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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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IS 456 Information Storage and Retrieval

Introduces problems of document representation, information need specification, and query processing. Describes the theories, models, and current research aimed at solving those problems. Primary focus is on bibliographic, text, and multimedia records.

Learning objectives

  • During the course, students will develop a vocabulary and expertise for thinking critically about the problems inherent in treating information (usually expressed as text documents) computationally.
  • Upon completing the course, students will understand not only the basic principles of indexing that motivate most retrieval systems, but also several pervasive retrieval models: Boolean, vector space, and probabilistic models, as well as extensions to these models (e.g. latent semantic indexing and language modeling).
  • The course will focus on information retrieval as a scientific field of research. Students who complete the course successfully will understand the most common methods of IR experimentation and evaluation.