Simplified access to structured databases by adapting keyword search and database selection
Mohammad Hassan, Reda Alhajj, Mick J. Ridley, Ken E. Barker · 2004
This paper presents a tool that enables non-technical (naive) end-users to use free-form queries in exploring distributed relational databases with simple and direct technique, in a fashion similar to using search engines to search text files on the web. This allows web designers and database developers to publish their databases for web browsers exploring. The proposed approach can be used for both Internet and Intranet application areas. Our approach depends on identifying first databases that are most likely to provide useful results to the raised query, and then search only the identified databases. In our work, we developed and extended an estimation technique to assess the usefulness measure of each database. Our technique has been borrowed from the similar techniques used for information retrieval (IR), mainly for text and document databases; it supports working smoothly with the structured information stored in relational databases. Such a usefulness measure enables nave users to make decisions about databases to search and in what order.