Questions

How is relevance treated in real info services?

How do people measure/study relevance?

If more and more searching is online, why worry about relevance from the human side?

Research on voice-recognition software for query posing?

How can people be convinced to take time to do relevance feedback?

Is relevance the only criterion in search performance?

How often do academics collaborate with industry? (consider today’s NEJM report ;-)

2. Assessing the Value of Information

We have read and discussed theoretical notions of relevance. We will now consider the practical notions of the value of information.

A. Compare the value of an information unit [factoid/document] versus the value of the process of extracting that unit.

The IU’s value is dependent on the USE of this information—we can link this to real capital (like labor, intellectual property, etc.)

The value of the process is dependent on the individual (organization?)—we can perhaps link this to psychological or social capital.

B. Is information value absolute or relative?

Consider these question

Knowing Lee’s plan of attack at any point in the Civil War today is interesting but has a different value than it did the night before. [consider time]

Knowing that pressure stops bleeding [consider criticality, universality]

Knowing that Carlos Santana won best album Grammy [consider application scope]

Knowing about safe sex practices [consider age]

Are there some fundamental information that is universally know?

Are there basic information rights (presumably, these would have very high value)?

3. Next week: no readings—we will focus on information design.

4. The one-minute paper concept

What was the big point you learned in class today?

What is the main, unanswered question you leave class with today?