[Asis-l] SIGIR 2004 Workshop on Context in Information Retrieval

[nicholas belkin]

Workshop on Information Retrieval in Context (IRiX) at SIGIR 20004

Call for Participation

There is a growing realisation that relevant information will be 
increasingly accessible across media and genres, across languages and 
across modalities. The retrieval of such information will depend on 
time, place, history of interaction, task in hand, and a range of other 
factors that are not given explicitly but are implicit in the 
interaction, the user’s history and situation, and the ambient 
environment, namely the context. IR research is now conducted in 
multi-media, multi-lingual, and multi-modal environments, but largely 
out of context. However, such contextual data could be used effectively 
to constrain retrieval of information thereby reducing the complexity of 
the retrieval process. To achieve this, context models for different 
modalities will need to be developed so that they can be deployed 
effectively to enhance retrieval performance. Thus truly context-aware 
and context-dependent retrieval will become feasible.

This workshop will explore a variety of theoretical frameworks, 
characteristics and research approaches to focus on an agenda of 
activities to be recommended for future interactive IR (IIR) research. 
There is a strong programme of contributed papers and panels for the 
Workshop; we now invite those interested in the issue of context as it 
affects information retrieval to register to participate in the workshop 
as attendees and contributors to the discussion. Registration for such 
participation is open until the day of the workshop, which is 29 July 
2004 in Sheffield, England.

For further information about the Workshop, including the schedule and 
program, please see http://ir.dcs.gla.ac.uk/context/; to register for 
the Workshop, please go to http://www.sigir.org/sigir2004/. Please note 
that one can register for the Workshop independently of registering for 
SIGIR 2004.

-- 
Nicholas J. Belkin
Chair, and Director of the MLIS Program
Department of Library and Information Science
School of Communication, Information & Library Studies
Rutgers University
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick NJ 08901-1071 USA
tel: +1 732 932 7500 x8271  fax: +1 732 932 2644
email: nick at belkin.rutgers.edu
http://scils.rutgers.edu/~belkin/belkin.html