Visual analytics and the language of web query logs : a terminology perspective

Abstract

This paper explores means to integrate natural language processing methods for terminology and entity identification in medical web session logs with visual analytics techniques. The aim of the study is to examine whether the vocabulary used in queries posted to a Swedish regional health web site can be assessed in a way that will enable a terminologist or medical data analysts to instantly identify new term candidates and their relations based on significant co-occurrence patterns. We provide an example application in order to illustrate how the co-occurrence relationships between medical and general entities occurring in such logs can be visualized, accessed and explored. To enable a visual exploration of the generated co-occurrence graphs, we employ a general purpose social network analysis tool, visone (http://visone.info), that permits to visualize and analyze various types of graph structures. Our examples show that visual analytics based on co-occurrence analysis provides insights into the use of layman language in relation to established (professional) terminologies, which may help terminologists decide which terms to include in future terminologies. Increased understanding of the used querying language is also of interest in the context of public health web sites. The query results should reflect the intentions of the information seekers, who may express themselves in layman language that differs from the one used on the available web sites provided by medical professionals.