A Ranking Strategy to Promote Resources Supporting the Classroom Environment
Ashlee Milton, Oghenemaro Anuyah, Lawrence Spear, Katherine Landau Wright, and Maria Soledad Pera. 2020. “A Ranking Strategy to Promote Resources Supporting the Classroom Environment”. Long Paper in Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-AIT ‘20). IEEE/WIC/ACM, to appear.
Abstract
Popular search engines (SE) favored by children are optimized neither to respond to their search behavior and abilities, nor retrieve resources that align with classroom standards. Further, attempts to adapt SE to support children’s inquiries have been one-dimensional, e.g., satisfy users’ reading skills or search expertise. To ease the process of locating resources relevant to \textit{children} in the \textit{classroom}, we introduce \ks{}, a ranking strategy designed to complement the functionality of existing SE. \ks{} employs a multi-objective approach to re-rank resources retrieved by popular SE to fit a specific \textit{target} \textit{audience} and \textit{setting} based on varied criteria: appropriateness, readability, objectivity, and curriculum-alignment. Experimental results and insights from an expert appraiser showcase \ks{}’s ability to prioritize resources that assist children’s information-seeking activities at school.