A Topic-Based Browser for Large Online Resources

The exploration of large information spaces is a difficult task, especially if the user is not familiar with the terminology used to describe information. Conceptual models of a domain in terms of thesauri or ontologies can leverage this problem to some extend. In order to be useful, there is a need for interactive tools for exploring large information sets based on conceptual knowledge. We present a thesaurus based browser that supports a mixed-initiative exploration of large online resources that provides support for thesaurus-based search and topic-based exploration of query results. We motivate the chosen exploration strategy the browser functionality, present the results of user studies and discuss future improvements of the browser.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: EKAW
• Authors: Heiner Stuckenschmidt, Anita de Waard, Ravinder Bhogal, Christiaan Fluit, Arjohn Kampman, Jan van Buel, Erik M. van Mulligen, Jeen Broekstra, Ian Crowlesmith, Frank van Harmelen, Tony Scerri
• Keywords: EKAW 2004, Exploration, Information Retrieval, Large Information, Large Information Spaces