Conference Review: ECIR 2011

ECIR 2011, the 33rd European Conference on Information Retrieval and the BCS IRSG’s flagship annual conference was organised by Dublin City University in cooperation with the University of Sheffield, and was supported by the Information Retrieval Specialist Group at the British Computer Society (BCS-IRSG) and the Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (ACM SIGIR). It… Continue reading Conference Review: ECIR 2011

Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (pt 2)

1. Introduction In our last post we looked at some of the fundamental issues in designing faceted search such as layout (e.g. where to place the faceted navigation menus) and state (e.g. whether they should be open or closed by default). In this post, we continue the mini-series with a review of the various formats… Continue reading Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (pt 2)

Events spring 2012

AGM/Talks/One Day Events ISKO-UK Seminar and Workshop: “I think, therefore I classify”. A joint ISKO/IRSG on classification. BCS Covent Garden, 16th July 2012 BCS IRSG Search Solutions 2012. The annual one day event on search practice. 28th November 2012

Editorial

Welcome to the January 2012 edition of Informer, the quarterly newsletter of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group (IRSG). For those of you who have been eagerly waiting for the next issue, we are pleased to announce that after a bit of a hibernation we are back in full swing. Has it really been more than two… Continue reading Editorial

The Three Circles of Collaborative Search

Search often appears personal, introspective, and private; an activity of the individual in isolation. In fact, most researchers depict search as a single-user activity. Yet a 2008 survey found that over half of respondents self-reported having co-operated with other people to search the web, while an impressive 97.1% went on to indicate at least one… Continue reading The Three Circles of Collaborative Search

Conference Review: Search Solutions 2011

In November I attended the British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group’s annual Search Solutions conference, which brings together theoreticians and practitioners to discuss the latest advances in search. This is always a fascinating event, split into several sessions to cover the various aspects of search: web, enterprise and more.

Delivering Successful Search Within the Enterprise

There is a strange phenomenon surrounding enterprise search. Unlike the practical factors of managing enterprise content, search is shrouded by the expectations of magic.  It is the only component of a document management or content management platform that is expected to work flawlessly out of the box, just point-and-index for perfect search results every time.… Continue reading Delivering Successful Search Within the Enterprise

Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (Pt 1)

Faceted search offers tremendous potential for transforming search experiences. It provides a flexible framework by which users can satisfy a wide variety of information needs, ranging from simple lookup and fact retrieval to complex exploratory search and discovery scenarios.  In this article, we begin with a look at some of the fundamental design considerations such… Continue reading Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (Pt 1)

Book Review: The Social Semantic Web

The Social Semantic Web by Breslin, J.G., Passant, A., Decker, S., ISBN: 978-3-642-01171-9 The Social Semantic Web is, as one would expect, another book on the Semantic Web. This book provides an easy-to-understand insight into Semantic Web and Social Web technologies and highlights research challenges when applying these technologies. The Social Web is defined as the… Continue reading Book Review: The Social Semantic Web