Query Log Analysis
Introduction
Special issue of ACM Transactions on the Web, Edited by Einat Amitay and Andrei Broder; Deadline 17 Dec 2008
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Call for Papers
Special issue on Query Log Analysis: Technology & Ethics
ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB)
http://www.acm.org/tweb
GUEST EDITORS
Einat Amitay, IBM Research, Haifa Lab, Israel, e-mail : einat@il.ibm.com
Andrei Broder, Yahoo! Research, USA, e-mail: broder@yahoo-inc.com
The complete records of queries received by web search engines (Query Logs or QLs) are the fundamental evidence of their audience search goals and the engines’ ability to provide satisfactory answers. QLs include information such as queries submitted, reformulations, session boundaries, results actually explored (click through data), time spent reading each result, and so on. Commercial search engines use QL analysis to extract patterns of individual and collective behavior and use this feedback for improving search performance and accuracy. At the same time, the queries made by a particular individual often reflect their current interests and preoccupation and reveal a surprising amount of highly personal information. Hence the use of QLs raises issues of privacy and data ownership, which in turn gives rise to technical problems of QL anonymization and data security and legal and ethical problems regarding the use and retention of QLs.
This special issue of ACM Transactions on the Web aims to gather a collection of high quality contributions that reflect both technical and non-technical issues related to QL analysis.
Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
Search & Ranking: Use of QLs for – ranking; query refinement and expansion; behavior prediction; implicit collaborative filtering; targeted advertising; document expansion; document clustering; metadata creation; etc;
Data mining & prediction: QL trend extraction; “Buzz” mining; Product performance prediction; Correlation of QL data with external events; Patterns of information-seeking & interaction behaviors observed in QLs;
Performance & Evaluation: Query caching based on QL patterns; Sampling QLs; QL-based search quality evaluation; QL-based models of relevance;
Privacy & Policy: QL anonymization; Privacy preserving tools (e.g. query blocking, masking and obfuscation); Privacy preserving QLs analysis. Legal, regulatory, and ethical issues in QL collection and use; Practical policies and practices of query logging; QL data retention issues.
Prospective authors, please submit your paper according to the directions on the ACM TWEB Web site following the content and formatting uidelines available at . There you can also find detailed information about the ACM TWEB review process. When submitting your paper, please mention that it is to be considered for the special issue on Query Log Analysis: Technology & Ethics. In addition, please send a copy of your paper to einat@il.ibm.com
IMPORTANT DATES
Papers Due: December 17, 2007
Author notification: March 31, 2008
Revised versions of accepted papers due: June 16, 2008 (all accepted papers expected to undergo minor set of revisions)
Camera-ready copies due: August 1, 2008:
Issue published; November 2008