This paper contributes to the discussion initiated in a recent SIGIR paper describing a gap in the information retrieval (IR) literature on query understanding–where they come from and whether they serve their purpose. Particularly the connection between query variability and search engines regarding consistent and equitable access to all users. We focus on a user group typically underserved: children. Using preliminary experiments (based on logs collected in the classroom context) and arguments grounded in children IR literature, we emphasize the importance of dedicating research efforts to interpreting queries formulated by children and the information needs they elicit. We also outline open problems and possible research directions to advance knowledge in this area, not just for children but also for other often-overlooked user groups and contexts.

The influence of ChatGPT and similar models on education is being increasingly discussed. With the current level of enthusiasm among users, ChatGPT is envisioned as having great potential. As generative models are unpredictable in terms of producing biased, harmful, and unsafe content, we argue that they should be comprehensively tested for more vulnerable groups, such as children, to understand what role they can play and what training and supervision are necessary. Here, we present the results of a preliminary exploration aiming to understand whether ChatGPT can adapt to support children in completing information discovery tasks in the education context. We analyze ChatGPT responses to search prompts related to the 4th grade classroom curriculum using a variety of lenses (e.g., readability and language) to identify open challenges and limitations that must be addressed by interdisciplinary communities.

The use of clarifying questions (CQs) is a fairly new and useful technique to aid systems in recognizing the intent, context, and preferences behind user queries. Yet, understanding the extent of the effect of CQs on user behavior and the ability to identify relevant information remains relatively unexplored. In this work, we conduct a large user study to understand the interaction of users with CQs in various quality categories, and the effect of CQ quality on user search performance in terms of finding relevant information, search behavior, and user satisfaction. Analysis of implicit interaction data and explicit user feedback demonstrates that high-quality CQs improve user performance and satisfaction. By contrast, low-And mid-quality CQs are harmful, and thus allowing the users to complete their tasks without CQ support may be preferred in this case. We also observe that user engagement, and therefore the need for CQ support, is affected by several factors, such as search result quality or perceived task difficulty. The findings of this study can help researchers and system designers realize why, when, and how users interact with CQs, leading to a better understanding and design of search clarification systems.

We study the effect of visual cues on children searching in the classroom. We do so by examining whether Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) enhanced with emojis, unlike standard SERP, affect children's search behaviour. To capture search behaviour, we use well-known metrics, in addition to users' success in identifying relevant results on SERP. Outcomes from our work reveal that a one-size-fits-All approach for SERP does not befit students who are searching for learning. Thus, we discuss the implications of our findings and suggest directions for future research, focused on the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems that can better support the classroom setting.

Exposure to technology impacts children’s perception and conceptualisation of the way devices they regularly use work. This prompts us to study if almost two years of online teaching, enabled by a broad range of technologies, have influenced the way children imagine a search companion would look and behave when helping them perform school-related search tasks. We conducted a 2-stage study during which children ages 9 to 11 drew and described their imaginary search companion; they also chose a few desirable and non-necessary traits. By following the protocol of a study conducted pre-pandemic, we contextualise salient altered expectations that we attribute to exposure to technology prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlight and discuss emerging trends observed from the analysis of data gathered before and after the extensive online experience and how these will guide the design of functionality of a search companion for the classroom.

We report on the exploration we conducted to understand better children's needs for the design of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) that can help them notice relevant resources when performing online inquiry tasks in a classroom context. We analyse children's interactions with traditional and emoji-enriched SERP and look for trends linking children's engagement with SERP and search success (based on experts' assessments). We also identify areas remaining to be interpreted and considered in future studies. On this mixed ground, we discuss the complexity of this design space and the need to bypass the one-size-fits-all approach in favor of adaptive SERP to cater to children's different and ever-evolving skills in searching and recognising useful results if we aim to support learning.

We explore the facets of relevance that guide children when assessing materials retrieved by search engines when looking for information in the classroom. We involved children in a collaborative exercise and asked them to design innovative icons to point their peers towards useful results. We also asked them to complete a survey meant to capture explicit motivators guiding their design. This resulted in a rich set of metaphors. Analysis of the emerging metaphors is what allowed us to identify and discuss the many interpretations of relevance children naturally assign to resources they find in response to school-related information discovery tasks.

We discuss the exploratory study we conducted to better understand children's ability to recognise relevant results when searching in the classroom. Teachers in two European schools sharing thesame language assigned their students (ages 10 and 11) an online information discovery exercise about a history topic covered in class. For this, children used a classic search interface and two novel ones enriched with emojis associated to relevant vs. irrelevant results. At the end of the exercise, children filled out a post-task questionnaire meant to elicit their perception on usability ofthe interfaces. Guided by four lenses, we analyse our findings and discuss whether (i) emoji-enriched interfaces lead to better performance for children using a search engine in the classroom and (ii) "actions speak louder than words'' when looking at children's search experience. We learnedvarious lessons from our examination of children's search behaviour that will guide the design of future interfaces, including the fact that emoji-enriched interfaces result in significant improvement in terms of children identifying relevant resources.

Recent developments in the mobile app industry have resulted in various types of mobile apps, each targeting a different need and a specific audience. Consequently, users access distinct apps to complete their information need tasks. This leads to the use of various apps not only separately, but also collaboratively in the same session to achieve a single goal. Recent work has argued the need for a unified mobile search system that would act as metasearch on users’ mobile devices. The system would identify the target apps for the user’s query, submit the query to the apps, and present the results to the user in a unified way. In this work, we aim to deepen our understanding of user behavior while accessing information on their mobile phones by conducting an extensive analysis of various aspects related to the search process. In particular, we study the effect of task type and user demographics on their behavior in interacting with mobile apps. Our findings reveal trends and patterns that can inform the design of a more effective mobile information access environment.

The potential threat that domestic animals pose to the health of human populations tends to be overlooked. We posit that positive steps forward can be made in this area, via suitable state-wide public policy. In this paper, we describe the data collection process that took place in Casilda (a city in Argentina), in the context of a canine census. We outline preliminary findings emerging from the data, based on a number of perspectives, along with implications of these findings in terms of informing public policy.

In this paper, we examine the roles children play when using web search engines in the classroom context by revisiting, not replicating, a seminal work set in the home context. In particular, we describe how we juxtaposed performance indicators inferred from a combination of search logs (collected over two years) and expert grading of completed inquiry assignments to discern emerging search roles among children in primary four and five (aged 9 to 11). In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also explore differences when a traditional classroom is replaced by online instruction at home. Lastly, we discuss future research directions that we see as pivotal to advance research in Information Retrieval to and for children.

Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) include snippets of retrieved resources as a means to help searchers select the ones that satisfy their information needs. This way, result relevance can be determined by scanning through snippets, an exercise that requires experience with reading, understanding, and assessing the value of a document. These are skills that primary school children are still developing and thus are not yet proficient with. As web search tools are essential to support children learning at school and home, we explore how to help young searchers in making informed relevance assessments while conducting searches in a classroom. In this paper, we describe a collaborative design exercise involving primary school children as co-designers: we asked them to examine interfaces with combinations of different emojis to help them assess the usefulness of results in SERP-a crucial factor to determine relevance for the classroom. This activity made our child experts engage with the design exercise while enabling us to collect their judgments so as to get a better sense of the user requirements for this age group. Here we discuss the main design issues emerging from the analysis of children's preferences, the rationale behind them, comments and concerns raised, and alternative proposals children sketched.