Title: Reflections on five years of evaluating semantic search systems

Authors: Victoria Uren, Marta Sabou, Enrico Motta, Miriam Fernandez, Vanessa Lopez, Yuangui Lei

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, The University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK; and Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. ' Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. ' Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. ' Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. ' Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. ' Accelrys Software Inc., 334 Cambridge Science Park, CB4 0WN, UK; and Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

Abstract: Evaluations of semantic search systems are generally small scale and ad hoc due to the lack of appropriate resources such as test collections, agreed performance criteria and independent judgements of performance. By analysing our work in building and evaluating semantic tools over the last five years, we conclude that the growth of the semantic web led to an improvement in the available resources and the consequent robustness of performance assessments. We propose two directions for continuing evaluation work: the development of extensible evaluation benchmarks and the use of logging parameters for evaluating individual components of search systems.

Keywords: semantic search; evaluation benchmarks; semantic web; metadata; ontologies; logging parameters; semantics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSO.2010.033280

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 2010 Vol.5 No.2, pp.87 - 98

Received: 04 Jun 2009
Accepted: 30 Nov 2009
Published online: 16 May 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article