Reference Directed Indexing: Redeeming Relevance for Subject Search in Citation Indexes

Abstract. Citation indexes are valuable tools for research, in part because they provide a means with which to measure the relative impact of articles in a collection of scientific literature. In retrieval systems for citation indexes, recent work has demonstrated the benefit of using ranking metrics based on measures of impact. While this approach is effective in identifying a few of the most important contributions to an area, many documents ranked highly in response to queries are irrelevant to the topic of interest. The problem here is that with such techniques Boolean methods are used to identify candidates for retrieval, even though such methods are poor determiners of relevance. As a solution to this problem, we present an indexing technique that pulls together measures of relevance and significance in a single retrieval metric. This approach, which we call Reference Directed Indexing (RDI) is based on a comparison of the terms authors use in reference to documents. Initial ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ERCIMDL
• Authors: Shannon Bradshaw
• Keywords: Citation Indexes, ERCIMDL 2003, Retrieval Systems, Techniques Boolean Methods