Journal of Information Retrieval
Special Topic Issue on

Contextual Information Retrieval
   

Guest editors: Fabio Crestani and Ian Ruthven, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Introduction
Context affects all areas of Information Retrieval. A searcher's context affects how they interact with a retrieval system and how they make decisions about the objects they retrieve. Context affects how searchable objects are created, selected and linked within an information resource and context influences how we evaluate retrieval systems. Importantly, it also affects how we design and construct retrieval systems.

The ability to respond to context could allow retrieval systems to learn and predict what information a searcher needs, decide how and when this information should be presented and distinguish between different search goals and searcher preferences. How the designers of search systems should respond to context is an important issue for the development of retrieval systems and the appropriate use of context raises many research questions. For example, what aspects of a searcher's context can we recognise, how should context be utilised within a retrieval system to improve search performance, how can we exploit shared contexts and contexts over time, and how should we evaluate contextual IR systems?

This special topic issue of the Journal of Information Retrieval will address the role of context in the theory and practice of IR systems development. We concentrate specifically on contextual IR systems as opposed to contextual IR in general as the user side of context has been more heavily investigated. The area of contextual IR systems, on the other hand, is one where only recently are we starting to see real progress and where a dedicated issue can help form developments in a fast-moving area of IR.

Indicative list of topics The special topic issue welcomes high-quality manuscripts on the development and evaluation of contextual information retrieval. In line with the editorial policy of the Journal of Information Retrieval we expect that all submissions would contain an appropriate evaluation component. Submissions to the special issue should not be under consideration in any other journal or conference and will evaluated according to the Journal of Information Retrieval reviewing criteria and appropriateness to the Special Topic issue.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited, to:

Submissions should use the Journal of Information Retrieval style templates available from the Journal's homepage and should be submitted through the JIR online submission page selecting the Contextual Information Retrieval special issue article type.

Important dates
Submission of articles: Tue 31st January 2006
Notification to authors: Friday 31st March 2006
Final version of accepted papers: Wed 31st May 2006

All questions regarding submissions should be directed to the special topic issue Guest Editors: Fabio Crestani and Ian Ruthven (fabioc, ir at cis.strath.ac.uk)