Frequently Asked Questions

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What is TREC?
What is TIPSTER?
How do I attend the TREC conferences?
How can I participate?
What publications have resulted from TREC?
Where do I find information to cite a TREC publication?
How can I obtain the TREC test collections?
What type of file have I downloaded?
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What is TIPSTER?
TIPSTER was a DARPA-sponsored project that encouraged the advancement of state-of-the-art technologies for text handling, such as text retrieval, summarization, and the extraction of factual information from documents. The project successfully concluded in 1998.
TREC was initially started as one of three metrics-based evaluations within the TIPSTER program (MUC and SUMMAC being the other two evaluations). The first sets of documents used in TREC, Disks 1--3, were obtained through the TIPSTER program, and are frequently called the TIPSTER disks. Despite the official conclusion of the TIPSTER program, the TREC conferences will continue.


How do I attend the TREC conferences?
Attendance at TREC conferences is restricted to those researchers and developers who have performed the TREC retrieval tasks and to selected government personnel from sponsoring agencies.


How can I participate?
TREC currently runs on a yearly cycle, with a new call for participation coming out in December of each year. To make sure you are on the email list for the next call, contact the TREC Program Manager.


What publications have resulted from TREC?
A listing of TREC publications published by NIST are available at http://trec.nist.gov/pubs.html


Where do I find information to cite a TREC publication?
Information required to cite TREC publications can be found at http://trec.nist.gov/pubs.html (i.e., Special Publication Number, conference dates, conference location, publisher, editor(s), etc.). If additional information is required and not found, please contact the TREC Program Manager.


How can I obtain the TREC test collections?
The TREC conference series has produced dozens of test collections. Each of these collections consists of a set of documents, a set of topics (questions), and a corresponding set of relevance judgments (right answers). The collections built in TREC are usually available to organizations that do not participate in TREC; the Data page gives the details. In general, the topics and relevance judgments can be downloaded directly from the TREC web site. The document sets are ususally copyrighted by the original source and must be licensed. The license must be obtained/purchased from the organization with the authority to distribute the collection. The data page entry for the collection of interest will specify how to obtain the document set.





The TREC Conference series is co-sponsored by the NIST Information Technology Laboratory's (ITL)
Retrieval Group of the
Information Access Division (IAD)
Contact us at: trec (at) nist.gov

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Last updated: Tuesday, 09-Apr-2019 15:28:14 EDT
Date created: Tuesday, 01-Aug-00
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