Distraction to illumination: Mining biomedical publications for serendipity in research

Abstract

As our technological capabilities for filling information needs improve, developers seek to more effective ways to support different aspects of the users' experience. One aspect that is gaining attention as an emerging support area is serendipity. However, supporting serendipity within a recommender system is difficult because the experience is unexpected and, therefore unpredictable. While researchers agree that algorithms to support serendipity need to be able to provide a balance of surprise and value to the end user (Niu & Abbas, 2017), an understanding of how to provide that balance has not yet been realized. Information that could be puzzling or distracting to someone as they go about their research activities may provide the trigger someone else needs to make a serendipitous connection in their research. Reports of serendipitous occurrences in research settings have been identified in research commentaries (Campanario, 1996) and within full‐text research articles (Allen, Erdelez, & Marinov, 2013). This paper investigates the feasibility of automating the identification of information encounters in full‐text research articles. This study contributes to the development of algorithms for supporting serendipity in information systems. We identified four variables that are useful for predicting information encounters in 25‐35% of the instances. While we should continue to search for additional predictive variables, these findings present a novel approach to undertaking the support of serendipity in information systems.

Information sources, practices and barriers: a situated and context-bound model of Pakistani electronic media reporters

“…The model explains the continuum of information practice under four modes such as active seeking (directed mode), active scanning (semi-directed scanning or browsing), non-directed monitoring (involves serendipitous mode) and by proxy (making the connection with sources through agents) (McKenzie, 2003). A number of researchers also studied information encountering and serendipity with various conceptual lens and methods (Allen and Erdelez, 2018). However, McKenzie (2003) further emphasized to explore modes of practice in different contexts and communities.…”