Course Objectives:

Further development of selected objectives of 17:610:520 including:

• Understanding and appreciation of the role of information retrieval databases in information organization and retrieval.
• Understanding of characteristics, functions and impact of:
  • Subject scope and domain based on user needs and market assessment as a basis for the design of information retrieval (IR) databases.
  • Documentary units: direct access to portions of texts.
  • Indexable matter (analysis base).
  • Analysis and indexing methods (human intellectual; automatic algorithmic).
  • Exhaustivity of indexing.
  • Specificity of terminology.
  • Displayed versus non-displayed indexing for browsing versus direct searching.
  • Syntax for displayed headings and search statements.
  • Vocabulary management; construction and use of thesauri, ontologies; integration into search interfaces.
  • Surrogate options: display, arrangements.
  • Arrangement of displayed indexes using classifications.
  • Size estimation planning for back-of-the-book Indexes.
  • Search interfaces for overviews, browsing and searching.
  • Full text formatting and display.

Course Organization:

The course will focus on exploring the relevant research, design, and applications literature and applying it to problems and projects chosen by each student. In the first part of the course, students will be guided in seeking, presenting, and discussing relevant literature. Students will be guided in formulating projects and applying concepts and suggestions from the literature to them. The final project will combine a suggested solution to a problem, such as the allocationof machine and human indexing, design of advanced electronic syntax for browsable index heading displays, integration of vocabulary management into search interfaces; the implementation of a prototype solution; and a paper reviewing the relevant literature and describing the suggested solution.