Personalization in text information retrieval: A survey

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 349 - 369
• Main Authors: Liu, Jingjing, Liu, Chang, Belkin, Nicholas J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.03.2020; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Customization; Information retrieval; Polls & surveys; User groups
• ISSN: 2330-1635; 2330-1643
• DOI: 10.1002/asi.24234

Personalization of information retrieval (PIR) is aimed at tailoring a search toward individual users and user groups by taking account of additional information about users besides their queries. In the past two decades or so, PIR has received extensive attention in both academia and industry. This article surveys the literature of personalization in text retrieval, following a framework for aspects or factors that can be used for personalization. The framework consists of additional information about users that can be explicitly obtained by asking users for their preferences, or implicitly inferred from users' search behaviors. Users' characteristics and contextual factors such as tasks, time, location, etc., can be helpful for personalization. This article also addresses various issues including when to personalize, the evaluation of PIR, privacy, usability, etc. Based on the extensive review, challenges are discussed and directions for future effort are suggested.