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Ryen White <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:38:38 -0400
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[Apologies for cross-posting]

CALL FOR PAPERS

SIGIR 2006 WORKSHOP ON EVALUATING EXPLORATORY SEARCH SYSTEMS
10 AUGUST 2006, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE, USA

WEBSITE: http://umiacs.umd.edu/~ryen/eess
DEADLINE FOR ALL SUBMISSIONS: 15 May 2006


1. ORGANIZERS

Ryen White, University of Maryland
Gheorghe Muresan, Rutgers University
Gary Marchionini, University of North Carolina


2. EXPLORATORY SEARCH SYSTEMS (ESS)

Online search has become an increasingly important part of the
everyday lives of most computer users.  Search engines, bibliographic
databases, and digital libraries provide adequate support for those
whose information needs are well-defined. However, there are research
and development opportunities to improve
current search systems so users can succeed more often in situations
when: they lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate
queries, they must navigate complex information spaces, the search
task requires browsing and exploration, or system indexing of
available information is inadequate.

In those situations, people usually submit a tentative query and take
things from there, selectively seeking and passively obtaining cues
about where their next steps lie, i.e., they are engaged in an
"exploratory search."  In some respects, exploratory search can be
seen as a specialization of information exploration — a broader class
of activities where new information is sought in a defined conceptual
area; exploratory data analysis is another example of an information
exploration activity.   Exploratory Search Systems (ESS) have been
developed to support serendipity, learning, and investigation, and
generally allow users to browse available information.


3. AIMS AND TOPICS

3.1 Aims

Whilst search systems are expanding beyond supporting simple lookup
into supporting complex information-seeking behaviors, there is no
framework for how to evaluate this new genre of search system.  This
workshop aims to bring together researchers from communities such as
information retrieval, library and information sciences, and
human-computer interaction for a discussion of the issues related to
the formative and summative evaluation of ESS. The focus in recent
years has been on the development of new systems and interfaces, not
how to evaluate them.  Given the range of technology now available we
must turn attention toward understanding the behaviors and preferences
of searchers. For this reason we focus this workshop on issues in
evaluation, arguably the single most pressing issue in the development
of ESS.

The general aims of the workshop are to:

- Define metrics to evaluate ESS performance
- Establish what ESS should do well
- Focus on the searcher, their tasks, goals and behaviors
- Influence ESS designers to think more about evaluation
- Facilitate comparability between experimental sites developing ESS
and experiments involving ESS
- Discuss components for the non-interactive evaluation of ESS (e.g.,
searcher simulations)

3.2 Topics

We encourage participation based on, but not limited to, the following topics:

- learning
- system log analysis
- task-oriented evaluation
- ethnography and field studies
- user performance and behaviors
- searcher simulations
- biometric data as evidence
- role of context
- metrics for ESS evaluation
- ESS evaluation frameworks
- mental models for exploratory search processes
- test collections
- novel exploratory search interfaces and interaction paradigms


4. SUBMISSION

4.1 Important Dates

Submissions: May 15, 2006
Notification of acceptance: June 16, 2006
Final camera ready submissions: June 30, 2006
Workshop: August 10, 2006

4.2 Requirements

Interested participants will be required to submit a 100 word
biography and a 2000 word position paper in the SIGIR 2006 conference
format.

The workshop will contain two paper sessions, containing at least one
presentation (with discussion) on each of:

- Methodologies (e.g., test collections, simulations, ethnography,
task-oriented approaches)
- Metrics (e.g., measures of learning, user performance)
- Models (e.g., interfaces and interaction paradigms, mental models)

Papers that can be placed into these these categories will be given
preference, as will those papers that concentrate on evaluation rather
than technology.  For each submission the outcome of the review
process will be a recommendation to either: accept for workshop
presentation and working notes, accept for working notes only, or
reject.  Submission will be reviewed by a program committee.

Submissions should be emailed to [log in to unmask] by midnight PST on May 15 2006.

--
Ryen W. White, Ph.D.
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
Tel: +1 301 405 2748
Web: http://umiacs.umd.edu/~ryen
Email: [log in to unmask]

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