During the closing panel session of the Search Solutions conference in November Professor Iadh Ounis (University of Glasgow) highlighted the need to keep graduate and undergraduate courses updated in line with the very rapid developments in IR theory, development and practice. Around this time there was a Twitter thread about what might be the best… Continue reading And finally….from the Editor
Category: Feature Article
IR and ACL Anthologies
The US equivalent of IRSG is SIGIR, which publishes its Forum newsletter every six months. This is always a very good read and you do not have to be a member of SIGIR to do so. One of the feature articles in the June issue (which only came online in October!) is an introduction to… Continue reading IR and ACL Anthologies
Big Information and big budgets
The concept of Big Data has been around for some time. John Mashey at Silicon Graphics is usually credited with inventing the term in a presentation he gave in 1998. Without doubt big data is very difficult to manage and the demand for people with data science skills never seems to slow down. However much… Continue reading Big Information and big budgets
History of the Institute of Information Scientists 1958-2002
Over the last two years I have been working with Dr. Sandra Ward and Professor Charles Oppenheim in writing a history of the Institute of Information Scientists. The IIS was founded in 1958, largely due to the vision and commitment of Jason Farradane and the support of G. Malcolm Dyson. The IIS merged/was taken over… Continue reading History of the Institute of Information Scientists 1958-2002
And finally….
I suspect that the name G. Malcolm Dyson in the History of the IIS item above will be unfamiliar to anyone who has not been in chemical information retrieval for quite a number of decades. Dyson developed a linear notation for organic chemical compounds in 1946, initially with a view to supporting the use of… Continue reading And finally….
Report on the SIGIR 2021 Workshop “IR for Children 2000-2020: Where Are We Now?”
Authors (Monica Landoni, Theo Huibers, Emiliana Murgia, and Sole Pera) This year, researchers and practitioners gathered during a workshop co-located with the 44th edition of the renowned ACM SIGIR conference to discuss the current status of information retrieval (IR) research targeting children. The idea of hosting a workshop at ACM SIGIR first emerged from discussions… Continue reading Report on the SIGIR 2021 Workshop “IR for Children 2000-2020: Where Are We Now?”
David Maxwell wins the 2020 BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation award
The BCS in collaboration with the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) gives an annual award for the best thesis in computer science. David (at that time at the University of Glasgow) was recognised for his thesis: ‘Modelling search and stopping in interactive information retrieval.’ David is now undertaking post-graduate research at the… Continue reading David Maxwell wins the 2020 BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation award
Is there now a business in paid-for web search?
I would commend a blog post by Stephen Arnold on the future of paid-for web search, prompted by the release of Neeva which comes free for three months and then you pay $4.95 a month. (That fee is in very very small print on the home page!) Over the years several companies have tried to… Continue reading Is there now a business in paid-for web search?
On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?
There are few better ways of spending an hour than doing so listening to Professor Emily Bender, University of Waashington, taking about language models in a virtual presentation hosted by the Alan Turing Institute on 8 July 2021. The main topics in this excellent lecture (content, presentation and discussion) were Are ever larger language models… Continue reading On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?
IRSG web site upgrade
Work is now in progress with the migration of the IRSG web site into the new BCS Specialist Group web site style. For rather too long we have been somewhat out of step with the other Specialist Groups. We are anticipating that the new site will be launched towards the end of August. We have… Continue reading IRSG web site upgrade