An Initial Investigation into Fixed and Adaptive Stopping Strategies

Maxwell, D., Azzopardi, L., Järvelin, K. and Keskustalo, H. (2015) An Initial Investigation into Fixed and Adaptive Stopping Strategies. In: SIGIR 2015: 38th Annual ACM SIGIR Conference, Santiago, Chile, 09-13 Aug 2015, pp. 903-906. ISBN 978145033621 (doi: 10.1145/2766462.2767802)

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Abstract

Most models, measures and simulations often assume that a searcher will stop at a predetermined place in a ranked list of results. However, during the course of a search ses- sion, real-world searchers will vary and adapt their interac- tions with a ranked list. These interactions depend upon a variety of factors, including the content and quality of the results returned, and the searcher's information need. In this paper, we perform a preliminary simulated analysis into the influence of stopping strategies when query quality varies. Placed in the context of ad-hoc topic retrieval dur- ing a multi-query search session, we examine the in uence of fixed and adaptive stopping strategies on overall perfor- mance. Surprisingly, we find that a fixed strategy can per- form as well as the examined adaptive strategies, but the fixed depth needs to be adjusted depending on the querying strategy used. Further work is required to explore how well the stopping strategies re ect actual search behaviour, and to determine whether one stopping strategy is dominant.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Maxwell, Mr David and Azzopardi, Dr Leif
Authors: Maxwell, D., Azzopardi, L., Järvelin, K., and Keskustalo, H.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
ISBN:978145033621
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2015 ACM
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher
Related URLs:
Data DOI:10.5525/gla.researchdata.169

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