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Direct, Orienting, and Scenic Paths: How Users Navigate Search in a Research Data Archive

Authors:

Libby HemphillAuthors Info & Claims

CHIIR '23: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

Pages 128 - 136

https://doi.org/10.1145/3576840.3578275

Published: 20 March 2023 Publication History

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Abstract

Social scientists increasingly share data so others can evaluate, replicate, and extend their research. To understand the process of data discovery as a precursor to data use, we study prospective users’ interactions with archived data. We gathered data for 98,000 user sessions initiated at a large social science data archive, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Our data reflect four years (2012-16) of users’ interactions with archival resources, including a data catalog, study-level metadata, variables, and publications that cite nearly 10,000 datasets. We constructed a network of user interactions linking website landing (e.g., site entrances) to exit pages, from which we identified three types of paths that users take through the research data archive: direct, orienting, and scenic. We also interpreted points of failure (e.g., drop-offs) and recurring behaviors (e.g., sensemaking) that support or impede data discovery along search paths. We articulate strategies that users adopt as they navigate data search and suggest ways to enhance the accessibility of data, metadata, and the systems that organize each.

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Cited By

Lafia SMillion AHemphill L(2024)Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archiveIASSIST Quarterly10.29173/iq108748:1Online publication date: 28-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.29173/iq1087
Late EOchsner M(2024)Re-use of research data in the social sciences. Use and users of digital data archivePLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.030319019:5(e0303190)Online publication date: 10-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303190
Yu YRomero D(2024)Does the use of unusual combinations of datasets contribute to greater scientific impact?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences10.1073/pnas.2402802121121:41Online publication date: 2-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402802121
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Direct, Orienting, and Scenic Paths: How Users Navigate Search in a Research Data Archive
1. Information systems
  1. Data management systems
    1. Data structures
      1. Data access methods
  2. Information retrieval
    1. Users and interactive retrieval
      1. Task models

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHIIR '23: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 2023

520 pages

ISBN:9798400700354

DOI:10.1145/3576840

Editors:
Jacek Gwizdka
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
,
Soo Young Rieh
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA

Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 20 March 2023

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National Science Foundation

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CHIIR '23

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CHIIR '23: ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 19 - 23, 2023

TX, Austin, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 55 of 163 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

Lafia SMillion AHemphill L(2024)Exploratory and directed search strategies at a social science data archiveIASSIST Quarterly10.29173/iq108748:1Online publication date: 28-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.29173/iq1087
Late EOchsner M(2024)Re-use of research data in the social sciences. Use and users of digital data archivePLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.030319019:5(e0303190)Online publication date: 10-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303190
Yu YRomero D(2024)Does the use of unusual combinations of datasets contribute to greater scientific impact?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences10.1073/pnas.2402802121121:41Online publication date: 2-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402802121
Zerhoudi SGranitzer M(2024)Comparative Analysis: User Interactions in Public and Private Digital Libraries DatasetsLinking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries10.1007/978-3-031-72440-4_16(162-172)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-72440-4_16
Fan LLafia SLi LYang FHemphill L(2023) DataChat : Prototyping a Conversational Agent for Dataset Search and Visualization Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.82060:1(586-591)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.820

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