A PERSONALIZED INFORMATION SEARCH ASSISTANT

M. Elena Renda

2010

Abstract

A common characteristic of most of the traditional search and retrieval systems is that they are oriented towards a generic user, often failing to connect people with what they are really looking for. In this paper we present PI SA, a Personalized Information Search Assistant, which, rather than relying on the unrealistic assumption that the user will precisely specify what she is really looking for when searching, leverages implicit information about the user’s interests. PI SA is a desktop application which provides the user with a highly personalized information space where she can create, manage and organize folders (similarly to email programs), and manage documents retrieved by the system into her folders to best fit her needs. Furthermore, PI SA offers different mechanisms to search the Web, and the possibility of personalizing result delivery and visualization. PI SA learns user and folder profiles from user’s choices, and uses these profiles to improve retrieval effectiveness in searching by selecting the relevant resources to query and filtering the results accordingly. A working prototype has been developed, tested and evaluated. Preliminary user evaluation and experimental results are very promising, showing that the personalized search environment PI SA provides considerably increases effectiveness and user satisfaction in the searching process.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Elena Renda M. (2010). A PERSONALIZED INFORMATION SEARCH ASSISTANT . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology - Volume 2: WEBIST, ISBN 978-989-674-025-2, pages 29-39. DOI: 10.5220/0002793200290039

in Bibtex Style

@conference{webist10,
author={M. Elena Renda},
title={A PERSONALIZED INFORMATION SEARCH ASSISTANT},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology - Volume 2: WEBIST,},
year={2010},
pages={29-39},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0002793200290039},
isbn={978-989-674-025-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology - Volume 2: WEBIST,
TI - A PERSONALIZED INFORMATION SEARCH ASSISTANT
SN - 978-989-674-025-2
AU - Elena Renda M.
PY - 2010
SP - 29
EP - 39
DO - 10.5220/0002793200290039