Semantic annotation based exploratory search for information analysts

The system presented in this article aims to improve information access through the use of semantic annotation utilizing a non-traditional approach. Instead of applying semantic annotations to enhance the internal information access mechanisms, we use them to empower the user of an information access system through an innovative named entity-based user interface – NameSieve. NameSieve was built to support an intelligence analyst during the process of exploratory search, an advanced type of search requiring multiple iterations of retrieval interleaved with browsing and analyzing the retrieved information. The proposed approach was implemented in the NameSieve system so that the system can transparently present a summary of search results in the form of entity “clouds.” Therefore, these clouds allow the analyst to further explore the results in a novel manner, acting together as a faceted browsing interface. We ran a user study (with ten subjects) to examine the effect of NameSieve, and the study results reported in the paper demonstrate that this new way of applying semantic annotation information was actively used and was evaluated positively by the subjects. It enabled the subjects to work more productively and bring back most relevant documents.