column

Fuhr's challenge: conceptual research, or bust

Author:

David BodoffAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGIR Forum, Volume 47, Issue 1

Pages 3 - 16

https://doi.org/10.1145/2492189.2492191

Published: 07 June 2012 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

In his 2012 Salton Award acceptance speech, Norbert Fuhr challenged the IR research community to develop IR into an engineering science. In this note, I elaborate on the implications of this challenge, which I interpret as a call for more conceptualization in IR research. The stakes are high, because failing this transition, IR research may never be able to produce generalizable, long--term performance gains, and IR risks losing its significance as a research field.

References

[1]

Fuhr, N., Salton Award Lecture: Information Retrieval as Engineering Science, in SIGIR 2012. 2012, ACM: Portland, Oregon.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Fuhr, N., Salton Award Lecture: Information Retrieval as Engineering Science. ACM SIGIR Forum, 2012. 46(2): p. 19--28.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[3]

Crocker, L. and J. Algina, Introduction to Classical and Modern Test Theory. 1986, Orlando: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Google Scholar

[4]

Robertson, S.E. and K. Spark Jones, Simple, proven approaches to text retrieval. 1997, University of Cambridge.

Google Scholar

[5]

Abdulmutalib, N. and N. Fuhr, Language models, smoothing, and idf weighting, in Information Retrieval 2010 Workshop at LWA 2010. 2010: Kassel, Germany.

Google Scholar

[6]

Robertson, S.E., C.J. van Rijsbergen, and M.F. Porter, Probabilistic Models of Indexing and Searching, in Information Retrieval Research, R.N. Oddy, et al., Editors. 1981, Butterworths: London.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[7]

Armstrong, T.G., et al., Improvements that Don't Add Up: Ad--Hoc Retrieval Results Since 1998, in CIKM '09. 2009, ACM: Hong Kong.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

Allan, J., et al., Report from SWIRL 2012: The Second Strategic Workshop on Information Retrieval in Lorne. ACM SIGIR Forum, 2012. 46(1): p. 2--32.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Kharazmi SScholer FVallet DSanderson M(2016)Examining Additivity and Weak BaselinesACM Transactions on Information Systems10.1145/288278234:4(1-18)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2882782
Cummins RBourdeau JHendler JNkambou RHorrocks IZhao B(2016)A Study of Retrieval Models for Long Documents and Queries in Information RetrievalProceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/2872427.2883009(795-805)Online publication date: 11-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2872427.2883009

Index Terms

Fuhr's challenge: conceptual research, or bust
1. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval
  2. Information storage systems

Recommendations

Hacker's Challenge 3
The Imagination Challenge: Strategic Foresight and Innovation in the Global Economy (VOICES)
The challenge of commercial document retrieval, part I: major issues, and a framework based on search exhaustivity, determinacy of representation and document collection size

With the growing focus on what is collectively known as "knowledge management", a shift continues to take place in commercial information system development: a shift away from the well-understood data retrieval/database model, to the more complex and ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ACM SIGIR Forum Volume 47, Issue 1

June 2013

68 pages

ISSN:0163-5840

DOI:10.1145/2492189

Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 June 2012

Published in SIGIR Volume 47, Issue 1

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Column

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

2
Total Citations
View Citations
158
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)1
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 30 Aug 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Kharazmi SScholer FVallet DSanderson M(2016)Examining Additivity and Weak BaselinesACM Transactions on Information Systems10.1145/288278234:4(1-18)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2882782
Cummins RBourdeau JHendler JNkambou RHorrocks IZhao B(2016)A Study of Retrieval Models for Long Documents and Queries in Information RetrievalProceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/2872427.2883009(795-805)Online publication date: 11-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2872427.2883009

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Hacker's Challenge 3

The Imagination Challenge: Strategic Foresight and Innovation in the Global Economy (VOICES)

The challenge of commercial document retrieval, part I: major issues, and a framework based on search exhaustivity, determinacy of representation and document collection size

Comments

Published In

Publisher

Publication History

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Other Metrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Cited By

Login options

Full Access

PDF

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Hacker's Challenge 3

The Imagination Challenge: Strategic Foresight and Innovation in the Global Economy (VOICES)

The challenge of commercial document retrieval, part I: major issues, and a framework based on search exhaustivity, determinacy of representation and document collection size

Comments

Information

Published In

Publisher

Publication History

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Get Access

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

eReader

Figures

Other

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations