Hi Sally
Did they say how they know this? I mean, I guess you can deduce from simple
search terms whether or not an author was being searched for, but how do
they know whether a user is searching for keyword or title? Surely the only
way to discover this is to actually ask the user why they'd used particular
search terms and what the purpose of the search was for; informed curiosity,
literature search, research, or just passing the time etc? I've always
wondered how accurately free text searches can be measured as there always
seems to be so many variables to account for.
Regards & Have a good weekend!
Kenny
Kenny Baird
Learning Technologist
NCeSS, University of Manchester
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Sally Morris (Chief Executive)
Sent: 27 October 2006 15:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Known-Item vs. Open-Ended Search, OA, OAI and Google
I had an interesting conversation with Google folks earlier this year about
searches in Google Scholar. They said that the majority of searches were
for very specific search terms but not (as far as I can recall) for precise
article titles, nor for individual authors
Perhaps, once again, physics is different?
Sally
Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham
Worthing, West Sussex, BN13 3UU, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1903 871 686
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Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: www.alpsp.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "C.Oppenheim" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: Known-Item vs. Open-Ended Search, OA, OAI and Google
>I remember Cliff Lynch or Michael Lesk (can't remember which) speaking at a
>conference a few years ago saying that the majority of searches ran on
>Arxiv were for an author, rather than a subject or for a known item.
>
> I wonder if any current repositories keep track of the search strategies
> used by people using their repositories.
>
> Charles
>
> Professor Charles Oppenheim
> Head
> Department of Information Science
> Loughborough University
> Loughborough
> Leics LE11 3TU
>
> Tel 01509-223065
> Fax 01509-223053
> e mail [log in to unmask]
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Leslie Carr" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 3:06 PM
> Subject: Re: Known-Item vs. Open-Ended Search, OA, OAI and Google
>
>
>> On 27 Oct 2006, at 13:06, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>>
>>> Andy's informal test is a good demonstration that google is *already*
>>> just about good
>>> enough for "known-item searching" (i.e., where I know the reference I
>>> want, and am just
>>> looking for an OA version of it on the web).
>>>
>>> But the real question is: What proportion of a researcher's searching
>>> and search-needs
>>> consist of known-item searching? What about open-ended searches on
>>> topics, keywords,
>>> boolean text items, etc.?
>>
>> Although I can't determine the true proportion "KI search : OE search",
>> anyone with a repository can find an approximation to it.
>> Just filter out all the items in the logs which come from Google (the
>> string '.google.' appears in the referer field). I have created a file
>> of 30000 google searches that led to either the ECS or the Southampton
>> repositories over a 6-week period last year.
>>
>> The vast majority (>99%) of these appear to be open ended searches
>> (although it may be difficult to differentiate between a focused OE
>> search and a known item search).
>>
>> It should be possible to revisit Andy's experiment and to use these
>> terms as real OE search queries that historically resolved to an eprint
>> via Google.
>> We could then look at the ranking of the eprint that was delivered via
>> Google and compare it to the ranking within the OpenDOAR CSE. That
>> should tell us something more about the behaviour of Google with respect
>> to the literature in repositories.
>> --
>> Les
>>
>
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