Future of information retrieval and delivery

Alarmingly knowledge workers spend 15% to 30% of their time looking for information – and are unsuccessful up to 50% of the time. The information needs of knowledge workers are largely driven by the context in which they make their decisions. This context is dynamic. This context is also evolving. When one information need is satisfied, another is likely to emerge.

To address this issue, the CSIRO ICT Centre has created a developed platform called Myriad – a flexible and configurable software framework, designed and developed in collaboration with colleagues from Calvin College, USA.

The Myriad framework supports the construction of applications that address current search engine limitations by:

• Providing only information that is relevant and appropriate to the user and their current task;

• Automatically integrating the results of a number of queries across multiple data sources;

• Organising information to facilitate easy comprehension; and

• Customising the delivery of information to suit the user, task and device to help the user better perform their tasks.

In addition to providing an application framework for constructing applications to perform contextualised information retrieval and delivery, the Myriad framework is shaping up as a very flexible platform for evaluating novel information retrieval and delivery mechanisms, so that – in the not-too-distant future – when you electronically search for an answer to a complex question you get timely, accurate, useful results every time.

More information:
Cécile Paris
CSIRO ICT Centre
Tel:  +61 2 9325 3160
cecile.paris@csiro.au
www.ict.csiro.au/ie

Article from CSIRO Topic, December 2004.

Contact:
ict@csiro.au