Professional search in pharmaceutical research [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Alex Kohn

Professional Search in Pharmaceutical Research Alex Kohn München 2009 Professional Search in Pharmaceutical Research Alex Kohn Dissertation an der Fakultät für Mathematik, Informatik und Statistik der Ludwig ‐Maximilians ‐Universität München vorgelegt von Alex Kohn München, den 24.11.2009 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. François Bry (Ludwig ‐Maximilians ‐Universität München) Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Steffen Staab (Universität Koblenz ‐Landau) Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 19.01.2010 Abstract In the mid 90s, visiting libraries – as means of retrieving the latest literature – was still a common necessity among professionals. Nowadays, professionals simply access information by ‘googling’. Indeed, the name of the Web search engine market leader “Google” became a synonym for searching and retrieving information. Despite the increased popularity of search as a method for retrieving relevant information, at the workplace search engines still do not deliver satisfying results to professionals. Search engines for instance ignore that the relevance of answers (the satisfaction of a searcher’s needs) depends not only on the query (the information request) and the document corpus, but also on the working context (the user’s personal needs, education, etc.).