Proceedings of the third symposium on Information interaction in context
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This study examines the use of an ontology as a search tool. Sixteen subjects created queries using Concept-based Information Retrieval Interface (CIRI) and a regular baseline IR interface. The simulated work task method was used to make the searching situations realistic. Subjects' search experiences, queries and search results were examined. The numbers of search concepts and keys, as well as their overlap in the queries were investigated. The effectiveness of the CIRI and baseline queries was compared. An Ontology Index (OI) was calculated for all search tasks and the correlation between the OI and the overlap of search concepts and keys in queries was investigated. The number of search keys and concepts was higher in CIRI queries than in baseline interface queries. Also the overlap of search keys was higher among CIRI users than among baseline users. These both findings are due to CIRI's expansion feature. There was no clear correlation between OI and overlap of search concepts and keys. The search results were evaluated with generalised precision and recall, and relevance scores based on individual relevance assessments. The baseline interface queries performed better in all comparisons, but the difference was statistically significant only in relevance scores based on individual relevance assessments.