Relevance: The Search for a Definition.

Although relevance judgments are fundamental to the design and evaluation of all information retrieval systems, information scientists have not reached a consensus in defining the central concept of relevance. This paper re-examines the viewpoints of major writers in the field, then introduces a new approach. We believe that relevance is a multidimensional concept; that it is based on the human judgment process; that it is dependent on both internal (cognitive) and external (situational) factors; and that it is intersubjective but nevertheless systematic and measurable. We suggest a different paradigm from the classic source-to-destination communication model of information retrieval. This user-centric cognitive model views the user not the system -as the central and active determinant of the dimensions of relevance.