watch. Meckler Media Corporation. http://wwww.searchenginewatch.com/.
What are they doing with the internet? A study of user information seeking beha-viors Search tactics of web users in searching for texts, graphics, known items and subjects: A search simulation study
- P W He
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He, P. W., & Jacobson, T. (1996). What are they doing with the internet? A study of user information seeking beha-viors. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 1(2), 31±51. Hieros Gamos. (1998). http://www.hg.org/. Hsieh-Yee, I. (1998). Search tactics of web users in searching for texts, graphics, known items and subjects: A search simulation study. Reference Librarian, 60, 61±85.
Yahoo! cataloguing the web Characterizing browsing strategies in the world wide web Automatic resource compilation by analyzing hyperlink structure and associated text
- A Callery
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- J Pitkow
- ±1073 Chakrabarti
- S Dom
- B Gibson
- D Kleinberg
- J Raghavan
- P Rajagopalan
Callery, A., & Tracy-Proulx, D. (1997). Yahoo! cataloguing the web. Journal of Internet Cataloging, 1(1), 57±64. Catledge, L., & Pitkow, J. (1995). Characterizing browsing strategies in the world wide web. Computer Networks and ISDN, 27, 1065±1073. Chakrabarti, S., Dom, B., Gibson, D., Kleinberg, J., Raghavan, P., & Rajagopalan, S. (1998). Automatic resource compilation by analyzing hyperlink structure and associated text. In Proceedings of the 7th World Wide Web con-ference.
In Modelling the legal decision process for information technology applications in law (p. 104) Kluwer Law International
- G N B J Yannopoulos
- Dempsey
Yannopoulos, G. N. (1998). In Modelling the legal decision process for information technology applications in law (p. 104). Kluwer Law International. B.J. Dempsey et al. / Information Processing and Management 36 (2000) 253±273
Cross searching subject gateways. D-LIB Magazine
- J Kirriemuir
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- J Knight
- M Hamilton
Kirriemuir, J., Brickley, D., Welsh, S., Knight, J., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Cross searching subject gateways. D-LIB
Magazine, January.
The continuing saga of professional end-users: Law students search dialog at the university of Florida Web search engines Developing a comprehensive and systematic model of user evaluation of web-based search engines
- R Sanderson
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Sanderson, R. (1980). The continuing saga of professional end-users: Law students search dialog at the university of Florida. Online, 14(6), 64±69. Schwartz, C. (1998). Web search engines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(11), 973±982. Su, L. (1997). Developing a comprehensive and systematic model of user evaluation of web-based search engines. In M. Williams, National Online Meeting: Proceedings Ð 1997 (pp. 335±345).
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Yannopoulos, G. N. (1998). In Modelling the legal decision process for information technology applications in law (p.
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1997 small law ®rm technology survey American Bar Association, Legal Technology Resource Center
ABA (1997). 1997 small law ®rm technology survey. Technical report, American Bar Association, Legal Technology
Resource Center. Sample results at http://www.abanet.org/tech/ltrc/survsamp.html.
Information strategies in the academic law library
- Tearle
Tearle, B. (1994). Information strategies in the academic law library. Law Librarian, 25(2), 75±79.
Libclient: An internet legal research tool
- Dempsey
American Bar Association, Legal Technology Resource Center
- Aba