The dissertation research explores an approach to automatic concept-based query expansion to improve search engine performance. It uses a network-based approach for identifying the concept represented by the user's query and is founded on the idea that a collection-specific association thesaurus can be used to create a reasonable representation of…

The advance of mobile industry and research has expanded e-learning in order to support an efficient and effective educational process. However, the promised benefits are as much attractive as the existing difficulties and barriers. In this paper, we intend to identify and summarize the critical factors in mobile learning through a…

Objectives: To compare the performance of a range of search facilities; and to illustrate the execution of a comprehensive literature search for qualitative evidence in social work. Context: Developments in literature search methods and comparisons of search facilities help facilitate access to the best available evidence for social workers.…

Google and other online search engines can provide immediate answers to empirical questions about history. However, this immediacy may undermine higher-level historical reasoning and student engagement in historical research. It is important that teachers continue to develop strategies that support students' active engagement with online…

Students who search for broad terms on the Internet can be deluged by useless or offensive information. Dave Gladney, project manager for the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), says what's needed is a commonly agreed-upon vocabulary for describing content for education search. The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) has a…

This article briefly outlines the current major search engines' approach to teachers' web searching. The aim of this article is to make Web searching easier for teachers when searching for relevant online teaching materials, in general, and UK teacher practitioners at primary, secondary and post-compulsory levels, in particular. Therefore, major…

Ample evidence exists to support the conclusion that enterprise search is failing its users. This failure is costing corporate America billions of dollars every year. Most enterprise search engines are built using web search engines as their foundations. These search engines are optimized for web use and are inadequate when used inside the…

The inverted index is the main data structure used by all the major search engines. Search engines build an inverted index on their collection to speed up query processing. As the size of the web grows, the length of the inverted list structures, which can easily grow to hundreds of MBs or even GBs for common terms (roughly linear in the size of…

This study examines behavioral traits to determine what impact they have on average visit duration when interacting with a website, a major part of search engine and webpage performance metrics commonly reported in practice. A task-based design was created to examine participants' interaction with various websites containing a variety of media and…

In Web search, query and click log data are easy to collect but they fail to capture user behaviors that do not lead to clicks. As search engines reach the limits inherent in click data and are hungry for more data in a competitive environment, mining cursor movements, hovering, and scrolling becomes important. This dissertation investigates how…

Billions of people interact with Web search engines daily and their interactions provide valuable clues about their interests and preferences. While modeling search behavior, such as queries and clicks on results, has been found to be effective for various Web search applications, the effectiveness of the existing approaches are limited by…

The authors discuss the relationship between information seeking and epistemic beliefs--beliefs about the source, structure, complexity and stability of knowledge--in the context of collaborative information-seeking discourses. They further suggest that both information seeking, and epistemic cognition research agendas, have suffered from a lack…

Introduction: This paper aims to determine how appropriate information literacy instruction is for preparing students for these unmediated searches using commercial search engines and the Web. Method. A survey was designed using the 2000 Association of College and Research Libraries literacy competency standards for higher education. Survey…

Some librarians embrace discovery tools while others refuse to use them. This lack of consensus can have consequences for student learning when there is inconsistent use, especially in large-scale instruction programs. The authors surveyed academic librarians whose institutions have a discovery tool and who teach information literacy classes in…

Today's students increasingly engage in online environments, with ready access to digital resources and mobile technologies. While much of this activity is socially motivated, the internet is also a source of knowledge for students and frequently accessed for school assignments, projects and assessment purposes. As mathematics continues to be…