Catherine McGowan – I Seek, Therefore I Am

InfoSeekers Publish an Article and an ICTIR Paper Acceptance

July 8, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

First, we must congratulate InfoSeeker, Ruoyuan Gao for having her paper accepted at ICTIR 2019!

Next, we are excited to share the news that our InfoSeekers, Shawon Sarkar, Matthew Mitsui, Jiqun Liu and Chirag Shah, have published a new article! The title of the article is: Implicit information need as explicit problems, help, and behavioral signals.

ABSTRACT

Information need is one of the most fundamental aspects of information seeking, which traditionally conceptualizes as the initiation phase of an individual’s information seeking behavior. However, the very elusive and inexpressible nature of information need makes it hard to elicit from the information seeker or to extract through an automated process. One approach to understanding how a person realizes and expresses information need is to observe their seeking behaviors, to engage processes with information retrieval systems, and to focus on situated performative actions. Using Dervin’s Sense-Making theory and conceptualization of information need based on existing studies, the work reported here tries to understand and explore the concept of information need from a fresh methodological perspective by examining users’ perceived barriers and desired helps in different stages of information search episodes through the analyses of various implicit and explicit user search behaviors. In a controlled lab study, each participant performed three simulated online information search tasks. Participants’ implicit behaviors were collected through search logs, and explicit feedback was elicited through pre-task and post-task questionnaires. A total of 208 query segments were logged, along with users’ annotations on perceived problems and help. Data collected from the study was analyzed by applying both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings identified several behaviors – such as the number of bookmarks, query length, number of the unique queries, time spent on search results observed in the previous segment, the current segment, and throughout the session – strongly associated with participants’ perceived barriers and help needed. The findings also showed that it is possible to build accurate predictive models to infer perceived problems of articulation of queries, useless and irrelevant information, and unavailability of information from users’ previous segment, current segment, and whole session behaviors. The findings also demonstrated that by combining perceived problem(s) and search behavioral features, it was possible to infer users’ needed help(s) in search with a certain level of accuracy (78%).

KEYWORDS

Information need
Information searching
Interactive IR

Implicit information need as explicit problems, help, and behavioral signals is available via the following link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.102069

InfoSeekers Publish a Book!

June 8, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

We’re excited to share the news that our InfoSeekers, Jiqun Liu and Chirag Shah, have published a new book! The title of the book is Interactive IR User Study Design, Evaluation, and Reporting.

Abstract

Since user study design has been widely applied in search interactions and information retrieval (IR) systems evaluation studies, a deep reflection and meta-evaluation of interactive IR (IIR) user studies is critical for sharpening the instruments of IIR research and improving the reliability and validity of the conclusions drawn from IIR user studies. To this end, we developed a faceted framework for supporting user study design, reporting, and evaluation based on a systematic review of the state-of-the-art IIR research papers recently published in several top IR venues (n=462). Within the framework, we identify three major types of research focuses, extract and summarize facet values from specific cases, and highlight the under-reported user study components which may significantly affect the results of research. Then, we employ the faceted framework in evaluating a series of IIR user studies against their respective research questions and explain the roles and impacts of the underlying connections and “collaborations” among different facet values. Through bridging diverse combinations of facet values with the study design decisions made for addressing research problems, the faceted framework can shed light on IIR user study design, reporting, and evaluation practices and help students and young researchers design and assess their own studies.

Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Interactive Information Retrieval / Methodology: Paper Selection and Coding Scheme / Faceted Framework of IIR User Studies / Evaluating IIR User Studies of Different Types / Implications and Limitations of the Faceted Framework / Conclusion and Future Directions / Appendix / Bibliography / Authors’ Biographies

Jiqun Liu shared his thoughts on the release of his new book: “Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services includes a variety of interesting topics that are highly relevant to my research. I am thrilled and honored to have my own book published as part of the Synthesis Lectures book series.”

Interactive IR User Study Design, Evaluation, and Reporting is available via the following link: https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/pdf/10.2200/S00923ED1V01Y201905ICR067

Graduation Celebrations for our InfoSeekers

May 19, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

2019 commencement celebrations have arrived. First, we must extend our enormous congratulations to both Dr. Matthew Mitsui and Dr. Ziad Matni for completing their PhDs!

Dr. Ziad Matni with Professor Chirag Shah.

Dr. Matthew Mitsui with Professor Chirag Shah.

Additionally, we must celebrate InfoSeeker Ruoyuan Gao for passing her qualifying exams this semester! And, InfoSeeker Jiqun Liu won outstanding continuing doctoral student award in the area of Information Science this semester.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the great work of our undergraduate InfoSeekers. Divya Parikh has been working on our social media system SOCRATES. Samantha Lee worked on a project that assessed the variety of approaches to improve community Q&A platforms as part of Project SUPER. Ruchi Khatri worked on a project as part of Project SUPER that investigated which factors affect stress in human computer interaction, interactive information retrieval, health search, and interface design. And, Gayeon Yoo is working on a project for our system, SOCRATES.

Congratulations again to all of our InfoSeekers and their hard work this year!

InfoSeekers attend ECIR 2019!

May 3, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

InfoSeeker Souvick Ghosh attended the 41^st Annual European Conference on Information Retrieval in Cologne, German. Souvick presented “Exploring Result Presentation in Conversational IR using a Wizard-of-Oz Study” at ECIR as part of the Doctoral Consortium.

Souvick Ghosh (center) Doctoral Consortium group photo at the 41st Annual European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2019.)

Souvick Ghosh presented his work that reflects on recent researches in conversational IR that have explored problems related to context enhancement, question-answering, and query reformulations. His work focused on result presentation over audio channels. The linear and transient nature of speech makes it cognitively challenging for the user to process a large amount of information. Presenting the search results (from SERP) is equally challenging, as it is not feasible to read out the list of results. He proposes a study to evaluate the users’ preference of modalities when using conversational search systems. The study aims to understand how results should be presented in a conversational search system. Through observation of how users search using audio queries, interact with the intermediary, and process the results presented, insight can be developed on how to present results more efficiently in a conversational search setting. Additionally, there are plans to explore the effectiveness and consistency of different media in a conversational search setting. Observations in this work will inform future designs and help to create a better understanding of such systems.

Souvick had a few words to reflect on his experience at ECIR 2019: “I was lucky to have Dr. Udo Kruschwitz as my mentor and we had some great discussions about my dissertation ideas, research in general, and the life of a Ph.D. student. It also gave me the opportunity to catch up with some old friends in Europe and make some new ones.”

InfoSeekers attend the New Jersey Big Data Alliance Symposium!

April 21, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

InfoSeeker Matthew Mitsui attended the 6^th Annual New Jersey Big Data Alliance Symposium. The title of the symposium this year was The Future of Big Data: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and it was hosted at New Jersey City University.

Matthew Mitsui presented “Multi-Faceted Information Seeking Leveraging Big Data” at the symposium. It was co-authored by some of our other InfoSeekers: Souvick Ghosh, Ruoyuan Gao, and Chirag Shah.

Matthew Mitsui presenting at the 6th Annual New Jersey Big Data Alliance Symposium.

Their presentation addressed the complexities of the search process and the multitude of obstacles and issues an information seeker can encounter; viz., information task and resource limitations; information quality; information bias. They identified that those obstacles are often presented to the user through the tools employed during the search process, and their aim was to explore how search tools can be improved in order to foster collaboration with the user and surmount these obstacles. They addressed the need for search tools that can assist the user through three primary approaches: search task assistance, assessing information quality, and counterbalancing bias.

InfoSeekers attend CHIIR 2019 Conference!

March 26, 2019 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

This month, some of our InfoSeekers attended the 2019 annual CHIIR conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Here are some of the highlights!

Rutgers University InfoSeeking students, Jiqun Liu, Souvick Ghosh, and Diana Soltari attended CHIIR, along with InfoSeekers Chirag Shah and Matthew Mitsui.

Infoseekers at the Glasgow City Chambers for CHIIR 2019.

InfoSeeker, Diana Soltari presented Coagmento 3.0, which is an interactive web application that allows researchers to prototype web-search behavior studies through a GUI. The demonstration presented the front-end administrative functionality of Coagmento, including, but not limited to, stage and questionnaire creation.

Diana Soltari presenting Coagmento 3.0 at CHIIR 2019.

InfoSeeker, Jiqun Liu presented several papers this year at CHIIR! He presented one full paper, one short paper, and one doctoral consortium paper. Jiqun’s papers reported user studies on the interactions between task, information seeking intentions, and user search behavior in information seeking episodes.

Jiqun Liu presenting a short paper at CHIIR 2019.

Jiqun Liu presenting a paper at CHIIR 2019.

Information Retrieval (IR) Fairness: What is it and what can we do?

December 21, 2018 Catherine McGowan Comments 0 Comment

When you search for information in a search engine such as Google, a list of results is displayed for you to explore further. This process is called Information Retrieval. The contents of the search results are collected based on certain criteria that are catered to you such as: past search history to match your interests, geographic location to relate to what is relevant based on your physical location, and advertising that has been targeted to match your interests and geographic location. These criteria are coded into algorithms to automate the information retrieval process catered to your needs, or what you would potentially consider to be relevant.

For example, let’s say you are searching for information about the healthiness of coffee and you search for “is coffee good for your health.” You may be looking for information that confirms your belief about the benefits of coffee, or you may be simply asking the question “whether coffee is good or bad for your health.” If you asked this question to a human who was an expert in facts about coffee you would likely get an answer that weighs the benefits and harms of coffee. Ideally, when you enter this same question in a search engine, it should return both the goodness and badness about coffee.

Unfortunately, searching for “is coffee good for your health” and “is coffee good for your health” will return a different set of information that is catered to your needs, and not the question as a whole. As a result, catering specifically to the user can create bias. If you are only seeing information that relates to what you are already interested in, or what is geographically near you, there are other perspectives that are intentionally filtered out of the results list.

So, how can we improve the algorithms that are used in the information retrieval process to incorporate more perspectives to reduce bias?

InfoSeeker Ruoyuan Gao is currently working on addressing the presence of bias found in search engine results. Currently, she is exploring several strategies to investigate the relationship between information usefulness and fairness within search engines such as Google. She proposes developing tools to measure the degree of bias in order to create a more balanced list of search results that includes many relevant perspectives for a search topic.

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