What the Query Told the Link: The Integration of Hypertext and Information Retrieval

Traditionally hypertexts have been limited in size by the manual effort required to create hypertext links. In addition, large hyper–linked collections may overwhelm users with the range of possible links from any node, only a fraction of which may be appropriate for a given user at any time. This work explores automatic methods of link construction based on feedback from users collected during browsing. A fulltext search engine mediates the linking process. Query terms that distinguish well among documents in the database become candidate anchors; links are mediated by passage–based relevance feedback queries. The newspaper metaphor is used to organize the retrieval results. VOIR, a software prototype that implements these algorithms has been used to browse a 74,500 node (250MB) database of newspaper articles. An experiment has been conducted to test the relative effectiveness of dynamic links and user–specified queries. Experimental results suggest that link– mediated querie...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: HT
• Authors: Gene Golovchinsky
• Keywords: HT 1997, Internet Technology, Link– Mediated Queries, Relevance Feedback Queries, User– Specified Queries