Title：On the Generalizability of Results from Interactive Information Retrieval Research

Speaker：Diane Kelly, University of Tennessee

Time：2018.10.11 14:00-15:30

Venue: Lecture Hall, FIT Building

Abstract：The idealized model of conducting empirical research starts with a theory, which is used to derive hypotheses, which are then evaluated using an appropriate method. Researchers often deduce hypotheses from past empirical research reports. But what if these research reports cannot be generalized? Concerns about the generalizability, replicability and reproducibility of research is of growing interest to many research specialties, including information retrieval. This talk focuses on one aspect of generalizability – the extent to which the findings from one study can be used to make predictions about another study – and considers how different community practices, with respect of replicability and reproducibility, might help us address result generalizability so we can construct more lasting and useful theories about information search behaviors.

Bio：Diane Kelly is Professor and Director of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee. Her research and teaching interests are in interactive information search and retrieval, information search behavior, and research methods. She is the recipient of the 2014 ASIST Research Award and the 2013 British Computer Society’s IRSG Karen Sparck Jones Award. She is the current chair of ACM SIGIR, associate editor of ACM Transactions on Information Systems and serves on the editorial boards of several journals including, Information Processing & Management, and Information Retrieval Journal.