In case you missed it, here are details of the latest issue of Informer, which just came out this week. This is again one of our bigger issues, with over a dozen articles including conference reviews, feature articles, news and updates from the world of search and information retrieval. This one features extended coverage of ECIR 2022 and CHIIR 2022 and news of new features, specialist groups and training courses. For further details see the Informer website. If you fancy becoming a contributor, get in touch!
Informer: Spring 2022 Issue Out Now
In the Spring issue
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
Pride of place in this overview of the Spring issue has to be the report on ECIR 2022, which so elegantly and effectively integrated the on-site and virtual conference experiences that I for one felt that I had been transported StarTrek-style from Horsham to Stavanger.
ECIR 2022 Experience Report
By Dennis Aumiller on 1st May 2022
After two years of (involuntary) abstinence from any in-person event, this year’s ECIR marked the start of a new era of hybrid conferences. Despite a late lifting of travel restrictions by the Norwegian government, which was announced only two months before the conference date, over 180 people decided to attend at least part of the conference in person.
Karen Spärck Jones (KSJ) Award Presentation at ECIR 2022
By Jochen L. Leidner on 1st May 2022
On Wednesday 14 April Professor Jochen L. Leidner gave the prestigious KSJ award for talented early career researchers in Information Retrieve (IR) or Natural Language Processing (NLP) to Dr Ivan Vulić at ECIR 2022.
ECIR 2023 Dublin
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
ECIR2023 will take place in Dublin on 2-6 April 2023. The web site is now live and sets out the timetable for the submission of presentations and lists the organisers.
From the BCS IRSG Chair
By Udo Kruschwitz on 1st May 2022
Hello everybody and welcome back to a world of in-person meetings, conferences and banquets. Just as we had started to get used to living in a virtual world we will have to adapt again. Do you even remember what it was like to ask a question from the floor? Or how about shaking hands? What’s that?
Events Calendar – June 2022 into 2023
By Andy Macfarlane on 1st May 2022
Note from compiler Andy Macfarlane – Due to the COVID-19 pandemic some events have been cancelled, postponed or will be run virtually. We have provided information on each of the events with the current status at the time of writing. Please check the URL of the event for further details.
CHIIR 2022 report
By Selina Meyer on 1st May 2022
The seventh ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) was supposed to happen in my hometown Regensburg, Germany.Unfortunately, it had to be moved to the virtual space due to the pandemic.To recreate the feel of the historic city, the local organisers took it upon themselves to model the city in gather town, complete with livestreams of popular places in town and Bavarian music.
ISKO UK/BCS IRSG Exploring Information Retrieval lectures series – February/March 2022
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
There has always been close cooperation between the IRSG and the UK Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organisations (ISKO UK), including a common interest in findability issues, including support our Search Solutions conference. Over the course of the pandemic ISKO UK made a significant contribution to maintaining its programme of meetings and workshop and last year I was invited to give a virtual presentation on the subject of information foraging.
SIGIR Forum December 2021 issue
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
The ACM SIGIR Forum is published twice a year, and is an essential read. The December 2021 issue came out after the Winter issue of Informer was published so this is my first opportunity to bring it to your attention. Each issue contains a few research papers and some abstracts of dissertations but the most valuable feature are the reports of ACM conferences.
Search Solutions 2022 Call for presentations
By Tony Russell-Rose on 1st May 2022
Innovations in Search & Information Retrieval
Search Solutions is the premier UK forum for the presentation of the latest innovations in search and information retrieval. We bring together practitioners, researchers, analysts and end users to discuss the latest developments in the IR community and to share insights between research and practice. SS 2022 will be held at the BCS London office on Wednesday 23rd November with tutorials on Tuesday 22nd.
Graduate Student Corner – a new feature for Informer
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
“IRSG would like to offer doctoral students a forum to present their research in progress beyond the more formal workshop, conference and journal papers. Many of you have plenty of good ideas, and often the Ph.D. degree time period is too small to follow up on all of them. Peer reviewed papers are also more rigid and formal, and often not easy to digest, so it may be pleasant to lay out some ideas or hypotheses for discussion in a more informal way and place, and for readers to pick up the intuitions and drivers behind your research.
Graduate Student Corner – Pedro Ruas, University of Lisbon
By Pedro Ruas on 1st May 2022
I am currently a PhD student in the PhD Programme in Informatics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. My main research interests are biomedical text mining and natural language processing. I have published several journal and workshop articles that focus on improving the named entity linking task and other text mining tasks, such as scientific recommendation and text classification.
NeurodiverseIT Specialist Group
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
The Information Retrieval Specialist Group can trace its origins back to 1998, though the British Computer Society itself was founded in 1957. There are over 50 Specialist Groups, and in 2022 a NeurodiverseIT Specialist Group was formed as the result of the independent efforts of Richard Cornell and Matthew Bellringer. The Group is run for and by neurodivergentpeople and held its first meeting in April.
Enterprise Search Management training course from Intranet Focus Ltd
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
In 2012 I undertook a project for the European Commission which had as its objectives the identification of barriers to the development and use of enterprise search applications in the EU. The primary conclusion was that the lack of training for enterprise search software developers and for enterprise search managers was the major barrier.
Information – A Historical Companion (Review)
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
How do you review a book that runs to almost 900 pages? Answers on a pack of postcards please! Two books sparked my interest in the history of information. The first was A History of Online Information Services 1963-1976 by Bourne and Hahn which provides a vast amount of detail on the early development of IR applications as well as the remote access services that really took off in the late 1960s.
And finally…..from the Editor
By Martin White on 1st May 2022
When I started work at Logica in 1989 one of the most talented of my consulting team (let me call him John) had a significant visual handicap resulting from macular degeneration. At the time John had to rely on a horizontally-scrolling LED display of text to write reports and create emails. Apart from being a superb technology analyst John also spoke absolutely fluent French and German as his hearing became a means of offsetting his visual handicaps.
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Opportunities for Authors
If you are an expert in information retrieval or any aspect of search who has strong writing skills, we invite you to contribute to Informer. Please send an article proposal to us at: irsg@bcs.org.
For more information about the BCS IRSG, please go to: http://irsg.bcs.org/about.php
About Informer
Informer is the quarterly newsletter of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group (IRSG). Its aim is to provide insights and inspiration to researchers and professionals working in all aspects of search and information retrieval. Our articles provide accessible and timely coverage of important topics, ranging from focused, practical advice, to concise overviews of broader topics, and to deeper, research-oriented articles and opinion pieces.
The IRSG is a Specialist Group of BCS. Its mission is to provide a focus for the European IR community, facilitate communication between researchers and practitioners and promote the adoption of IR research within industry. We host a major European conference (ECIR) and provide an associated programme of workshops, seminars and events. The IRSG is free to join via the BCS website, which provides access to further IR articles, events and resources.
BCS is the industry body for IT professionals. With members in over 100 countries around the world, BCS is the leading professional and learned society in the field of computers and information systems.
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Visit Informer at http://irsg.bcs.org/informer/
If you have comments, questions, or suggestions for Informer, please contact us at irsg@bcs.org.uk
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