Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive
Researchers need to be able to find, access, and use data to participate in open science. To understand how users search for research data, we analyzed textual queries issued at a large social science data archive, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). We collec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology
2024-03-01
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| Series: | IASSIST Quarterly |
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| Online Access: | https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/article/view/1087 |
| _version_ | 1797233885275226112 |
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| author | Sara Lafia A.J. Million Libby Hemphill |
| author_facet | Sara Lafia A.J. Million Libby Hemphill |
| author_sort | Sara Lafia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Researchers need to be able to find, access, and use data to participate in open science. To understand how users search for research data, we analyzed textual queries issued at a large social science data archive, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). We collected unique user queries from 988,475 user search sessions over four years (2012-16). Overall, we found that only 30% of site visitors entered search terms into the ICPSR website. We analyzed search strategies within these sessions by extending existing dataset search taxonomies to classify a subset of the 1,554 most popular queries. We identified five categories of commonly-issued queries: keyword-based (e.g., date, place, topic); name (e.g., study, series); identifier (e.g., study, series); author (e.g., institutional, individual); and type (e.g., file, format). While the dominant search strategy used short keywords to explore topics, directed searches for known items using study and series names were also common. We further distinguished exploratory browsing from directed search queries based on their page views, refinements, search depth, duration, and length. Directed queries were longer (i.e., they had more words), while sessions with exploratory queries had more refinements and associated page views. By comparing search interactions at ICPSR to other natural language interactions in similar web search contexts, we conclude that dataset search at ICPSR is underutilized. We envision how alternative search paradigms, such as those enabled by recommender systems, can enhance dataset search.
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| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T16:23:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3e59762ebfc4413b985bd3dcc5345ea0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2331-4141 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T16:23:16Z |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IASSIST Quarterly |
| spelling | doaj.art-3e59762ebfc4413b985bd3dcc5345ea02024-03-31T09:23:26ZengInternational Association for Social Science Information Service and TechnologyIASSIST Quarterly2331-41412024-03-0148110.29173/iq1087Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archiveSara Lafia0A.J. Million1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8909-153XLibby Hemphill2ICPSR, University of MichiganICPSR, University of MichiganICPSR and UMSI, University of Michigan Researchers need to be able to find, access, and use data to participate in open science. To understand how users search for research data, we analyzed textual queries issued at a large social science data archive, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). We collected unique user queries from 988,475 user search sessions over four years (2012-16). Overall, we found that only 30% of site visitors entered search terms into the ICPSR website. We analyzed search strategies within these sessions by extending existing dataset search taxonomies to classify a subset of the 1,554 most popular queries. We identified five categories of commonly-issued queries: keyword-based (e.g., date, place, topic); name (e.g., study, series); identifier (e.g., study, series); author (e.g., institutional, individual); and type (e.g., file, format). While the dominant search strategy used short keywords to explore topics, directed searches for known items using study and series names were also common. We further distinguished exploratory browsing from directed search queries based on their page views, refinements, search depth, duration, and length. Directed queries were longer (i.e., they had more words), while sessions with exploratory queries had more refinements and associated page views. By comparing search interactions at ICPSR to other natural language interactions in similar web search contexts, we conclude that dataset search at ICPSR is underutilized. We envision how alternative search paradigms, such as those enabled by recommender systems, can enhance dataset search. https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/article/view/1087research datainformation searchquery log analysisuser behaviorweb analytics |
| spellingShingle | Sara Lafia A.J. Million Libby Hemphill Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive IASSIST Quarterly research data information search query log analysis user behavior web analytics |
| title | Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| title_full | Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| title_fullStr | Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| title_short | Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| title_sort | exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archive |
| topic | research data information search query log analysis user behavior web analytics |
| url | https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/article/view/1087 |
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