Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-58).

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
Other Authors: Suleman, Hussein
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Computer Science 2014
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867613288741732352
access_status_str Open Access
author Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
author2 Suleman, Hussein
author_browse Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
Suleman, Hussein
author_facet Suleman, Hussein
Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
author_sort Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-58).
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8920
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:45.686Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Department of Computer Science
publisherStr Department of Computer Science
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8920 Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing Suleman, Hussein Information Technology Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-58). The Internet has potential to deliver information to Web users that have no other way of getting to those resources. However, information on the Web is scattered without any proper semantics for classifying them and thus this makes information discovery difficult. Thus, to ease the querying of this huge bin of information, developers have built tools amongst which are the search engines and Web directories. However, for these tools to give optimal results, two factors need to be given due importance: the users' ability to use these tools and the bandwidth that is present in these environments. Unfortunately, after an initial study, none of these two factors were present in Mauritius where low bandwidth prevails. Hence, this study helps us get a better idea of how users use the search tools. To achieve this, we designed a survey where Web users were asked about their skills in using search tools. Then, a jump page using the search boxes of different search engines was developed to provide directed guidance for effective searching in low bandwidth environments. We then conducted a further evaluation, using a sample of users to see if there were any changes in the way users access the search tools. The results from this study were then examined. We noticed that the users were initially unaware about the specificities of the different search tools thus preventing efficient use. However, during the survey, they were educated on how to use those tools and this was fruitful when a further evaluation was performed. Hence the efficient use of the search tools helped in reducing the traffic flow in low bandwidth environments. 2014-10-29T10:08:52Z 2014-10-29T10:08:52Z 2007 Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8920 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Information Technology
Balluck, Ashwinkoomarsing
Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
title_full Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
title_fullStr Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
title_full_unstemmed Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
title_short Optimising information retrieval from the web in low-bandwidth environments
title_sort optimising information retrieval from the web in low bandwidth environments
topic Information Technology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8920
work_keys_str_mv AT balluckashwinkoomarsing optimisinginformationretrievalfromthewebinlowbandwidthenvironments