Functions of a Man-Machine Interactive Information Retrieval System
Abstract
An effective man-machine interactive retrieval system is not achieved by simply placing a terminal on each end of an existing machine retrieval system. An interactive system requires a sequence of steps in which man and machine alternately take action. It should also provide different levels of services to experienced and inexperienced searches, recognize the difference between a narrow and broad query, furnish clues as to the next direction to be searched, reorganize the data base dynamically as the searcher changes his view- point, providing a ranking of responses in the most likely sequence and offer the searcher the option of overriding the ranking when a particular term is of extreme significance. An online interactive system meeting many of these needs was developed and tested. The objective of the development of this system, BROWSER, was to investigate the effectiveness of a free-form query with a combinatorial search algorithm and the effectiveness of various techniques and components to facilitate online browsing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1970
- Accession Number
- AD0716954
Entities
People
- John H. Williams Jr.
Organizations
- International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY)