Title
Crowdsourcing interactions: using crowdsourcing for evaluating interactive information retrieval systems
Abstract
In the field of information retrieval (IR), researchers and practitioners are often faced with a demand for valid approaches to evaluate the performance of retrieval systems. The Cranfield experiment paradigm has been dominant for the in-vitro evaluation of IR systems. Alternative to this paradigm, laboratory-based user studies have been widely used to evaluate interactive information retrieval (IIR) systems, and at the same time investigate users' information searching behaviours. Major drawbacks of laboratory-based user studies for evaluating IIR systems include the high monetary and temporal costs involved in setting up and running those experiments, the lack of heterogeneity amongst the user population and the limited scale of the experiments, which usually involve a relatively restricted set of users. In this paper, we propose an alternative experimental methodology to laboratory-based user studies. Our novel experimental methodology uses a crowdsourcing platform as a means of engaging study participants. Through crowdsourcing, our experimental methodology can capture user interactions and searching behaviours at a lower cost, with more data, and within a shorter period than traditional laboratory-based user studies, and therefore can be used to assess the performances of IIR systems. In this article, we show the characteristic differences of our approach with respect to traditional IIR experimental and evaluation procedures. We also perform a use case study comparing crowdsourcing-based evaluation with laboratory-based evaluation of IIR systems, which can serve as a tutorial for setting up crowdsourcing-based IIR evaluations.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1007/s10791-012-9206-z
Inf. Retr.
Keywords
Field
DocType
Crowdsourcing evaluation, Interactive IR evaluation, Interactions
Population,Information retrieval,Crowdsourcing,Infinite impulse response,Engineering,User studies
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
16
2
1573-7659
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.69
15
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Guido Zuccon169781.77
Teerapong Leelanupab2396.61
Stewart Whiting3918.90
Emine Yilmaz4145996.39
Joemon M. Jose52782198.37
Leif Azzopardi61919133.10