Department of Information Science

Stephen Robertson

Professor

Photo of Professor Stephen Robertson Professor Stephen Roberson
Information Science
School of Informatics
City University
London EC1V OHB

I may be contacted through LinkedIn.

I'm Professor Emeritus in the Department of Information Science, which is part of the School of Informatics in the City University. I was head of department from 1988 to 1996; this is the poem one of my colleagues, Susan Jones, wrote for me when I came to the end of that post.

In 1987 I started the Centre for Interactive Systems Research in the Department. My co-director for a number of years was Micheline Beaulieu, subequently at the University of Sheffield. The current director is Andy MacFarlane.

My day job is now at the Microsoft Research Laboratory in Cambridge (England, that is). My homepage there. I'm also a fellow of Girton College, Cambridge.

I was full-time at City from 1978 to 1998. I was previously at University College London (where I did my PhD with B.C. Brookes), and before that at Aslib. Before that, I took an MSc here at City. My first degree was in Mathematics from Cambridge.

Brief CV

Research

My main research interests are in theories and models for information retrieval (specifically probabilistic models) and the design and evaluation of IR systems. I was the author (back in 1976, with Karen Sparck Jones) of a probabilistic theory of relevance weighting, which has become quite well established in the field. An extension of that model (work with Stephen Walker) led to the BM25 function for term weighting and document scoring, now used by many other research groups. A further extension (work with Hugo Zaragoza and Michael Taylor) led to the field-weighted version, BM25F.

Our main experimental vehicle in the Centre during my time at City was the Okapi system, also due to Stephen Walker. We used Okapi both for live experiments with real users in operational settings, and for laboratory experiments in the Cranfield tradition. In this latter category, we developed a strong involvement in the TREC programme.

Selected publications listed here, with a very small number of web-accessible ones. See also the Sparck Jones / Robertson IDF page.

ISI Lazerow Lecture, November 1993

Transparencies from Mira meeting in Glasgow, May 1996

Teaching

I have at various times taught the following:

and a few other things. In my present position (see above), I do little teaching.

And now for something completely different...

My son's web site.

A family art gallery (have a look).

My father's poems (very good).

Another poetry website I maintain (contains a few of my own).

Some nice Greek vases.

Last updated January 2013