ACM SIGIR'98 Post-Conference Workshop on
Hypertext Information Retrieval for the Web
Melbourne, Australia, August 28, 1998
Call For Participation
Background
The notion of searching a hypertext corpus has been around for a while.
Early work in the area includes the development of formal search models
that attempt to capture both the content and graph structure of a hypertext,
automatically constructing hypertexts (e.g., via content-based clustering
or citation linking) to incorporate navigation and visualization into the
search process, and extending traditional IR search techniques to exploit
the link relationships in a hypertext (both authored and automatically
generated links). Although this work is interesting, much of it was
conducted at a time when hypertexts were smaller, not distributed, and
somewhat esoteric.
With the advent of the World Wide Web, hypertext and the linking together
of related pieces of information has become ubiquitous. Of course,
hypertext on the WWW has drifted somewhat from the original ideal.
Hypertext "documents" are written by multiple, independent authors who
can create links between pages with indiscretion. Navigational links,
citation links, reference links, and just plain confusing links are creatively
mixed together and scattered throughout the pages. Page lengths range
from a few words to thousands of words, producing a remarkable variety
of hypertext "nodes." Consistency is rarely found within a website
(let alone the WWW), and often only as an afterthought when management
of the site has become problematic. Given the current state of affairs,
it is unclear how much of the early work in hypertext information retrieval
is applicable to the WWW.
About the workshop
In this workshop we will investigate in depth the application of information
retrieval techniques to hypertext/Web documents. In particular, we
will seek to answer the question, "Can we improve on content-based search
results by exploiting the links, meta-data, and other additional information
available on the Web?" We will explore models, algorithms, heuristics,
and systems that attempt to do just that. The goal of this workshop
is to bring together practitioners in the area, as well as anyone interested
in deploying and using WWW search technologies, to identify the problems,
explore general approaches, discuss recent results, and propose future
directions for research, evaluation, and possibly standardization.
Topics may include:
-
formal models of hypertext search
-
algorithms and heuristics for searching hypertext
-
link analysis and exploitation
-
meta-data extraction and exploitation
-
visualization/results presentation that captures hypertext structure
-
scalability issues and implementation techniques
-
impact of new standards (e.g. XML linking, Resource Description Framework)
-
evaluation criteria
The workshop will include paper presentations and discussion, with an emphasis
on the discussion. The organizers will select position papers for
presentation and arrange the presentations and discussion based on the
interests of the attendees. The organizers may invite other presentations
as well.
Participation
All attendees should submit a short abstract in ASCII text on why this
topic is of interest to them. Those wishing to make presentations
should prepare a 3-5 page position paper (no more than 2500 words) in HTML
on the WWW and submit the URL for the paper. All submissions and
requests for further information should be sent via email to Eric Brown
(ewb@us.ibm.com) or Alan Smeaton (asmeaton@compapp.dcu.ie).
Final versions of selected papers will be due in Postscript, and copies
will be distributed to the workshop attendees. Note to authors:
we are seeking preliminary or draft papers - you will retain copyright
ownership and may submit your paper elsewhere for more formal, subsequent
publication.
Organization
Workshop chairs:
Timetable
| Position Paper URL Submission: |
July 1, 1998. |
| Notification: |
July 10, 1998. |
| Camera-ready copy: |
July 31, 1998. |
| Interest Abstract Submission: |
July 31, 1998 |
| Workshop: |
August 28, 1998. |
Further information
Information about the full SIGIR program is available through the SIGIR
home page. If you are considering attending SIGIR or this workshop,
use the SIGIR page to register your interest in participation. Also,
be sure to email your abstract for this workshop to Eric Brown (ewb@us.ibm.com)
or Alan Smeaton (asmeaton@compapp.dcu.ie)
by July 31, 1998.