Information systems increasingly provide options for visually inspecting data during the process of information discovery and exploration. Little research has dealt so far with user interactions with these systems, and specifically with the effects of characteristics of the displayed data and the user on performance with such systems. The study…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of human information behaviour and to explore the relationship between information behaviour of users and the existing approaches dominating design and evaluation of information retrieval (IR) systems and also to describe briefly new design and evaluation methods in which extensive…

Differences in judged relevance of Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) abstracts identified by two different information systems were investigated. A national semi-private educational service agency which utilizes mechanical searching of the research literature was one information system, while the other was a regional,…

The traditional concern with relevance or nonrelevance of unexamined documents is misplaced, and traditional measures of effectiveness should be replaced by estimates of direct utility of examined documents. (Author)

In part I (JASIS, March-April 1973) the author proposed a methodology for evaluating a retrieval system based on how much users are willing to pay to use the system. Part II sets forth steps in testing the methodology through the analysis of underlying assumptions and through experimentation. (3 references) (Author/RS)

Introduced are methods for computation of term-term association factors, indexing, assignment of term-document relevance values, and computation for recall and relevance. Recall and relevance are based on quantitative intenal system computations, and results are compared with user evaluations. (Author/MF)

Some problems encountered with the ERIC indexing system in efforts to retrieve information from the ERIC files are discussed. (4 references) (Author/NH)

PROBE, a batch-mode information retrieval program used to search the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) data base, was developed by Indiana University. To evaluate the effectiveness of the program, questionnaires were given to the users of 200 consecutive searches during February 1973. Relevance ratios were computed by comparing the…

Results of field study measuring end-user perceptions of sources of information (computer-based, libraries, individuals) suggest that accessibility is multidimensional concept encompassing physical access to source, interface with source, ability to physically retrieve potentially relevant information; and perceptions of accessibility are…

Results from three studies examining 1295 relevance judgments by 36 information retrieval (IR) system end-users are reported. Both the region of the relevance judgments, from non-relevant to highly relevant, and motivations or levels for the relevance judgments are examined. Implications for relevance theory and IR systems evaluation are…

In order to identify and explain the reasons for differences in average on-line search rates among terminal installations, the operations and performance of several facilities using the Lockheed DIALOG system for on-line searching of the ERIC data base were studied. Detailed examinations were made of such aspects as the DIALOG system response time…

Examines end-user judgment and evaluation behavior during information retrieval (IR) system interactions and extends previous research surrounding relevance as a key construct for representing the value end-users ascribe to items retrieved from IR systems. The self-reporting worksheet is appended. (Author/AEF)

A study was conducted of the International Information Service in Physics, Electrotechnology, Computers, and Control (INSPEC) selective dissemination of information (SDI) user profile generation. Five degrees of user involvement in the generation of profiles were investigated ranging from having the user provide only a statement of subject…

As the fourteenth report in a series describing research in automatic information storage and retrieval, this document covers work carried out on the SMART project for approximately one year (summer 1967 to summer 1968). The document is divided into four main parts: (1) SMART systems design, (2) analysis and search experiments, (3) user feedback…