Qualtiy Measures and the Information Consumer

Abstract

This chapter discusses the proposal for using quality criteria to facilitate information searching. It suggests that the information consumer can be assisted in searching for information by using a consumer-oriented model of quality. This is achieved by presenting the consumer with a set of relevant quality criteria from which they can select those of most importance to them at that present time, and allowing them to state preference values and importance weightings for each criterion. The consumer’s quality profile can then be used to focus an information search onto relevant search domains, and produce a more focused output. The chapter presents our model of quality and shows that quality measures can be used to focus information searches by achieving statistically significant changes in the ordering of the obtained search results.