Abstract

Without detailed knowledge of a collection, most users find it difficult to formulate effective queries. In fact, as observed from Web search engines, users may spend large amounts of time reformulating their queries in order to satisfy their information need. A proven successful method to overcome this difficulty is to treat the query as an initial attempt to retrieve information and use it to construct a new, hopefully better query. Another way to improve a query is to use global (thesauri-like) information. In this article a new, hybrid approach is presented that projects the initial query result on the global information, leading to a local conceptual overview. The resulting concepts are candidates for query refinement.

Citations