How many relevances in information retrieval?

The aim of an information retrieval system is to nd relevant documents, thus relevance is a (if not `the') central concept of information retrieval. Notwithstanding its importance, and the huge amounts of research on this topic in the past, relevance is not yet a well understood concept, also because of an inconsistently used terminology. In this paper, I try to clarify this issue, classifying the various kinds of relevance. I show that: (i) there are many kinds of relevance, not just one (ii) these kinds can be classi ed in a formally de ned four dimensional space and (iii) such classi cation helps us to understand the nature of relevance and relevance judgement. Finally, the consequences of this classi cation on the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems are analysed.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1998
• Where: IWC
• Authors: Stefano Mizzaro
• Keywords: Information Retrieval, Information Retrieval Systems, IWC 1998, Relevant Documents