elGiza, a research-pyramid based search tool for vertical literature digital libraries

Organizing and ranking online vertical (domain-specific) literature digital library (VLDL) results into categories enables easy and efficient browsing of search results. Studies show that publications in any scientific discipline are ´naturally´ categorized into groups called ´research pyramids´, where a research pyramid refers to publications that belong to a most-specific research topic. In this paper, we present elGiza, a research-pyramid based search tool for VLDLs. elGiza is equipped with (i) a research-pyramid-based Content-Based Search-Keyword Suggester that helps user develop search terms to reduce search failures, and (ii) a topic-sensitive ranking tool to effectively order search results via research pyramids. Such a tool significantly reduces topic diffusion. Furthermore, elGiza can successfully group and label search results based on research pyramids. Research-pyramid-based grouping supports pruned- search in which the user ´omits´ unrelated topics, and safely focuses on his/her search. Evaluation experiments show that research-pyramid-based VLDLs are highly effective.