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Research area

Information Retrieval & Evidence Selection

The retrieval, ranking, provenance, and evidence-selection layers behind search results and generated answers.

What this research area covers

Information retrieval is the process of finding candidate material for a need. Evidence selection asks which of those candidates a system uses, cites, or carries into an answer.

Where the boundary sits

Retrieval is not the same as final ranking, citation, recommendation, or downstream choice. The Institute keeps those stages separate so one observed outcome is not mistaken for another mechanism.

Questions in this research area

  • How do answer systems retrieve and select sources?
  • What separates retrieval, ranking, citation, and recommendation?
  • How do provenance, entity recognition, and query expansion affect the evidence set?

Primary research

No dedicated foundation report has been published in this area yet.

The related research below addresses parts of the question without being relabeled as a retrieval foundation.

Related research