Visuel information skal synliggøres

Bedre adgang til visuel information
ImageCLEF blev introduceret i 2003 som en del af Cross Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF). Evalueringskampagnens primære formål er at støtte udviklingen af feltet visuelle medier, herunder analyse, indeksering, klassifikation og genfinding, ved at udvikle den nødvendige infrastruktur til vurdering af visuelle informationssøgesystemer.

"Evaluation campaigns have been widely credited with contributing tremendously to the advancement of information access systems by providing the infrastructure and resources that support researchers in the development of new approaches, and promoting the exchange of ideas," fortæller Theodora Tsikrika. "Measuring the impact of such benchmarking activities is crucial for assessing which of their aspects have been successful, and thus obtain guidance for the development of improved evaluation methodologies and information access systems. Given that their contribution to the field is mainly indicated by the research that would otherwise not have been possible, it is reasonable to consider that their success can be measured, to some extent, by the scientific impact of the research they foster. The scientific impact of research is commonly measured by its scholarly impact, such as the publications derived from it and the citations they receive."

Nye domæner
I sit foredrag præsenterede Theodora Tsikrika en oversigt over de ImageCLEF evalueringsopgaver, som er toneangivende for genfindingen af forskellige billeder, såsom generelle fotografiske og medicinske billeder, samt domæne-specifikke opgaver. Hun fortalte om de ressourcer, der er blevet bygget i forbindelse med evalueringsaktiviteterne, hvordan man undersøger deres pålidelighed og genanvendelighed og om en foreløbig undersøgelse af ImageCLEFs videnskabelige indvirkning.

Efterfølgende fortalte Tsikrika om baggrunden for sit besøg: "My visit here is funded by ELIAS [Evaluation Information Access Systems] and the aim is to get some knowledge on how bibliometric analysis is performed and also, because this is in your domain, we want to assess the impact of European projects or domains of research. Previously, the focus has been on assessing the impact of individuals. So for them it's a new domain, and we want to be able to benefit from each other. One of the aspects we are trying to assess is the scientific impact of the evaluation campaign, which can be measured through bibliometrics. In that context, I came here to seek guidance and advice from Birger Larsen. Furthermore, your school has just joined the Promise project. Also, there are people here who are doing Information Retrieval research and I want to get to know them and exchange ideas about possible collaborations for the future."

Den underliggende usikkerhed
Ifølge Tsikrika er der store udfordringer forbundet med det arbejde, hun udfører, men også mange fordele: "The biggest challenge in working with image retrieval is the underlying uncertainty of it all, because image retrieval has developed and progressed a lot during the last ten years, though not to the same extent as textual retrieval. And the challenge now is how to be able to combine evidence from the different media and to do that effectively. And  to be able to scale up to larger scale data, and to do that within the different domains where the impact is going to be substantial, like the medical domain or scientific multimedia data. What I always find really interesting about my work is first of all personalization - how to be able to deliver retrieval support to individuals - and secondly, how to be able to combine the different evidence."


Af Helle Saabye