Information Retrieval Through Web

Now a day World Wide Web is one of the main sources of information and communication medium. One can retrieve all kind of information through the web. Information retrieval through the web is a difficult as it provides thousands of information for a single query. To find relevant information from these results is a hurdle task now. So in this paper, I have discussed how to retrieve information from the web

Information retrieval does not begin with the internet. Though last decades onwards web search engines came into the scenario and search has become more integrated to the desktop and mobile operating systems.

Web IR system searches in the collection of unstructured data i.e. web pages, documents, images, and videos. The main goal of the information retrieval systems Now a day’s Information retrieval is an essential activity. We need to retrieve information for learning, communicating, moving, navigating, having fun, informing and making a decision.
Information retrieval is a process of identify information from a large collection of documents which are relevant to the query. The web enables a more personalized approach to gain information rather than print sources. It also provides more current and up-to-date information. The authenticity and quality of the web-based information are very important in the academic field. Today most search systems are dealing with internet Web information retrieval is a search within the world’s largest and linked document collection.

Evaluating web resources

Information available on the web is not regulated for quality or accuracy as information found in newspapers or television broadcasts, therefore, it is very important for the web users to evaluate the resource or information. Anyone can publish anything they wish on the web. It is very difficult to determine the authorship of the web sources so the responsibility is on the user to evaluate resources effectively. Before using web resources it is important to check the following information:

Author: to find the relevant information about the author, check personal homepages on the web, or the domain name or URL reveal about the source of information if anything. If the information is a part of a journal or other online publication you should try t establishes the authority of the publication.

Audience/ Purpose: Knowing the motive behind the page’s creation can help us to judge its content. Try to check the intended audience whether they are scholarly audience or expert. At the same time go through the intention of the author.

Objectivity: Does the author present objective arguments or make it clear when he is expressing a biased opinion.

Accuracy: Information has been reviewed or referred is the information free of grammatical, spelling or typographical errors?

Reliability and credibility: Does the information appear to be valid and well researched, or is it unsupported by evidence? Should anyone believe information from this site?

Currency: the Good website will show when it was last updated or give a clear indication of the timeliness of the information, working links indicate the website is being maintained and updated regularly. So check is it kept up-to-date? Is there an indication of when the site was last updated?

URL: Check at the URL (web address) of the website. The domain name helps you to know if the information has been published by a credible source. For example .ac.uk means it is published by a UK university, .edu means it is published by an American university. Apply the above-mentioned criteria to establish reliability and to check the information is up-to-date.

Links: Are links related to the topics are useful to the purpose of the site? Are links are still current. Are the links evaluated or annotated in any way? Be very critical to the information’s find on the web and carefully examine each site. Web pages are susceptible to both accidental and deliberate alteration and may move or disappear with no notice.

Web-based learning: Web-based learning is also known as e-learning or online learning. It includes learning about online courses, emails, live lectures, video conferencing and all others are possible through the internet. Most of the web pages have hyperlinks they will lead us to another page and thus open up a vast reading of a particular topic. E-learning promotes active and independent learning from anywhere and at any time. The authenticity of the information available through the web is one of the main problems.