The concept of "relevance" is the fundamental concept of information science in general and information retrieval, in particular. Although "relevance" is extensively used in evaluation of information retrieval, there are considerable problems associated with reaching an agreement on its definition, meaning, evaluation, and application in information retrieval. There are a number of different vi...

Many people use information systems as sense-making tools. Standard information retrieval systems can support reasonably well the search for pieces of relevant information when the user can identify her information need or knowledge gap to certain extent. However, in order to make sense of the information they found, users need to understand the pieces of interrelated information, identify patt...