The Experts below are selected from a list of 219 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Marcia J. Bates - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Getty End-User Online Searching Project in the Humanities: Report No. 6: Overview and Conclusions
College & Research Libraries, 1996Co-Authors: Marcia J. BatesAbstract:Over a two-year period, the Getty Information Institute (formerly the Getty Art History Information Program) sponsored and carried out a major study of end-user Online Searching by humanities scholars. Complete logs of the searches and output were captured, and the twenty-seven scholars involved were interviewed in depth. An overview of the study and its results is presented, with particular emphasis on matters of interest to academic librarians. Implications are drawn for academic library reference service and collection development, as well as for cataloging in the Online and digital environment.
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Document familiarity, relevance, and Bradford's law: the Getty Online Searching project report no. 5
Information Processing & Management, 1996Co-Authors: Marcia J. BatesAbstract:Abstract The Getty Online Searching Project studied the end-user Searching behavior of 27 humanities scholars over a 2-year period. Surprising results were that a number of scholars anticipated—and found—that they were already familiar with a very high percentage of the records their searches retrieved. Previous familiarity with documents has been mentioned in discussion of relevance and information retrieval (IR) theory, but it has generally not been considered a significant factor. However, these experiences indicate that high document familiarity can be a significant factor in Searching. Some implications are drawn regarding the impact of high document familiarity on relevance and IR theory. Finally, some speculations are made regarding high document familiarity and Bradford's Law.
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Research practices of humanities scholars in an Online environment: The Getty Online Searching project report no. 3
Library & Information Science Research, 1995Co-Authors: Marcia J. Bates, Deborah N. Wilde, Susan L. SiegfriedAbstract:Abstract Use of Online databases by humanities scholars Searching as end users was monitored in a 2-year project conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program. Visiting Scholars at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Santa Monica, California, were offered the opportunity to do unlimited subsidized Searching of DIALOG ® databases. This third report from the project presents results of interviews conducted with the scholars regarding their experiences with Searching, the role the Searching took in their broader research activities, and their attitudes about the future of Online Searching in the humanities. Scholars found the experience stimulating and novel, with comments ranging from its “addictive” properties to a “Sorcerer's Apprentice” quality to complaints about the “industrialization of scholarship.” Generally, the scholars saw DIALOG Searching as supplementing their usual research methods, and not changing them in a fundamental way. Online Searching was seen as particularly useful for interdisciplinary research, and as possibly setting a new standard for the extent of literature that should be reviewed. Identified problems were about equally divided between difficulties with the search interface and lack of desired types of resources. All foresaw Online Searching being used in the future by arts and humanities scholars.
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THE DESIGN OF DATABASES AND OTHER INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR HUMANITIES SCHOLARS: THE GETTY Online Searching PROJECT REPORT NO. 4
Online and CD-Rom Review, 1994Co-Authors: Marcia J. BatesAbstract:Based on the results of a two‐year study of Online Searching by humanities scholars, conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program, implications are drawn for the design of information products for the humanities. Scientists and humanities scholars not only have different kinds of information needs, they also relate to their own literatures infundamentally different ways. As a result, humanities researchers need information products that do not arise out of the conventional assumptions and framework that have produced the familiar databases and other information products in the sciences and industry. These characteristic differences of humanities scholars are first discussed; then design implications are considered in the following areas: design and content of databases, indexing vocabulary in humanities resources, and interfaces and command languages.
Shmuel Gal - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Online Searching with turn cost
Theoretical Computer Science, 2006Co-Authors: Erik D. Demaine, Sándor P. Fekete, Shmuel GalAbstract:We consider the problem of Searching for an object on a line at an unknown distance OPT from the original position of the searcher, in the presence of a cost of d for each time the searcher changes direction. This is a generalization of the well-studied linear-search problem. We describe a strategy that is guaranteed to find the object at a cost of at most 9 ċ OPT + 2d, which has the optimal competitive ratio 9 with respect to OPT plus the minimum corresponding additive term. Our argument for upper and lower bound uses an infinite linear program, which we solve by experimental solution of an infinite series of approximating finite linear programs, estimating the limits, and solving the resulting recurrences for an explicit proof of optimality. We feel that this technique is interesting in its own right and should help solve other Searching problems. In particular, we consider the star search or cowpath problem with turn cost, where the hidden object is placed on one of m rays emanating from the original position of the searcher. For this problem we give a tight bound of (1 + 2mm/(m - 1)m-1)OPT + m((m/(m - 1))m-1 - 1)d. We also discuss tradeoffs between the corresponding coefficients and we consider randomized strategies on the line.
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Online Searching with Turn Cost
arXiv: Data Structures and Algorithms, 2004Co-Authors: Erik D. Demaine, Sándor P. Fekete, Shmuel GalAbstract:We consider the problem of Searching for an object on a line at an unknown distance OPT from the original position of the searcher, in the presence of a cost of d for each time the searcher changes direction. This is a generalization of the well-studied linear-search problem. We describe a strategy that is guaranteed to find the object at a cost of at most 9*OPT + 2d, which has the optimal competitive ratio 9 with respect to OPT plus the minimum corresponding additive term. Our argument for upper and lower bound uses an infinite linear program, which we solve by experimental solution of an infinite series of approximating finite linear programs, estimating the limits, and solving the resulting recurrences. We feel that this technique is interesting in its own right and should help solve other Searching problems. In particular, we consider the star search or cow-path problem with turn cost, where the hidden object is placed on one of m rays emanating from the original position of the searcher. For this problem we give a tight bound of (1+(2(m^m)/((m-1)^(m-1))) OPT + m ((m/(m-1))^(m-1) - 1) d. We also discuss tradeoff between the corresponding coefficients, and briefly consider randomized strategies on the line.
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Note: Online Searching / on the Optimality of the Geometric Sequences for the m Ray Search Online Searching
Operations Research, 2002Co-Authors: Patrick Jaillet, Matthew Stafford, Shmuel GalAbstract:I the recent paper (Jaillet and Stafford 2001), we consider the following search problem: Given m concurrent branches (each a copy of R+), a searcher, initially placed at the origin, has to find an “exit,” which is at an unknown real distance d 1 > 0 from the origin on one of the m concurrent branches. The problem is to find a strategy that minimizes the worst-case ratio between the total distance traveled and the distance of the exit from the origin. The starting point of our work is the paper of Baeza-Yates et al. (1993), which discusses strategies for a problem very similar to our unbounded m-concurrent branch problem, in which the exit is at an integer distance from the origin. When m = 2, they give a proof that the strategy of alternatively moving on each branch, each time doubling the previous distance is optimal (among “monotone-increasing” strategies) with a competitive ratio of 9. When m> 2, they propose the following strategy: Move in the integrally increasing powers of m/ m− 1 in a cyclic manner, visiting branches in the same order over and over again. They argue that, among all “monotone-increasing” cyclic strategies, this one is optimal. One contribution of our paper is to provide a rigorous proof that the strategies introduced in Baeza-Yates et al. (1993) are optimal among all possible strategies. This is achieved via the introduction of a general mathematical programming/duality framework. This framework also allows us to obtain many generalizations such as optimal search strategies under additional deterministic and/or probabilistic information about the target location. It was brought to our attention recently that strategies very similar to those discussed in Baeza-Yates et al. (1993) had been introduced and independently analyzed in Gal (1980). This previous work was unknown to us and was not cited in Baeza-Yates et al. (1993), Jaillet and Stafford (2001), or in some subsequent publications. The purpose of this note is to give proper credit to this previous work. Looking at very similar search problems as the ones described above, Gal (1980) analyses “doubly infinite” search trajectories, for which no initial break point exists (a break point of a trajectory is any point on one of the m branches, excluding the origin, where the searcher changes direction). In other words, in the approach used by Gal, every admissible search trajectory has to start by making an infinite number of small “oscillations” near 0. Using very powerful results on the properties of exponential functions for this type of minimax search problem, the author is able to show the optimality of the doubly infinite sequence m/m− 1 i −
Emyr Lloyd-evans - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Investigating the Prevalence of Reactive Online Searching in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infoveillance Study.
Journal of medical Internet research, 2020Co-Authors: Rafael A Badell-grau, Jordan Patrick Cuff, Brendan P Kelly, Helen Waller-evans, Emyr Lloyd-evansAbstract:BACKGROUND: The ongoing pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on global society, health care, governments, and mass media. Public dissemination of government policies, medical interventions, and misinformation has been remarkably rapid and largely unregulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in increased misinterpretations, miscommunication, and public panic. Being the first full-scale global pandemic of the digital age, COVID-19 has presented novel challenges pertinent to government advice, the spread of news and misinformation, and the trade-off between the accessibility of science and the premature public use of unproven medical interventions. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess the use of internet search terms relating to COVID-19 information and misinformation during the global pandemic, identify which were most used in six affected countries, investigate any temporal trends and the likely propagators of key search terms, and determine any correlation between the per capita cases and deaths with the adoption of these search terms in each of the six countries. METHODS: This study uses relative search volume data extracted from Google Trends for search terms linked to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside per capita case and mortality data extracted from the European Open Data Portal to identify the temporal dynamics of the spread of news and misinformation during the global pandemic in six affected countries (Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States). A correlation analysis was carried out to ascertain any correlation between the temporal trends of search term use and the rise of per capita mortality and disease cases. RESULTS: Of the selected search terms, most were searched immediately following promotion by governments, public figures, or viral circulation of information, but also in relation to the publication of scientific resources, which were sometimes misinterpreted before further dissemination. Strong correlations were identified between the volume of these COVID-19-related search terms (overall mean Spearman rho 0.753, SD 0.158), and per capita mortality (mean per capita deaths Spearman rho 0.690, SD 0.168) and cases (mean per capita cases Spearman rho 0.800, SD 0.112). CONCLUSIONS: These findings illustrate the increased rate and volume of the public consumption of novel information during a global health care crisis. The positive correlation between mortality and Online Searching, particularly in countries with lower COVID-19 testing rates, may demonstrate the imperative to safeguard official communications and dispel misinformation in these countries. Online news, government briefings, and social media provide a powerful tool for the dissemination of important information to the public during pandemics, but their misuse and the presentation of misrepresented medical information should be monitored, minimized, and addressed to safeguard public safety. Ultimately, governments, public health authorities, and scientists have a moral imperative to safeguard the truth and maintain an accessible discourse with the public to limit fear.
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Investigating the Prevalence of Reactive Online Searching in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infoveillance Study (Preprint)
2020Co-Authors: Rafael A Badell-grau, Jordan Patrick Cuff, Brendan P Kelly, Helen Waller-evans, Emyr Lloyd-evansAbstract:BACKGROUND The ongoing pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on global society, health care, governments, and mass media. Public dissemination of government policies, medical interventions, and misinformation has been remarkably rapid and largely unregulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in increased misinterpretations, miscommunication, and public panic. Being the first full-scale global pandemic of the digital age, COVID-19 has presented novel challenges pertinent to government advice, the spread of news and misinformation, and the trade-off between the accessibility of science and the premature public use of unproven medical interventions. OBJECTIVE This study aims to assess the use of internet search terms relating to COVID-19 information and misinformation during the global pandemic, identify which were most used in six affected countries, investigate any temporal trends and the likely propagators of key search terms, and determine any correlation between the <i>per capita</i> cases and deaths with the adoption of these search terms in each of the six countries. METHODS This study uses relative search volume data extracted from Google Trends for search terms linked to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside <i>per capita</i> case and mortality data extracted from the European Open Data Portal to identify the temporal dynamics of the spread of news and misinformation during the global pandemic in six affected countries (Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States). A correlation analysis was carried out to ascertain any correlation between the temporal trends of search term use and the rise of <i>per capita</i> mortality and disease cases. RESULTS Of the selected search terms, most were searched immediately following promotion by governments, public figures, or viral circulation of information, but also in relation to the publication of scientific resources, which were sometimes misinterpreted before further dissemination. Strong correlations were identified between the volume of these COVID-19–related search terms (overall mean Spearman rho 0.753, SD 0.158), and <i>per capita</i> mortality (mean <i>per capita</i> deaths Spearman rho 0.690, SD 0.168) and cases (mean <i>per capita</i> cases Spearman rho 0.800, SD 0.112). CONCLUSIONS These findings illustrate the increased rate and volume of the public consumption of novel information during a global health care crisis. The positive correlation between mortality and Online Searching, particularly in countries with lower COVID-19 testing rates, may demonstrate the imperative to safeguard official communications and dispel misinformation in these countries. Online news, government briefings, and social media provide a powerful tool for the dissemination of important information to the public during pandemics, but their misuse and the presentation of misrepresented medical information should be monitored, minimized, and addressed to safeguard public safety. Ultimately, governments, public health authorities, and scientists have a moral imperative to safeguard the truth and maintain an accessible discourse with the public to limit fear.
David Nicholas - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Digital journals, Big Deals and Online Searching behaviour: a pilot study
Aslib Proceedings, 2003Co-Authors: David Nicholas, Paul Huntington, Anthony WatkinsonAbstract:Evaluates, through deep log analysis, the impact of “Big Deal” agreements on the Online Searching behaviour of users of the Emerald digital library Web site, which provides access to more than 150 journals in the fields of business and information science. The purpose of the evaluation was to map the Online information seeking behaviour of the digital library user and to see whether those signed‐up to a Big Deal arrangement behaved any differently from the others. In general they did. The real surprise proved to be the strong consumer traits of the library’s users. Research reported here refers to the first stage of a three‐stage research project.
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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE Online Searching BEHAVIOUR OF PRACTITIONER END USERS
Journal of Documentation, 1996Co-Authors: David NicholasAbstract:The study set out to determine: (1) what were the Searching characteristics of end users in a non‐academic environment and explain this in the light of their information needs; (2) whether these characteristics were those that were ascribed to end users in the professional literature; (3) whether they differed materially from those of information professionals working in the same fields. Searching characteristics were interpreted in their widest sense to include: command utilisation/knowledge; search success and satisfaction; volume of Searching; Searching style/ approach; duration of searches; file selection; willingness to delegate and levels of training. These issues were explored in relation to two practitioner groups — journalists from The Guardian newspaper, and politicians from The House of Commons. Comparative data were also sought from information professionals in these two organisations. A mixture of social and statistical methods was used to monitor end‐user and professional Searching, though transactional log analysis was strongly featured. Altogether the Searching behaviour of 170 end users was evaluated in the light of the Searching behaviour of seventy librarians. The principal findings were that: in some respects end users did conform to the picture that information professionals have of them: they did search with a limited range of commands; more of their searches produced no results, and search statements were simply constructed. But in other respects they confounded their image — they could be very quick and economical searchers, and they did not display metres of print‐out. However, there were variations between individual end users, and it was often possible to find an end‐user group that matched an information professional group on one aspect of Online Searching or another. The Online behaviour of end users was very much related to their general information seeking behaviour; and to the fact that they were not trained.
Rafael A Badell-grau - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Investigating the Prevalence of Reactive Online Searching in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infoveillance Study.
Journal of medical Internet research, 2020Co-Authors: Rafael A Badell-grau, Jordan Patrick Cuff, Brendan P Kelly, Helen Waller-evans, Emyr Lloyd-evansAbstract:BACKGROUND: The ongoing pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on global society, health care, governments, and mass media. Public dissemination of government policies, medical interventions, and misinformation has been remarkably rapid and largely unregulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in increased misinterpretations, miscommunication, and public panic. Being the first full-scale global pandemic of the digital age, COVID-19 has presented novel challenges pertinent to government advice, the spread of news and misinformation, and the trade-off between the accessibility of science and the premature public use of unproven medical interventions. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess the use of internet search terms relating to COVID-19 information and misinformation during the global pandemic, identify which were most used in six affected countries, investigate any temporal trends and the likely propagators of key search terms, and determine any correlation between the per capita cases and deaths with the adoption of these search terms in each of the six countries. METHODS: This study uses relative search volume data extracted from Google Trends for search terms linked to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside per capita case and mortality data extracted from the European Open Data Portal to identify the temporal dynamics of the spread of news and misinformation during the global pandemic in six affected countries (Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States). A correlation analysis was carried out to ascertain any correlation between the temporal trends of search term use and the rise of per capita mortality and disease cases. RESULTS: Of the selected search terms, most were searched immediately following promotion by governments, public figures, or viral circulation of information, but also in relation to the publication of scientific resources, which were sometimes misinterpreted before further dissemination. Strong correlations were identified between the volume of these COVID-19-related search terms (overall mean Spearman rho 0.753, SD 0.158), and per capita mortality (mean per capita deaths Spearman rho 0.690, SD 0.168) and cases (mean per capita cases Spearman rho 0.800, SD 0.112). CONCLUSIONS: These findings illustrate the increased rate and volume of the public consumption of novel information during a global health care crisis. The positive correlation between mortality and Online Searching, particularly in countries with lower COVID-19 testing rates, may demonstrate the imperative to safeguard official communications and dispel misinformation in these countries. Online news, government briefings, and social media provide a powerful tool for the dissemination of important information to the public during pandemics, but their misuse and the presentation of misrepresented medical information should be monitored, minimized, and addressed to safeguard public safety. Ultimately, governments, public health authorities, and scientists have a moral imperative to safeguard the truth and maintain an accessible discourse with the public to limit fear.
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Investigating the Prevalence of Reactive Online Searching in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infoveillance Study (Preprint)
2020Co-Authors: Rafael A Badell-grau, Jordan Patrick Cuff, Brendan P Kelly, Helen Waller-evans, Emyr Lloyd-evansAbstract:BACKGROUND The ongoing pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on global society, health care, governments, and mass media. Public dissemination of government policies, medical interventions, and misinformation has been remarkably rapid and largely unregulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in increased misinterpretations, miscommunication, and public panic. Being the first full-scale global pandemic of the digital age, COVID-19 has presented novel challenges pertinent to government advice, the spread of news and misinformation, and the trade-off between the accessibility of science and the premature public use of unproven medical interventions. OBJECTIVE This study aims to assess the use of internet search terms relating to COVID-19 information and misinformation during the global pandemic, identify which were most used in six affected countries, investigate any temporal trends and the likely propagators of key search terms, and determine any correlation between the <i>per capita</i> cases and deaths with the adoption of these search terms in each of the six countries. METHODS This study uses relative search volume data extracted from Google Trends for search terms linked to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside <i>per capita</i> case and mortality data extracted from the European Open Data Portal to identify the temporal dynamics of the spread of news and misinformation during the global pandemic in six affected countries (Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States). A correlation analysis was carried out to ascertain any correlation between the temporal trends of search term use and the rise of <i>per capita</i> mortality and disease cases. RESULTS Of the selected search terms, most were searched immediately following promotion by governments, public figures, or viral circulation of information, but also in relation to the publication of scientific resources, which were sometimes misinterpreted before further dissemination. Strong correlations were identified between the volume of these COVID-19–related search terms (overall mean Spearman rho 0.753, SD 0.158), and <i>per capita</i> mortality (mean <i>per capita</i> deaths Spearman rho 0.690, SD 0.168) and cases (mean <i>per capita</i> cases Spearman rho 0.800, SD 0.112). CONCLUSIONS These findings illustrate the increased rate and volume of the public consumption of novel information during a global health care crisis. The positive correlation between mortality and Online Searching, particularly in countries with lower COVID-19 testing rates, may demonstrate the imperative to safeguard official communications and dispel misinformation in these countries. Online news, government briefings, and social media provide a powerful tool for the dissemination of important information to the public during pandemics, but their misuse and the presentation of misrepresented medical information should be monitored, minimized, and addressed to safeguard public safety. Ultimately, governments, public health authorities, and scientists have a moral imperative to safeguard the truth and maintain an accessible discourse with the public to limit fear.
