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Designing an interactive open-domain question answering system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

S. QUARTERONI  and
S. MANANDHAR
S. QUARTERONI
Affiliation:
The University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK e-mail: silvia.quarteroni@gmail.com, suresh@cs.york.ac.uk
S. MANANDHAR
Affiliation:
The University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK e-mail: silvia.quarteroni@gmail.com, suresh@cs.york.ac.uk
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Abstract

Interactive question answering (QA), where a dialogue interface enables follow-up and clarification questions, is a recent although long-advocated field of research. We report on the design and implementation of YourQA, our open-domain, interactive QA system. YourQA relies on a Web search engine to obtain answers to both fact-based and complex questions, such as descriptions and definitions. We describe the dialogue moves and management model making YourQA interactive, and discuss the architecture, implementation and evaluation of its chat-based dialogue interface. Our Wizard-of-Oz study and final evaluation results show how the designed architecture can effectively achieve open-domain, interactive QA.

Type
Papers
Information
Natural Language Engineering , Volume 15 , Special Issue 1: Interactive Question Answering , January 2009 , pp. 73 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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