School Organisation

Centre for Interactive Systems Research (CISR)

CISR overview and research areas

The Centre for Interactive Systems Research (CISR) has a proud history of being at the forefront of R&D into search algorithms and technologies. Shortly after its formation in 1987 the Centre became renowned for its flagship search algorithm (Okapi BM25), under the leadership of Professor Stephen Robertson and his then joint director of the Centre, Professor Micheline Beaulieu. The algorithm was based on probabilistic retrieval, elements of which are used in today's main search engines.

Since then the field has seen massive growth and search engines are now a multi-billion pound global industry. CISR's researchers have continued to build on the Centre's reputation, exploring research areas such as:

The user-centred approach

CISR considers the interactivity of systems but also the importance of relevant, engaging and high-quality content within these. It is set apart from other centres in the field by its long-held emphasis on the user-centred approach to search system design, development and evaluation.

CISR benefits from its close links with City's Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design (HCID). Its researchers collaborate with HCID on early-stage requirements gathering for information system and interface design, and usability.

Current research

Although CISR's traditions are strongly rooted in text, much of its current research involves the expanding field of social search and multimedia search, including music and photo image retrieval, in addition to hybrid approaches involving text.

The Centre is well positioned to explore this rich field for future research, as evidenced by the 1 million Euro budget obtained in October 2011 for the large-scale EU-IST integrated project, SocialSensor (see below). This project will see CISR further establishing itself within the exciting field of social search.

SocialSensor (2011-2014)

Dr Ayşe Göker is the Principal Investigator on this project for City, using her expertise in context, personalisation and search to help develop a framework enabling multimedia indexing and search in the Social Web. Together with her colleague Professor Steve Schifferes, from City's Department of Journalism, they will also contribute to the news 'use case' element of the project. Dr Andy MacFarlane of the Centre is also a co-investigator on the project. Collaborating partners include Yahoo, IBM, Alcatel-Lucent and other European universities. More details of the project and a full list of partners can be found at http://www.socialsensor.eu/.

Piclet project (2010-2012)

This EPSRC & Technology Strategy Board-funded project (PI Dr Ayse Goker) is investigating the image search and retrieval behaviour of professionals - in particular those dealing with photos. It involves hybrid approaches from content-based image retrieval and text-based IR techniques to retrieve or filter photographs. It is highly relevant to areas such as advertising, news, blogs and other social media.

PhotoBrief (2012-2014)

This EPSRC & Technology Strategy Board-funded project (Dr Andy MacFarlane and Dr Ayse Goker) will investigate the use of 'briefs' (project planning documents) specifying the most appropriate images for a particular need, as well as the comprehensive negotiation required for sourcing those images. 

It is estimated that the global digital photography industry will be worth $222 billion by 2013. The project aims to develop a platform that facilitates the production and sharing of high-quality briefs, enabling users to negotiate the brief clearly and comprehensively.

Information-seeking behaviour of dyslexic users

Information retrieval for people with disabilities is an important if poorly understood issue. A particular problem, yet to be addressed in any detail, is that of IR for the print disabled, i.e. for blind or dyslexic people. Dr Andy MacFarlane is currently working with Dr George Buchanan in City's Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design and Chloe Marshal of the Institute of Education on a project to understand the information-seeking behaviour of dyslexic users.

Entrepreneurship and industry links

CISR has links with Microsoft Research Cambridge, Yahoo! Barcelona and Google Labs Zurich from working on collaborative projects (such as the Collocation Linguistics/XML indexer project for Okapi, funded by Microsoft Research Cambridge, and the EU SocialSensor project where Yahoo! is a partner), as well as from membership of faculty summits (such as the Google EMEA Faculty Summit).

Centre members have experience in the commercialisation of research, such as the EU project AmbieSense, in the area of mobile information systems. Dr Ayse Goker, then at Robert Gordon University, was awarded an Enterprise Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Scottish Enterprise for her contributions to this project and co-founded the resulting company.

The scope of Interactive Systems Research

CISR's work focuses on access to, and retrieval of, information, as illustrated in the triangle figure below:

Figure illustrating the scope of information access and retrieval

For more information see the Scope of Interactive Systems Research page.

Centre researchers

For a list of CISR research staff, associates and students see the CISR researchers page.

Resources