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A Predictive Search Method for FAQ-based Question Answering System

Masaki Samejima, Yuichi Saito, Masanori Akiyoshi, Hironori Oka

Abstract


We address a predictive search for FAQ-based question answering system in online help desk. The predictive search is to search FAQ corresponding to a user’s question that the user is inputting with important words defined in each FAQ. The important words co-occur in a user’s question and the rates of the co-occurrences depend on which FAQ the user’s question corresponds to. The co-occurrence rates of important words in questions are estimated from a statistical model of important words co-occurrence generated with past questions and FAQ corresponding to them. When the highest co-occurrence rate of them is larger than a threshold set on each FAQ, the question is regarded as a corresponding FAQ. Through an evaluation experiment by using practical data in the help desk, it has been confirmed that the proposed method can improve the recall rate for short questions and the precision rate for long questions.

Keywords


help desk, predictive search, FAQ based question answering, statistical model of word co-occurrence.

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