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Welcome to the homepage of the Chair of Information Science in Regensburg! You'll find information regarding Information Science, its research topics in Regensburg as well as its team members on our website. All information you need to know about IIiX 2014 is found at the conference website.

Research activities at the Chair of Information Science focus on two topics: Information Retrieval with a special emphasis on Information Behaviour and interactive information and recommender systems, alike. A third area of research deals with natural language.

Information Retrieval

IR has a long tradition in Regensburg, dating back to 1993, when renowned IR experts (e.g. Karen Spärch Jones, Nicholas Belking etc.) participated in an IR workshop in Regensburg. The workshop's title "Von der Modellierung zu Anwendung" (IR models need IR applications) stresses the way IR research has gone in Regensburg since then. Today's focus is on the parctical use of IR systems, i.e. the information needs users have.

Information Behaviour

Research into Information Behaviour at the Chair of Information Science in Regensburg has a strong emphasis on search tasks and user needs. It is accompanied by research as to whether different types of media have any influence on both, tasks as well as needs. Accordingly, doctoral and post-doctoral work is done by several staff members.

Casual Leisure Search (Dr. David Elsweiler)
Search Behavior on Wikipedia (Hanna Knäusl)
Information Refinding in Microblogging (Florian Meier)
Relation of Text and Pictures on Wikipedia (Barbara Rösch)
Barbara is interested in different functions pictures fulfill in Wikipedia's articles and how these functions are reflected by a reader's eye-movement. Moreover, she assesses the impact text/pictures have on the facts remembered. email Barbara
Emotions about websites (Rita Strebe)
Rita examines the impact visual aesthetics of websites has on the user's interaction. She focuses on stimuli beyond intentional visual perception. email Rita

Interactive Information and Recommender Systems

Research topics include a variety of topics, ranging from mobile-phone based pedestrian navigation applications through feedback systems to information quality on Wikipedia and ways of evaluating sensor data.

Pedestrian Navigation Systems based on Landmarks

Innerhalb des Projekts "NADINE- Navigation im öffentlichen Personenverkehr mit modularer Dienste-Architektur zur Einbindung in externe Applikationen" arbeitet die Universität Regensburg an der Umsetzung einer Landmarkennavigation. Das Projekt wird im Rahmen des Förderprogramms "Von Tür zu Tür - Eine Mobilitätsinitiative für den Öffentlichen Personenverkehr der Zukunft" des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Technologie durchgeführt. Das Projekt findet im Zeitraum von 09/2012 - 08/2015 statt.

Three phd theses focus on major aspects of this research area:

Visualization of landmarks and routes (Christina Ohm)
Determining landmark-based indoor routes (Manuel Müller)
Action based models of landmarks (Markus Kattenbeck)

Landmark-based pedestrian navigation is a topic students turned out to be very keen on. The university's campus and its layout may contribute a fair bit to their interest. Consequently, the project "URWalking" is as popular as succesful: You may want to have a look at our Flyer designed for CeBIT 2013 (second participation) or one of our promotional films:

Flyer CeBIT 2013

UR-Walking - PromoFilm 2012

UR-Walking - PromoFilm 2013

Information Quality

For further information on this topic, please check back soon.

Lecture Feedback Systems

One of our staff members, Markus Fuchs, works on a phd thesis in this field. He examines the way feedback systems may be used to motivate students attending lectures.

Sensor Data Analysis

In cooperation with HEITEC AG (based in Erlangen) and funded by the Medical Valley programme of excellence of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, we're working on ways to assist elderly people through monitoring their personal health in everyday life. The project has two phases:

Phase 1: 04/2011 - 12/2012

Phase 2: 01/2013 - 06/2014

Accordingly, the topic of Stefan Bienk's phd thesis focuses on fall-risk assessment of elderly people.

Natural Language Processing / Computational Linguistics