Bilkent University
Department of Computer Engineering
S E M I N A R
What and How Students Search for Learning
Arif Usta
MSc Student
Computer Engineering Department
Bilkent UniversityQuery logs constitute valuable sources of information to explore search process and to enhance search engine systems. The analysis of this information can offer an insight into behavior, interests and preferences of users. In this study, we analyze an educational search engine log for shedding light on K-12 students search behavior in a learning environment. We specifically focus on query, session, user and click characteristics and compare the trends to the findings in the literature for general web search engines. Our analysis helps understanding how students search with the purpose of learning in an educational vertical, and reveals new directions to improve the search performance in the education domain. We believe this analysis will assist improving search engine systems, specifically result ranking mechanisms using learning-to-rank algorithms.
DATE: 07 April, 2014, Monday @ 16:40
PLACE: EA-409