Adaptive Hypertext Systems Research and Development Group


Research Opportunity 2004

An opportunity exists for one or more postgraduate researchers to join the Adaptive Hypertext Systems Group, Department of Computer Science and AI, at the University of Malta, in February, 2004. This work will extend existing research into HyperContext Information Retrieval (HIR) [Mifsud02] to i) improve the effectiveness of information retrieval, and ii) assist with the automated creation of a HyperContext-based hyperspace [Staff01]. The research is suitable for either MSc by research or MPhil/PhD, preferably on a full-time basis.

HyperContext is a framework for adaptive and adaptable hypertext which uses multiple interpretations of information to estimate short-term user interests and to lead users to relevant information while browsing. HIR uses concepts from HyperContext to automatically derive multiple interpretations of indexable documents to increase precision and recall. Initial results indicate a significant improvement when compared to a leading Web-based search engine.

This research will be of particular interest to people interested in information retrieval, hypertext, context, user modelling, and link analysis.

Interested students should in the first instance contact Dr. Christopher Staff on cstaff@cs.um.edu.mt. Applications will close probably around early January 2004 (more information will be given as it becomes available). Unfortunately, no student grants are available.

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