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                    Seminar Announcement

            School of Computer Science, CECS
             The Australian National University
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Date:  Thursday, 10 December 2009
Time:  4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Venue: Room N101, CSIT Building [108]


Speaker: Tim Jones

Title:   Using Firefox and JavaScript to Combat Apathy among
         Experiment Participants


Abstract:
   A simple way to conduct web search quality experiments is
   to log user behaviour when using a new front end (that we
   provide) to a commercial web search engine. Unfortunately,
   users tend to stop using these new front ends after the
   initial novelty period has worn off. This makes it difficult
   to collect data about real user behaviour when using web
   search engines.

   In this talk, we firstly describe the widely used experimental
   framework that users seem to stop using. Next, we investigate
   this drop off in user participation, discuss some probable
   reasons, and then present a couple of ways one might alter
   the experiment design to ensure users continue to participate.
   We then illustrate the design and construction of a Firefox
   addon to augment search engine result pages. The addon is 
   written in JavaScript using the popular jQuery library, which
   makes data acquisition very simple. The talk will include
   a quick jQuery primer, as it is a useful tool for anyone
   wanting to manipulate or extract information from web pages.


Biography:
   Timothy Jones is a PhD student in the ANU Department of
   Computer Science. His primary research interest is Information
   Retrieval, but he also enjoys a piece of cake and a good cup
   of tea.

URL: http://cs.anu.edu.au/lib/seminars/seminars09/dept20091210



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