research-article

Some(what) grand challenges for information retrieval

Author:

Nicholas J. BelkinAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGIR Forum, Volume 42, Issue 1

Pages 47 - 54

https://doi.org/10.1145/1394251.1394261

Published: 01 June 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Although we see the positive results of information retrieval research embodied throughout the Internet, on our computer desktops, and in many other aspects of daily life, at the same time we notice that people still have a wide variety of difficulties in finding information that is useful in resolving their problematic situations. This suggests that there still remain substantial challenges for research in IR. Already in 1988, on the occasion of receiving the ACM SIGIR Gerard Salton Award, Karen Spärck Jones suggested that substantial progress in information retrieval was likely only to come through addressing issues associated with users (actual or potential) of IR systems, rather than continuing IR research's almost exclusive focus on document representation and matching and ranking techniques. In recent years it appears that her message has begun to be heard, yet we still have relatively few substantive results that respond to it. In this paper, I identify and discuss a few challenges for IR research which fall within the scope of association with users, and which I believe, if properly addressed, are likely to lead to substantial increases in the usefulness, usability and pleasurability of information retrieval.

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Azzopardi LClarke CKantor PMitra BTrippas JRen ZAliannejadi MArabzadeh NChandrasekar Rde Rijke MEustratiadis PHersh WHuang JKanoulas EKareem JLi YLupart SMekonnen KRoegiest ASoboroff ISilvestri FVerberne SVos DYang EZhao Y(2024)Report on the Search Futures Workshop at ECIR 2024ACM SIGIR Forum10.1145/3687273.368728858:1(1-41)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2024
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Index Terms

Some(what) grand challenges for information retrieval
1. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval

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cover image ACM SIGIR Forum

ACM SIGIR Forum Volume 42, Issue 1

June 2008

76 pages

ISSN:0163-5840

DOI:10.1145/1394251

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Copyright © 2008 Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 01 June 2008

Published in SIGIR Volume 42, Issue 1

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