A task-oriented study on the influencing effects of query-biased summarisation in web searching

White, R.W. and Jose, J. and Ruthven, I. (2003) A task-oriented study on the influencing effects of query-biased summarisation in web searching. Information Processing and Management, 39 (5). pp. 707-733. ISSN 0306-4573 (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4573(02)00033-X)

[thumbnail of strathprints001913]
Preview
 Text. Filename: strathprints001913.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
Download (531kB)| Preview

Abstract

The aim of the work described in this paper is to evaluate the influencing effects of query-biased summaries in web searching. For this purpose, a summarisation system has been developed, and a summary tailored to the user's query is generated automatically for each document retrieved. The system aims to provide both a better means of assessing document relevance than titles or abstracts typical of many web search result lists. Through visiting each result page at retrieval-time, the system provides the user with an idea of the current page content and thus deals with the dynamic nature of the web.To examine the effectiveness of this approach, a task-oriented, comparative evaluation between four different web retrieval systems was performed; two that use query-biased summarisation, and two that use the standard ranked titles/abstracts approach. The results from the evaluation indicate that query-biased summarisation techniques appear to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the traditional ranked titles/abstracts approach. The same methodology was used to compare the effectiveness of two of the web's major search engines; Alta Vista and Google.

ORCID iDs

White, R.W., Jose, J. and Ruthven, I. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6669-5376;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)