SP10Q3

Spring 2010 Question 3
Information professionals believe that well designed information retrieval systems (IRs) such as online databases that contain structured access points and controlled vocabulary will facilitate user information access and retrieval. Many libraries have made online databases available for their users free of charge. However, many users prefer to use web searching engines such as Google, Google Scholar, Bing, and Yahoo to find information of interest.

Answer the following: a) Select a library or agency of interest to you. Compare the strengths and weaknesses of a search conducted in a structured IR system that you feel most comfortable with (e.g., ERIC) with a Google, Google Scholar, Bing, or Yahoo search. b) Discuss how the evaluation of retrieval performance of a structured IR system may vary from that of a web search engine. c) Discuss issues in using precision and recall ratios as measures of retrieval performance in IRs and web search engines.

Response


 * need help on the response page with parts b and c of this question