Ontology Aided Query Expansion for Retrieving Relevant Texts

Knowledge based approaches to text information retrieval are aimed at increasing the precision of retrieval. In this paper we show that query enhancement through the use of domain ontological structures can enhance the quality of retrieval to a large extent. We have presented a formal framework for extending user queries with domain ontological structures. The query-expansion mechanism has been implemented as a client-side query processor which can use any efficient search engine like Google or Alta Vista at the back end. The approach offers substantial performance gains. We have established the effectiveness of the approach experimentally through the use of single and multiple ontologies.