Re: Federate vs. aggregate

Marcia, on the call we defined the terms differently than this:

1) federated searching = searching across heterogeneous databases or  
resources (probably involving post-processing of results)

2) aggregated searching = bringing multiple sources into a single  
database for searching (probably involving pre-processing of metadata)

You can see this in the minutes of the meeting:

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/minutes/2010/12/09-lld-minutes.html

This may mean that we need to revisit our definitions?

kc

Quoting "ZENG, MARCIA" <mzeng@kent.edu>:

> Hi, all,
> Some thoughts about federated search', in the context of the  
> difference with metasearching.  This is based on an earlier study  
> [ref 1] and I am not comparing it with aggregate specifically.
>
> To the user who does not care where the information is (or who  
> packaged it), the search interface may provide no alert to any  
> difference regardless of the search being processed through  
> metasearching or federated searching (based on a distributed or  
> centralized model). However, the search results of the two models  
> can be decidedly different in terms of quantity, coverage, ranking,  
> and relevance.
>
> The major limitation of metadasearching (e.g., Google) is the access  
> to the deep-Web resources (such as sites that limit access to their  
> pages, sites that require registration and login, and dynamic pages  
> which are returned in response to a submitted query or accessed only  
> through a form). This leads to the concerns over metasearching about  
> the accuracy of searches and the burden that remote searches place  
> on target resources.  That is how federated searching coming in with  
> this context. In federated searching, a wealth of information is  
> incorporated into a single repository and is processed prior to the  
> user's search.  The system then searches a local repository that was  
> created earlier from the previously accumulated data of numerous  
> resources. To a user, the search process itself and the interface of  
> searching may be the same as what he/she has used on major search  
> engines: issues a query, and receive search results.  However, in  
> fact, the results are different because of the quantity, coverage,  
> and ranking processing provided by the federated searching services.  
> Many digital libraries, Web portals, and [it is said] the Google  
> Scholar, are examples of those entities that employ federated  
> searching.
>
> [1] Sadeh, Tamar. 2006. Google Scholar Versus Metasearch Systems.  
> High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine [Online], no. 12.  
> http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/12/papers/1/
>
> Marcia
>
> On 12/10/10 2:49 AM, "Svensson, Lars" <l.svensson@d-nb.de> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Sorry for missing out in the meeting yesterday. In the minutes I saw the
> discussion about federate vs. aggregate:
>
>> <monica> one other way to define federate and aggregate is, federate
>> is send a search term to remote source, and bring back only results,
>> aggregate is to pool all possible metadata locally then do the
>> search.
>
> I'd second that definition, perhaps with the addition, that when you
> federate (search), you send a search term to remote source_s_, and get
> results back. But perhaps -- as Monica hinted -- this is too library
> specific...
>
> All the best,
>
> Lars
>
> --
> Dr. Lars G. Svensson
> Deutsche Nationalbibliothek / Informationstechnik
> http://www.d-nb.de/
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Friday, 10 December 2010 21:25:42 UTC