The Information Retrieval [IR] group is a part of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. IR group members include 7 professors, 7 PhD students and 4 Masters students [Members].

Research Areas: Information Retrieval Group is involved in several areas of research from File System Search to Speech Information Retrieval. Our primary research interests are towards -

• Designing expressive languages, effective retrieval techniques, and efficient storage and indexing methods for managing XML
  and other structured and semi-structured textual data.
• Designing scalable technologies for distributed information retrieval systems based on an architecture built from a cluster of  workstations using standard PC hardware.
• Developing and testing a methodology for evaluating email spam filters.
• Developing a filesystem search system, addressing issues of performance, Security and effectiveness.
• Designing fine-grained access control mechanisms for securing text data against unauthorized access or manipulation.
• Investigating the problems that may be solved by searching a collection of documents from a large enterprise, such as the identification of in-house experts in a specific domain.
• Designing stand-alone XML data management systems and augmenting the capabilities of other database management
  systems to manage XML data.

Please refer to our Research section for further information on our research topics

Collaborations: A critical component of the group's success has been close cooperation with business, government, and community users, who often serve as research partners. Please refer to our Resources section for further information about our industry relations.

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