User performance using an ontology-driven information retrieval (ONTOIR) system

Enhancing the representation and relationship of information through ontology is a promising alternative approach for knowledge organization, and this improved knowledge organization is vital for collocation of information and effective and efficient searching. This study concerns the development of an ontology-driven information retrieval (ONTOIR) system that shows explicit relationships among resources and explores the possibilities of improving user performance in searching for information. The goal of this study was to examine whether or not ontology enhances user performances in terms of recall and search time. The experiment was conducted with 40 participants to evaluate and compare the differences in user performance (recall and search time) between an ontology-driven information retrieval system and a traditional, thesaurus-driven information retrieval system.; Better recall and shorter search time was found in the ontology-driven information retrieval system and relationship-based queries. Further studies between cluster-based search engines and an ontology-driven information retrieval system are needed.