ASK conundrum revisited...again!

I posted a blog about Google's eye tracking research last month. I'm loathed to discuss Google again lest the ISG blog becomes known as the unofficial Google blog; however, the latest post on the Official Google Blog is worthy of some comment...

You might recall another post I made regarding search engine research and development, particularly in the area of information retrieval (IR) aids for users. In this posting I summarised Belkin's research and theories regarding the Anomalous State of Knowledge (ASK). Most of this and subsequent research has sought to introduce IR aids for the user so that they can better solve their ASK conundrum. This assistance varies but often takes the form of query expansion (in its various permutations), browsable subject trees to stimulate query formulation, relevance feedback, and so forth. Providing such tools in systems based on automatic indexing is difficult, but we noted that some search engines have introduced some effective retrieval aids, all designed to alleviate the ASK problem. For example, Yahoo! provides its search assist tool, Clusty provides related concept clusters, and Ask provides other similar tools. Their accuracy in IR varies widely, but overall they prove useful to user. Unfortunately, we also noted that Google provides few user aids comparable to those above, arguably relying more on its PageRank algorithm. Not any longer...

Today Google launched some interface functionality not dissimilar to Yahoo! search assist and Clusty. Their assistance provides some suggested related searches and some extra result summary text for particular results. Receiving this assistance depends on the nature of your query, so have a look at this canned search: 'communism in Russia'. This isn't bad and is better than nothing; but does it really measure up to the aids provided by competing search engines? Compare the results for these canned searches and the IR aids provided for the user by the systems we've discussed already:

• Yahoo! search assist: query term = communism in Russia
• Clusty: query term = communism in Russia
• Ask: query term = communism in Russia
  

Google's attempts appear quite pedestrian by comparison. Yahoo! and Clusty, for example, make their aids readily available so that the user can affect changes in their information seeking behaviour, but Google's tools are far less visible, less detailed, and offer far less functionality. Since a lot of research indicates that many users will not scroll below the 'golden triangle' (i.e. to the bottom of the first result set), it is entirely feasible to think that these 'related search' aids will go unnoticed by the disoriented information seeker.

It is good to see Google deploying user query aids and reacting to developments in other IR systems, but it appears that it will be some time before Google can be said to alleviate users' Anomalous State of Knowledge.

Who's going to teach our "stuff"? and who's going to learn it?

Is this the right forum for this? We all know of the imminent and unwelcome restructuring facing us. Where does the future lie for this discipline, or can we even define what our discipline is? We're constantly reminded now that our HE degrees are products, our students are customers, and so what are we, retailers? Compared to many other "products" in this HE marketplace our products are relatively unpopular despite the fact that there are fewer universities providing what we do compared to a decade ago.
I constantly struggle to explain what it is we do and can therefore understand why students have difficulty in placing it in context. Perhaps a business school isn't the right environment but then neither is a computing department, or it doesn't seem to be, and we don't fit into education or anywhere else.
What is the long term future for this discipline, whatever it is?

It's St. Patrick's day (not St. Paddy's, or St. Pat's or Paddy's day) so I'm off for Guinness in the local.