Think outside the search box

A while ago I wrote a post discussing some of the shortcomings of current approaches to search; focusing on the relatively primitive and inefficient formalisms used by many database vendors to express search strategies. In that post, I argued that the conventional approach shares many of the shortcomings of early programming languages such as first generation Basic, relying on arbitrary labels such as line numbers to convey structure and organisation.

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Tutorials at Search Solutions 2017

As you may recall last month I announced the line-up for Search Solutions 2017, to be held at BCS London on November 29. I’m pleased to announce that this year we’ll also be offering a Tutorial Programme, which will run the preceding day (Tuesday 28th). The programme consists of three half day-tutorials:

• 09:30-13:00 Designing Search (Dr. Tony Russell-Rose, UXLabs)
• 14:00-17:30 Text Analysis with GATE (Diana Maynard, University of Sheffield)
• 14:00-17:30 Searching the Linked Open Data Cloud (Epaminondas Kapetanios, University of Westminster )

My tutorial is fully booked now, but I’ve appended further details below in case you’re interested in attending a future presentation. Last year I attended Diana’s tutorial on GATE and can highly recommend it as an excellent introduction to the platform and NLP in general. This year I am looking forward to Epaminondas’s tutorial on linked open data – very timely and topical!

Full details of pricing and registration are available on the Search Solutions website. Note that the closing date for bookings is Sunday 26th November. Hope to see you there 🙂

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Web developer needed

I am looking for a front end / web developer for a 6-month contract (with possible extension) to work on an Innovate-UK funded project investigating graphical approaches to search strategy formulation. The aim of the project is to develop tools and techniques for search query formulation which can be integrated within a visual framework to deliver a more efficient and intuitive approach to professional search applications.

Requirements

• Proven working experience in web programming
• Familiarity with popular JavaScript frameworks such as AngularJS
• Creative problem-solving skills
• Ideally experience of migrating existing desktop software applications to the web
• Prepared to sign an NDA governed by English law.

Responsibilities

• Write well designed, testable, efficient code by using best software development practices
• Create user interfaces by using standard Javascript/HTML/CSS practices
• Integrate data from various back-end services and databases
• Create and maintain software documentation
• Maintain awareness of emerging technologies & trends and put them into operation

Salary DOE. Part time working possible. Remote working by negotiation, but candidates will need to attend weekly meetings in London. Further details on request. Principals only please – no subcontractors. Can you recommend anyone?

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Expert Search Strategies: the information retrieval practices of healthcare information professionals

Regular readers of this blog will know that over the past couple of years I’ve been researching professional search strategies in the workplace as part of an InnovateUK-funded research project. A key outcome of that is the following journal article, which I am pleased to say, has just been published in JMIR Medical Informatics. It is a collaboration with Jon Chamberlain of Essex University and investigates the search behavior of healthcare information professionals.

I hope Jon won’t mind too much if I describe the work as slightly more academic than my usual blog posts, but it does provide a useful counterpoint to studies of other professions, and complements some of the more conceptual or design-oriented posts on this site. I’ve appended the abstract below. For the full text, see the JMIR website.

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Web developer / researcher needed (freelance)

I am looking for a highly skilled, articulate researcher/developer for a short engagement to investigate the options in migrating an existing desktop software application to the cloud. I need someone who understands the complexities involved in making an application that was built in Java FX work seamlessly on the web.

The deliverable will be a technical report that outlines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with each option, along with a set of practical recommendations for next steps and the costs associated with each.

To succeed in this role you will need to be:

• highly educated, technically literate and open-minded
• able to rapidly understand the requirements embodied in an existing desktop application, and anticipate future requirements and scalability concerns
• willing to ask intelligent questions to make sure you understand the subtleties, trade-offs and complexities of the project and are doing the best possible job for your client
• skilled in researching different technical options and critically evaluating them
• able to form robust and defensible recommendations based on your research
• experienced in communicating those recommendations in the form of credible and detailed technical report
• prepared to sign an NDA governed by English law.

Lots more information available on request. Principals only please (no agencies). Can you recommend anyone?

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Designing Search – tutorial at Search Solutions 2016

Last month I announced the line-up for Search Solutions 2016, to be held at BCS London on November 30. This year we’re also offering a Tutorial Programme, which will run the day before. The programme consists of four half day-tutorials:

• 09:30-13:00 Designing Search (Dr. Tony Russell-Rose, UXLabs)
• 09:30-13:00 Query Log Mining for Inferring User Tasks and Needs , (Emine Yilmaz and Rishabh Mehrotra, UCL)
• 14:00-17:30 Text Analysis with GATE (Diana Maynard, University of Sheffield)
• 14:00-17:30 Enterprise search evaluation – good practice in action, (Paul Clough, University of Sheffield and Martin White, Intranet Focus Ltd)

I’ve appended further details of my tutorial below. Full details of pricing and registration are available on the Search Solutions website. Note that the closing date for bookings is Friday 25th November 2016. Hope to see you there!

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Search Strategy Formulation: A Framework For Learning (part 2)

As promised, here is the second instalment of our paper on search strategy formulation, which Andy MacFarlane presented at 4th Spanish Conference in Information Retrieval in Granada last week. Andy has been teaching IR and search strategies for many years, and this paper represents a synthesis of his framework and my research insights. It describes a structured way to think about search strategy development and (hopefully) offers some valuable advice on how best to teach such skills. As always, comments & feedback welcome!

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