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Reference
Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History
Elin Tonby Pedersen, Karl Gyllstrom, Shengyin Gu, Peter Jin Hong
IUI 2010 - Hong Kong
Summary
Research is performed by millions of people at many different levels. This paper introduces the idea of a research trail, which helps researchers reestablish their research process after leaving the context for an extended time period. A system was developed which worked with a user’s web history to form research trails. An ethnographic study was performed on users performing research as the system was designed and implemented. The implementation relies heavily on a user’s web browsing history information in order to provide a research trail. The implementation detects related areas and groups them accordingly. Additionally, the system is aware of time gaps between research sessions and can sort segments appropriately. A small study of three users was performed, which indicated the system was favorably received.
Analysis
This paper really had me excited, especially as they were describing all of the problems faced by people attempting to conduct research. I was ready to see a wonderful implementation of something that would change my life and make me a unstoppable researching force of nature. However, the implementation was only briefly described, and there wasn’t any tool I could download and try out. I felt like the paper motivated the need for a tool well, but didn’t actually deliver anything I could evaluate or grasp. I have a feeling that we will see future improvements on the system described.
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