u38: A Framework for Database-Supported Enterprise Document-Retrieval

In enterprises, information is encoded in documents and databases. Logically, the information in both worlds is tightly connected, however, on the system level there is usu- ally a large gap. In this paper, we propose a framework that improves document retrieval by exploiting available enter- prise databases. In particular, we use database information to model the context of documents and incorporate this con- text in our search framework. We present our framework architecture, its components and its major interfaces. The framework can be configured and enhanced at well-defined points and, hence, can easily be customized to other do- mains. We furthermore evaluate its core components. Our experiments show that the context-aware approach signifi- cantly improves the quality of search results.