A Framework for Scientific Paper Retrieval and Recommender Systems

Information retrieval (IR) and recommender systems (RS) have been employed for addressing search tasks executed during literature review and the overall scholarly communication lifecycle. Majority of the studies have concentrated on algorithm design for improving the accuracy and usefulness of these systems. Contextual elements related to the scholarly tasks have been largely ignored. In this paper, we propose a framework called the Scientific Paper Recommender and Retrieval Framework (SPRRF) that combines aspects of user role modeling and user-interface features with IR/RS components. The framework is based on eight emergent themes identified from participants feedback in a user evaluation study conducted with a prototype assistive system. 119 researchers participated in the study for evaluating the prototype system that provides recommendations for two literature review and one manuscript writing tasks. This holistic framework is meant to guide future studies in this area.