Using the Semantic Web for Web Searches

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Using the Semantic Web for Web Searches

• Norman Piedade de Noronha,
• Mário J. Silva
• XLDB / LaSIGE,
• Faculdade de Ciências,
• Universidade de Lisboa.

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Limitations in searching for information on the
Web

• Lack of syntax Information is stored in an
  unorganized manner.
• Lack of semantics Machine processes do not
  understand the meaning of information.
• ?
• Unable to properly filter information for users
  which leads to information overload.

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Semantic Web Searches

• Ex Contacting an author of a certain article in
  a particular newspaper.
• Articles Title ? Articles Author ? Authors
  Name ? Authors Email

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Objectives

1. Build a SW search environment.
2. Evaluate compare searches on this environment.

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Hypothesis

• Searches based on semantics improve user
  satisfaction and reduce effort by eliminating
  irrelevant results.

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Outline

• Motivation The Semantic Web
• ReQuest for News Validation
• Conclusions Future Work

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ReQuest Use Cases
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Configure new domain in ReQuest

1. Selecting Input Data.
2. Configuring ReQuest.
3. Defining Equivalences.
4. Launching New Domain.

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ReQuest for News
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ReQuest for News
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ReQuest for News
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Validation

• Surveys with a group of 5 users.
• 9 queries on news domain.
• Measures on ReQuest and Google.

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Examples of search queries

• (Q1) Find the post office address for the
  publisher Publico.
• (Q9) How many distinct articles were published by
  Publico about Futebol between the 5th of January,
  2004 and the 7th of January, 2004.

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Individual Query Survey

• How hard was the query to formulate?
• Did the semantic links help find the information?
• How long did it take to find the information?
• How relevant was the obtained information for
  your need?
• How many results were not interesting in the
  first page?
• Which search system was easier to use?

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Global Survey Results

• Improve interface.
• Rank search results.
• Reduce information by providing a reduced version
  of results.
• Search within results.
• Search with properties from different contexts.
• Domain search preferred to Global search.

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Hypothesis Validation

• Searches based on semantics improve user
  satisfaction and reduce effort by eliminating
  irrelevant results.
• Measurements
• Information Need Satisfaction.
• Effort Reduction.
• Irrelevant Results Reduction.

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Measure 1 Information Need Satisfaction

• Only one user achieved greater success with
  Google.
• Googles results better in only one out of nine
  queries.

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Measure 2Effort Reduction

• Majority of users were successfully aided by
  ReQuest approximately 7 times, while only 20
  managed to solve more than half of the tests with
  less effort with Google.
• Some users did not produce a single test query
  where Google required less effort than ReQuest.

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Measure 3 Irrelevant Results Reduction

• Only first page results were compared.
• 80 of users found fewer results with ReQuest
  than with Google.
• ReQuest was more precise than Google for 48.9 of
  all questions, while Google was more precise for
  24.4.

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Conclusions

• Positive Feedback Searches based on semantics
  improved user satisfaction and reduced effort by
  eliminating irrelevant results.
• Offering users the ability to select the search
  context is a more exact method for expressing the
  information need than key words.
• However, results not statistically significant
  for the universe of Web users or semantic
  assisted searches.

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Future Work

• Domain searches enhanced with ability to restrict
  values.
• Multilingual Searches.

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THANKS

• Thank you very much for your attention.