Use of IR_Framework in the Teaching of Information Retrieval

This paper discusses recent work on the development of an application based on IR_Framework, an
extensible class library for information retrieval currently under development at the University of
Huddersfield. IR_Framework includes a range of data structures and algorithms which can be used in
the development of applications in which it is necessary to store, automatically index and retrieve
objects on the basis of their text content. The paper discusses the way in which IR_Framework has
been used in the development of a reference management system called Papers and how this application
has been used in the teaching of a course in Information Storage and Retrieval. Papers demonstrates a
range of IR techniques and supports a hypertext based help system containing detailed information
about these techniques.