The Demographics of Web Search

PublicationThe Demographics of Web Search

Authors:Weber, I.; Castillo, C.

Source: SIGIR, ACM Press, Geneva, Switzerland (2010)

http://research.yahoo.com/pub/3186

Abstract:
How does the web search behavior of ``rich'' and ``poor'' people differ? Do men and women tend to click on different results for the same query? What are some queries almost exclusively issued by African Americans? These are some of the questions we address in this study. Our research combines three data sources: the query log of a major US-based web search engine, profile information provided by 28 million of its users (birth year, gender and zip code), and US-census information including detailed demographic information aggregated at the level of ZIP code. Through this combination we can annotate each query with, e.g., the average per-capita income in the ZIP code it originated from. Though conceptually simple, this combination immediately creates a powerful demographic profiling tool. The main contributions of this work are the following. First, we provide a demographic description of a large sample of search engine users in the US and show that it agrees well with the distribution of the US population. Second, we describe how different segments of the population differ in their search behavior, e.g. with respect to the diversity of formulated queries or with respect to the clicked URLs. Third, we explore applications of our methodology to improve web search and, in particular, to help issuing query reformulations. These results enable the creation of a powerful tool for improved user modeling in practice, with many applications including improving web search and advertising. For instance, advertisements for ``family vacations'' could be adapted to the (expected) income of the person issuing the query, or search suggestions shown to users could be adapted to items that are more interesting given their particular characteristics.


ACM COPYRIGHT NOTICE. Copyright © 2010 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481, or permissions@acm.org

The Demographics of Web Search

Hampton University's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Receives $1Million Endowment

Hampton University News - July 8, 2010 - http://www.hamptonu.edu/news/


Hampton, Va. – Hampton University has been awarded a $1 million endowment from the Bernard Osher Foundation in support of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at HU (OLLI at HU), which offers continuing educational opportunities to mature adults.


OLLI at HU offers educational and cultural learning opportunities for Hampton Roads citizens, ages 50 and older. The institute offers non-credit, six-week courses aimed at improving skills, exploring new ideas and interacting with active people who share similar interests. An array of courses taught by retired professors and professionals including computers, equestrian, music and theater, photography, psychology, and swimming is offered.


“We are so excited to have received the $1 million endowment. The gift will allow OLLI to continue to offer non-credit courses to its more than 600 members in Hampton Roads,” said Alisha Foster, director of OLLI at HU.


HU is the only Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to host an OLLI. There are currently 119 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes hosted by selected colleges and universities in the nation, with only four in Virginia.


OLLI at HU was launched in 2005 through a $100,000 first-year operating grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation. Due to the program’s tremendous success, it was named the winner of the Association for Continuing Higher Education’s (ACHE) Older Adult Model Program in 2007.


The Bernard Osher Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., was founded in 1977 by Bernard Osher, a respected businessman and community leader. The Foundation seeks to improve quality of life through support for higher education and the arts. The Bernard Osher Foundation’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes grant program provides support to institutions of higher education to develop and strengthen initiatives that offer intellectually stimulating, non-credit courses specifically designed for students 50 years of age or older who are interested in personal enrichment. Emphasis is placed on learning for the joy of learning and on keeping in touch with a larger world.

Hampton University's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Receives $1Million Endowment

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Association Creates Plan for ‘1890’ HBCUs To Meet Modern Challenges

July 13, 2010 by B. Denise Hawkins
WASHINGTON — Dr. Lorenzo Esters has spoken resolutely about the “bold, futuristic and intentional” five-point plan launched last month for 18 historically Black land-grant colleges and universities, but he could have easily been summing up his first year as the person tapped by the nation’s oldest higher education association to advance access and diversity among its member institutions.


As the debate over the relevancy of Black colleges continues to swirl inside and outside of academia and troublesome HBCU graduation and retention rates linger, Esters, vice president of the Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), has this message at the ready for critics: “Success is a longer road for historically Black colleges and universities.”


Esters, 34, celebrates Black colleges for their ability to take and graduate many students who were like him—from low-performing school districts, from low-income households, and the first in their families to go to college. What distinguishes HBCUs, Esters says, is “their legacy of intentionality. They know who they serve and they have a history of doing that well,” says Esters, a product of three HBCUs: Rust College, Jackson State University and Morgan State University.


But it is the group of Black land-grant colleges and universities, known as the “1890s” for the year they were designated by Congress under the second Morrill Act, that Esters says he wants to equip for a new marketplace while helping them meet “the challenges of institutional advancement and academic enhancement.”


Since his appointment in June 2009, the architecture for such a plan has been on a fast track, says Esters. “It’s their plan,” adds Esters of the 1890 presidents and chancellors who have agreed to adopt and implement activities to benefit their network of institutions. When the HBCU leaders met June 23-25 in Little Rock, Ark., for the APLU’s Council of 1890 Universities summer conference, the plan topped the agenda.


It called for:


• Establishing a Graduation, Retention, Enhancement, and Accountability Task Force to address such things as increasing student enrollment, especially among males.


• Establishing international education programs of study and degrees that include hosting international meetings of 1890 and selected African institutions.


• Instituting distance and online learning capabilities and degree programs.


• Launching campuswide curriculum, degree and faculty initiatives focused on science, mathematics, engineering, technology and agriculture.


• Brokering and enhancing articulation agreements between the 1890s and community colleges to support degree attainment.


The 1890s, Esters says, “are not waiting for a mandate in order to act. They are holding themselves accountable for results. That is the new agenda, and I’m excited to be a part of the action.”


Dr. George E. Cooper, president of the South Carolina State University and chair-elect of the Council of 1890s, calls these types of initiatives representative of the “new energy and fresh thinking” that Esters has brought to the institutions since he came on board. “His focus on diversity and young Black males has been important to us,” Cooper adds. “(Esters) is our voice in Washington, which is already helping to open doors for us.”


In April, Cooper and members of the Executive Committee of the Council of 1890 Universities met with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Cooper said he and the 1890s are excited about a new partnership agreement with the Monsanto Company, an agricultural biotechnology corporation that focuses on diversity and agriculture while supporting such things as teaching exchanges and student research.


Since increasing diversity in international education is a priority for the 1890s, Esters is brokering a partnership agreement with the Peace Corps. The results of a survey on international education and diversity will be released during the June meeting of the 1890s.


Esters’ portfolio, which includes overseeing the APLU’s Commission on Access, Diversity and Excellence, means working with both Black land-grants and the membership’s Hispanic-serving institutions. Serving as senior adviser to the president of historically Black Dillard University in New Orleans before coming to the APLU, Esters says his first year on the job has entailed reaching out but not always getting the collegial hand of some of the major HBCU policy and advocacy organizations that also count his 1890 institutions among their membership.


When it comes to ensuring the success and future of the nation’s HBCUs, “leadership and collaboration” are sorely needed, especially “on issues of relevance to all of our institutions,” says Esters.


This week, Esters meets in Denver with the APLU’s Commission on Access, Diversity and Excellence to lay the groundwork for a policy agenda that will tackle diversity in the professoriate, the underrepresentation of low-income and minority males in higher education, and the impact of the nation’s economic downtown on low-income and minority students.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Association Creates Plan for ‘1890’ HBCUs To Meet Modern Challenges