Personalized search: Reconsidering the value of open user models

Open user modeling has been perceived as an important mechanism to enhance the effectiveness of personalization. However, several studies have reported that open and editable user models can harm the performance of personalized search systems. This paper re-examines the value of open and editable user models in the context of personalized search. We implemented a personalized search system with 2D user manipulatable visualization and concept-based user model components. A user study result suggests that the proposed visualization-based open user modeling approach can be beneficial for adaptive search. Copyright 2015