Experimental Evaluation of CONIT (COnnector for Networked Information Transfer) in DGIS (DoD Gateway Information System) Gateway Environment

摘要

Experiments were devised and run to test, in the DGIS Gateway environment, the effectiveness of the retrieval assistance techniques found in the CONIT search intermediary system. Analysis of the experiments demonstrated that there is a large need and demand for improved retrieval capabilities of the kind found in the existing CONIT and in designs for future CONIT systems. However, it is clear that the current version of CONIT has only limited possibilities for providing enhanced service for the DGIS community for three reasons related to the incomplete nature of the current system with respect to the design for an expert retrieval assistant: (1) correction of system bugs and smoothing of wording and other assistance features is evidently sorely needed; (2) in particular, modern interface techniques (e.g., windowing) and a more automatic assistance mode involving less user inter-action appear to be critical to the promised achievement of new, higher, levels of retrieval experiments of the kind performed in this project to delineate particular techniques most useful and cost-beneficial in the DGIS environment and (3) pursuit of expert techniques of the kind to be found in current CONIT and in designs for the completed expert version of CONIT. Keywords: Networks; Gateways; Interfaces; Retrieval; Connector for networked information transfer; DoD gateway information system. (jhd)