Relevance

Synonyms

Exhaustivity; Specificity; Topical-hierarchical relevance

Definition

Relevance is the extent to which some information is pertinent, connected, or applicable to the matter at hand. It represents a key concept in the fields of documentation, information science, and information retrieval.

In information retrieval, the notion of relevance is used in three main contexts. Firstly, an algorithmic relevance score is assigned to a search result (usually a whole document) representing an estimated likelihood of relevance of the search result to a topic of request. This relevance score often determines the order in which search results are presented to the user. Secondly, when the performance of information retrieval systems is tested experimentally, the retrieved documents are assessed for their actual relevance to the topic of request by human assessors (topic experts). A binary relevance scale is typically used to assess the relevance of the search result, where the relevance is...