Temporal Dynamics and Information Retrieval
Susan T. Dumais, Microsoft Research, USA
Abstract
Many digital resources, like the Web, are dynamic and ever-changing collections of information. However, most information retrieval tools developed for interacting with Web content, such as browsers and search engines, focus on a single static snapshot of the information. In this talk, I will present analyses of how Web content changes over time, how people re-visit Web pages over time, and how re-visitation patterns are influenced by changes in user intent and content. These results have implications for many aspects of information retrieval and management including crawling policy, ranking and information extraction algorithms, result presentation, and systems evaluation. I will describe a prototype that supports people in understanding how the information they interact with changes over time, and new retrieval models that incorporate features about the temporal evolution of content to improve core ranking. Finally, I will conclude with an overview of some general challenges that need to be addressed to fully incorporate temporal dynamics in information retrieval and information management systems.
Biography
Susan Dumais is a Principal Researcher and manager of the Context, Learning and User Experience for Search (CLUES) Group at Microsoft Research. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she was at Bellcore and Bell Labs for many years, where she worked on Latent Semantic Indexing (a statistical method for concept-based retrieval), interfaces for combining search and navigation, and organizational impacts of new technology. Her current research focuses on user modeling and personalization, context and information retrieval, temporal dynamics of information, interactive retrieval, and novel evaluation methods. She has worked closely with several Microsoft groups (Bing, Windows Desktop Search, SharePoint Portal Server, and Office Online Help) on search-related innovations. Susan has published more than 200 articles in the fields of information science, human-computer interaction, and cognitive science, and holds several patents on novel retrieval algorithms and interfaces. Susan is also an adjunct professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. She is Past-Chair of ACM's Special Interest Group in Information Retrieval (SIGIR), and serves on several editorial boards, technical program committees, and government panels. She was elected to the CHI Academy in 2005, an ACM Fellow in 2006, received the SIGIR Gerard Salton Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2011.
