Learning has transcended into a life-long endeavor in the information age. It is no longer restricted to confines of formal classrooms. Consequently, a student is not restricted to traditional learning resources like teachers, textbooks or printed content. Digital resources available on the Internet form a very significant component of…

This paper provides an overview of specifications and standards for metadata relating to learning materials. It is structured to present first the currently established metadata schemas in use today (specifically the IEEE LOM and Dublin Core metadata), then to examine current developments and activities before looking at what might be the future…

This paper describes a procedure to manage connotations, so that they may be identified in the document databases of television channels. The system is based on Ranganathan's facets, as this is the best tool to describe actions--i.e. the units analysed in television--which enable the identification of the connoted information by introducing or…

Reports on the progress of the natural language information retrieval project, a joint effort led by GE (General Electric) Research, and its evaluation at the sixth TREC (Text Retrieval Conference). Discusses stream-based information retrieval, which uses alternative methods of document indexing; advanced linguistic streams; weighting; and query…

Businesses and higher education leaders are looking for students with the ability to evaluate and analyze information and to use this information to solve real-world problems. These are the information literacy skills students need for the 21st century. However, several recent studies on the ability of college freshmen to handle the rigor of…

Describes a system based on a probabilistic inference network retrieval model that was used to study the retrieval effectiveness benefits of combining types of document and query information that are found in typical commercial databases and information services. Multiple document representations, multiple index representations, and multiple query…

Explains a new methodology for thesaurus design that is specifically geared for use by novice end-users, and describes a faceted hierarchical thesaurus organization which provides an economical information retrieval system in a corporate setting. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the quality of information retrieval using "free text" searching in full-text databases and presents a critical perspective on the importance of augmenting access to full-text databases through some form of text enhancement, such as the use of a limited controlled vocabulary for indexing general concepts. (Author/JL)

Reports on a theoretical model of structured document indexing and retrieval based on the Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence. Highlights include passage retrieval, hypertext, relevance, information needs, implementation of the model, an evaluation scheme designed to test the model's effectiveness, and results of experiments that investigated…

Presents findings of project aimed at improving subject access in online library catalogs by generating records with augmented subject descriptions, termed BOOKS records, and comparing them with MARC records. Procedures involved in the selection of subject descriptions to generate a BOOKS record are described and illustrated. Six references cited.…

Examines the history, structure, and search capabilities of Internet search tools AltaVista and Yahoo. AltaVista provides relevance-ranked feedback on full-text searches. Yahoo indexes Web "citations" only but does organize information hierarchically into predefined categories. Yahoo has recently become a publicly held company and…

Discussion of the use of Latent Semantic Indexing to determine relevancy in information retrieval focuses on statistical regression and Bayesian methods. Topics include keyword searching; a multiple regression model; how the regression model can aid search methods; and limitations of this approach, including complexity, linearity, and…

Discusses indeterminancy of selection of terms by indexers and by inquirers as major factors influencing subject access to documents in document retrieval systems. Five types of interactions between these two indeterminancies are discussed, and a change in traditional method of subject searching is suggested to reduce effect of inter-indexer…

Summarizes the characteristics of TOXIN, CHEMFILE, and the Product Profile Information System (PPIS), nonbibliographic databases used by Shell Oil Company's Health, Safety, and Environment Organization. (FM)

Discusses the need to index foreign words for information retrieval that are used in Korean text and presents an effective foreign word recognition and extraction method based on word segmentation. Uses both unknown word information acquired through the automatic dictionary compilation and foreign word recognition information. (Author/LRW)