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Course Description
Information retrieval has long been a subject that interested a small group of computer scientists, information scientists as well as some librarians. Naturally these groups do not have the same perspective of the subject. This course aims to balance the computer science and librarian perspective of information retrieval.
Information retrieval has long been confined to building application to retrieve extracts from a predefined stock of content. With the rise of the web, information retrieval issues on the web have started to attract a lot of interest. This course aims to give a balanced overview of issues that arise in tradition information retrieval and web-based systems.
Course objectives
After completing the course, students will be able to
Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with elementary symbolic algebra.
Readings
There are two texts used in several lectures.
Korfhage, Robert R., "Information Storage and Retrieval", published by John Wiley & Sons, 1997
This book will be referred to as RRK throughout the course documentation. Baeza-Yates, Ricardo and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto "Modern Information Retrieval", ACM Press 1999.
This book will be referred to as BYRN throughout the course documentation. Students should not read that book unless specifically requested by the instructor.
Other papers used
Brin, Sergey and Page, Lawrence (1998) " The anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyertextual Search Engine"
Class structure
Classes will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 14:00 and 15:20 in the computer lab.
| date | topic | reading |
assignment
|
|
| 01 | 1–16 | introduction of course participants |
|
|
| 02 | 1–18 | introduction to the topic | RRK 1–13 |
|
| 03 | 1–23 | retrieval on the web | web retrieval exercise
|
|
| 04 | 1–25 | user interfaces | BYRN ch. 10 |
|
| 04 | 1–30 | search engines | Brin and Page | user interfac
|
| 06 | 2–01 | sofix |
|
|
| 07 | 2–6 | creating well formed XML | miniexam
|
|
| 08 | 2–8 | data input session I |
|
|
| 09 | 2–13 | XML applications | application description
|
|
| 10 | 2–15 | data input session II |
|
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| 00 | 2–20 | no class |
|
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| 11 | 2–22 | creating valid XML |
|
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| 12 | 2–27 | displaying XML | sofix file
|
|
| 13 | 3–01 | revision class |
|
|
| 14 | 3–06 | mid-term exam |
|
|
| 15 | 3–08 | introduction to datasbases |
|
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| 16 | 3–13 | table operations | style sheet
|
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| 17 | 3–20 | more table operation |
|
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| 18 | 3–22 | sample queries |
|
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| 19 | 3–27 | tables in MS Access |
|
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| 20 | 3–27 | more on MS Access |
|
Assessment
Class discussion and activities form an important part of this course. Missing more than two classes without the approval of the instructor will result in lowering the grade for the course by one grade.
Handed-in exercises have to be handed in the Tuesday class. Each day of delay reduces the mark by one grade.
For both handed-in assignment only the three out of five that have the best marks will count. For the mini exams, only the three that have the best marks will count. Everybody is allowed to have a bad day.
The final grade will be composed as follows
| item |
weight
|
| mini exams | 25%
|
| exercises | 25%
|
| mid-term exam | 25%
|
| final exam | 25%
|
Instructor
Thomas Krichel
Room 330
B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library
The Palmer School of
Library and Information Science
C.W.
Post Campus
Long Island University
720 Northern Boulevard, Brookville, New York 11548–1300
t.krichel@surrey.ac.uk
work phone: +1–(516)299–2843
Private contact details may be obtained from the online CV.