Role-based results redistribution for collaborative information retrieval

• Published in: Information processing & management Vol. 46; no. 6; pp. 773 - 781
• Main Authors: Shah, Chirag, Pickens, Jeremy, Golovchinsky, Gene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2010; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Algorithmic mediation; Algorithms; Collaboration; Collaborative search; Computer supported cooperative work; Data processing; Entropy; Evaluation; Information processing; Information retrieval; Mediation; Online information retrieval; Queries; Searches; Splitting; Studies; Synchronous; Collaborative search; Evaluation; Algorithmic mediation
• ISSN: 0306-4573; 1873-5371
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2009.10.002

We describe a new approach for algorithmic mediation of a collaborative search process. Unlike most approaches to collaborative IR, we are designing systems that mediate explicitly-defined synchronous collaboration among small groups of searchers with a shared information need. Such functionality is provided by first obtaining different rank-lists based on searchers’ queries, fusing these rank-lists, and then splitting the combined list to distribute documents among collaborators according to their roles. For the work reported here, we consider the case of two people collaborating on a search. We assign them roles of Gatherer and Surveyor: the Gatherer is tasked with exploring highly promising information on a given topic, and the Surveyor is tasked with digging further to explore more diverse information. We demonstrate how our technique provides the Gatherer with high-precision results, and the Surveyor with information that is high in entropy.