How medical expertise influences web search interaction

Domain expertise can have an important influence on how people search. In this poster we present findings from a log-based study into how medical domain experts search the Web for information related to their expertise, as compared with non-experts. We find differences in sites visited, query vocabulary, and search behavior. The findings have implications for the automatic identification of domain experts from interaction logs, and the use of domain knowledge in applications such as query suggestion or page recommendation to support non-experts. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information storage and retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: SIGIR
• Authors: Ryen W. White, Susan T. Dumais, Jaime Teevan
• Keywords: Domain Expertise, Domain Experts, Information Technology, Medical Domain Experts, SIGIR 2008