Search as research practices on the web: the SaR-Web platform for cross-language engine results analysis

Search engines are the most utilized tools to access information on the Web. The success of large companies such as Google owes to their capacity to conduct users through the vast troves of knowledge and information online. Recently, the concept of search as research has been used to shift the research focus from workings of information-seeking tools towards methods for the social study of Web and particularly the social meanings of engine results. In this paper, we present SaR-Web, a web search tool that provides an automatic means to carry out search as research on the Web. It compares the results of same (translated) queries across search engine language domains, thereby enabling cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons of results. SaR-Web outputs enable the comparative study of cultural mores as well as societal associations and concerns, interpreted through search engine results.

[1]  Gregory Grefenstette,et al.  Cross-Language Information Retrieval , 1998, The Springer International Series on Information Retrieval.

[2]  Thorsten Joachims,et al.  Eye-tracking analysis of user behavior in WWW search , 2004, SIGIR '04.

[3]  Panayiotis Zaphiris,et al.  Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[4]  Jiangping Chen,et al.  A lexical knowledge base approach for English-Chinese cross-language information retrieval , 2006, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[5]  Jin Zhang,et al.  Multiple language supports in search engines , 2007, Online Inf. Rev..

[6]  Carol Stoak Saunders,et al.  Language as power on the Internet , 2007, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[7]  Nick Craswell,et al.  An experimental comparison of click position-bias models , 2008, WSDM '08.

[8]  Greg R. Notess,et al.  Multilingual Searching : Search Engine Language Tools , 2008 .

[9]  Eliane Espindola.  Anthony Baldry. A multimodal approach to text studies in English: The role of MCA in multimodal concordancing and multimodal corpus linguistics , 2008 .

[10]  Jiangping Chen,et al.  Information access across languages on the web: From search engines to digital libraries , 2009, ASIST.

[11]  Alexander van Deursen,et al.  Using the Internet: Skill related problems in users' online behavior , 2009, Interact. Comput..

[12]  Darren Gergle,et al.  The tower of Babel meets web 2.0: user-generated content and its applications in a multilingual context , 2010, CHI.

[13]  Susan C. Herring,et al.  Cultural bias in Wikipedia content on famous persons , 2011, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[14]  Paolo Massa,et al.  Manypedia: comparing language points of view of Wikipedia communities , 2012, WikiSym '12.

[15]  Michael S. Horn,et al.  Omnipedia: bridging the wikipedia language gap , 2012, CHI.

[16]  David Mason,et al.  Digital Methods , 2014, Online Inf. Rev..

[17]  Hugo C. Huurdeman,et al.  Web Archive Search as Research: Methodological and Theoretical Implications , 2014 .

[18]  Richard Rogers,et al.  Contropedia - the analysis and visualization of controversies in Wikipedia articles , 2014, OpenSym.

[19]  Davide Taibi,et al.  Supporting formative assessment in content and language integrated learning: the MWS-Web platform , 2014 .

[20]  Djoerd Hiemstra,et al.  Analysis of Search and Browsing Behavior of Young Users on the Web , 2014, TWEB.

[21]  Ryen W. White,et al.  Lessons from the journey: a query log analysis of within-session learning , 2014, WSDM.

[22]  Gareth J. F. Jones,et al.  A Comparative Study of Online Translation Services for Cross Language Information Retrieval , 2015, WWW.