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…

The IIa Internet Study addressed the problem of access/retrieval of relevant information for end users in the digital environment. Findings indicate the feasibility of building distributed digital collections of Web-based documents by applying evolving technologies for dynamic harvesting, processing, and maintenance of catalog content. (AEF)

Describes study conducted with British undergraduate library science students that compared natural language indexing and searching with controlled language searching on a computerized database. The use of the ERIC Thesaurus and Sears List of Subject Headings is explained, recall and precision measures are reported, and further research is…

This overview of the research process for the novice information retrieval (IR) researcher provides guidance on selecting a research question, choosing the type of test, defining variables, developing or using databases, finding and processing queries, assigning treatments to experimental units, collecting and analyzing the data, and presenting…

Describes a study at Louisiana State University that described the criteria mentioned by users evaluating the information within documents as it related to the user's information need situation. Implications for understanding the concept of relevance, for the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems, and for future research are…

Explores relevance issues for elementary school children through the use of think-aloud, shadowing, and participant observer techniques as they searched electronic resources for a class assignment in a school library. Describes types of electronic resources used, identifies relevance criteria applied for textual and pictorial information, and…

Discusses high recall search strategies for undergraduates and how to overcome information overload that results. Highlights include word-based versus visual-based schemes; five summarization and visualization schemes for presenting information retrieval citation output; and results of a study that recommend visualization schemes geared toward…

This study evaluates the usability of the Journal Finder integrated search interface, developed at the Jackson Library at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This interface provides electronic access to publications including journals, newsletters, newspapers, and magazines. This study was conducted to determine how intuitive and…

School systems face many decisions in developing and maintaining learning environments that create success for all students. From district operations to the classroom, district leaders implement solutions and take action based on the information they have at hand. While there is no shortage of data, turning that data into useful information is as…

The effect of a prior gist-based versus item-specific retrieval orientation on recognition of objects and words was examined. Prior item-specific retrieval increased item-specific recognition of episodically related but not previously tested objects relative to both conceptual- and perceptual-gist retrieval. An item-specific retrieval advantage…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a computational approach and a toolset to infer spatial displacements as they occur in route narrative documents and report on first experiments done to produce computer-aided learning (CAL) applications and instructional design editors that exploit the inferred georeferenced itineraries.…

The main method of locating information on the World Wide Web is to use a search engine. Given a set of terms, a search engine will return a list of documents containing those terms. Often, though, this list of documents is extremely large. Unfortunately, there are currently no tools to assist the information seeker in determining whether these…

Discussion of information retrieval in the humanities focuses on a study of 10 graduate students at Indiana University as they conducted literature searches using databases on CD-ROM. Highlights include a review of related literature, search strategies, relevance assessments, human-computer interaction, and databases and indexing. (LRW)

An examination of OCLC's EPIC service and standard video reference tools revealed that EPIC was more comprehensive in finding video titles on the popular or specialized topics of bonsai, genealogy, karate, and holography, because of its keyword searching ability on the massive OCLC database. (11 references) (EA)

Discusses the traditional Cranfield model for information retrieval (IR) evaluation, problems with the model, and extensions and alternatives to Cranfield; describes emerging themes in IR evaluation, including multiple evaluation dimensions and methods, inclusion of users and other stakeholders in the evaluation process, and various approaches to…