SemSearchPro – Using semantics throughout the search process

Semantic search attempts to go beyond the current state of the art in information access by addressing information needs on the semantic level, i.e. considering the meaning of users’ queries and the available resources. In recent years, there have been significant advances in developing and applying semantic technologies to the problem of semantic search. To collate these various approaches and to better understand what the concept of semantic search entails, we study semantic search under a general model. Extending this model, we introduce the notion of process-based semantic search, where semantics is exploited not only for query processing, but might be involved in all steps of the search process. We propose a particular approach that instantiates this process-based model. The usefulness of using semantics throughout the search process is finally assessed via a task-based evaluation performed in a real world scenario.