Differentiating conscious and formalized information needs
Decanato - Facoltà di scienze informatiche
Data: 3 Luglio 2018 / 14:30 - 15:30
USI Lugano Campus, room SI-003, Informatics building (Via G. Buffi 13)
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Abstract: | |||||||||||
Information need is a fundamental concept within Information Science. Robert Taylor’s seminal contribution in the 1960s was to propose a division of information needs into four levels: visceral, conscious, formalized and compromised levels of need. Taylor’s contribution has provided much inspiration to Information Science research, but this has largely remained at the discursive and conceptual level. In this talk, I present a novel empirical investigation of Taylor’s information need classification. I linguistically analyse the differences between conscious and formalized needs using several hundred postings to major Internet discussion groups. We show that conscious needs are more emotional in tone, more based on sensory perception and contain different temporal dimensions than formalized needs. I show how it is possible to differentiate levels of information need based on linguistic patterns and that the language used to express information needs can reflect an individual’s own understanding of their information problem. This has implications for how moderators of online news groups respond to information needs and for developing automated support for classifying information needs. |
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Biography: | |||||||||||
Ian Ruthven is a Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Strathclyde University. |
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