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T his is an empirically sophisticated study of the impacts of multimedia communication systems. It is rare to find a study that compares competing theoretical models, includes both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, examines leading edge technology impacts, and is longitudinal in design. Here we have such a study. I believe that we need more studies of organization communications that are as methodologically rich as this one.

Five independently generated Boolean query formulations for ten different TREC topics were produced by ten different expert online searchers. These different formulations were grouped, and the groups, and combinations of them, were used as searches against the TREC test collection, using the INQUERY probabilistic inference network retrieval engine, Results show that progressive combination of query formulations leads to progressively improving retrieval performance, Results were compared against the performance of INQUERY natural language based queries, and in combination with them. The issue of recall as a performance measure in large databases was raised, since overlap between the searches conducted in this study, and the TREC-1 searches, was smaller than expected.

Query length in best-match information retrieval (IR) systems is well known to be positively related to effectiveness in the IR task, when measured in experimental, non-interactive environments. However, in operational, interactive IR systems, query length is quite typically very short, on the order of two to three words. We report on a study which tested the effectiveness of a particular query elicitation technique in increasing initial searcher query length, and which tested the effectiveness of queries elicited using this technique, and the relationship in general between query length and search effectiveness in interactive IR. Results show that the specific technique results in longer queries than a standard query elicitation technique, that this technique is indeed usable, that the technique results in increased user satisfaction with the search, and that query length is positively correlated with user satisfaction with the search.