Fundamentals of Human-Computer Information Retrieval Course

Vast quantities of data and information appear on the web every year. This data takes on a wide variety of forms such as text, images, video, code and statistics to name just a few. Data and information can also be multi-lingual and dynamic in that, for example, blogs and wikis are being constantly updated and modified. Companies like Google spend millions of dollars trying to continuously improve human-computer information retrieval methods so that the information obtained from a search is relevant. This is now considered to be one of the most important areas in web development. This free online human-computer information retrieval course shows how modern search techniques integrate information retrieval methods with human-computer interaction studies so that data and information are represented in such a way that leads the user quickly and efficiently to relevant results. In this course you will learn about techniques associated with human-computer information retrieval such as spelling suggestions and automatic query reformulation which puts control of selection and interpretation in the user’s hands. Faceted search enables users to navigate information hierarchically, going from a category to its sub-categories, while ‘lookahead’ provides a general approach to exploration. For example, various web applications employ AJAX to automatically complete query terms and suggest popular searches. This free online human-computer information retrieval course will be of great interest to all IT professionals who would like a greater knowledge and understanding of human-computer information retrieval methods, and to all learners who would like to learn more about how data and information are accessed by search engines.