Information Retrieval

Instance: 2023/2024 - 2S

Cycles of Study/Courses

Last updated on 2024-01-31.

Fields changed: Objectives, Resultados de aprendizagem e competências, Métodos de ensino e atividades de aprendizagem, Fórmula de cálculo da classificação final, Componentes de Avaliação e Ocupação, Melhoria de classificação, Obtenção de frequência, Programa, Avaliação especial

Teaching language

Objectives

Background:

Information retrieval (IR) deals with automatic methods for computing answers to queries on large document collections. Answers may take different forms, from document lists to document summaries, from XML elements to entities in documents. For some information retrieval tasks there are currently well-known tools used for accessing online information; Web search engines are a standard example.

Specific objectives:

• Motivate students to the variety os tasks in information retrieval and to their multiple uses;
• Make the students familiar with the main concepts in IR and with the proposed models and techniques, with an emphasis on the evaluation;
• Explore existing tools for building information retrieval systems and apply them to datasets from a selected domain.

Learning outcomes and competences

Skills to Develop:

• Document content analysis and extraction of document descriptors;
• Analysis, summarization and presentation of papers form the literature;
• Choice of appropriate computational tools for the tasks to be addressed;
• Planning experiments to test a proposed solution.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of this unit, students are expected to:

• Provide definitions for the main concepts in information retrieval;
• Identify the components of an information retrieval system and explain their roles;
• Describe the main assumptions and features of the classical information retrieval models;
• Use existing software libraries to develop tools for information retrieval tasks;
• Describe the main challenges and issues in the area.

Working method

Pre-requirements (prior knowledge) and co-requirements (common knowledge)

Skills in computer programming for application development.

Program

• Information retrieval: tasks, methods, open problems.


• Document indexing: vocabularies, posting lists, index construction.


• Retrieval Models: Boolean, vectorial, probabilistic.


• Evaluation in information retrieval.


• Web information retrieval: crawling and indexing.


• Link analysis and its use for ranking results.

Mandatory literature

Complementary Bibliography

Teaching methods and learning activities

Students define and develop a semester-long project. Project themes are proposed by the students and validated with the teacher. Program topics are discussed based on a list of suggested readings, and some papers from the list are presented by the students in class.

keywords

Evaluation Type

Assessment Components

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Eligibility for exams

To obtain frequency, the student must:

• Participate in all proposed activities.
• Develop and present the project.

Calculation formula of final grade

The evaluation components are:

• Activities: participation in the activities proposed throughout the semester.
• Project: project development, report writing and presentation.

The final classification is obtained with the following formula:

Final Classification = 25% Activities + 75% Project

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable. All students develop their projects according to the course schedule.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

The distributed assessment, carried out during the semester, is required of all students, regardless of the registration regime.

Student workers and equivalents exempt from classes must, with frequency to be agreed with the teachers, present the progress of their work, just as they must present these, simultaneously with ordinary students.

Classification improvement

Improving your classification requires carrying out the proposed activities and a new project, in accordance with the rules applied to other students.