Refining a search request to a content provider

A computer program product for refining an initial search request to a content provider, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by one or more processors, the program instructions executable to:

• receive the initial search request from a user;
• submit the initial search request to the content provider;
• receive, from the content provider, a set of sample documents and source identifiers for respective ones of the sample documents, the source identifiers identifying respective ones of data sources associated with the respective ones of the sample documents;
• apply a topic model to the set of the sample documents, to obtain a topic representation, the topic representation being descriptive of topics covered by the respective ones of the sample documents;
• present the topic representation to the user;
• receive, from the user, topic relevance scores for respective ones of the topics;
• classify the data sources according to the topic relevance scores, to obtain source relevance scores for respective ones of the data sources;
• and
• based on the source relevance scores, determine a refined search request, the refined search request having an increased selectivity on documents covering a highest-scoring one of the topics.

A computer system for refining an initial search request to a content provider, the computer system comprising:

• one or more processors, one or more computer readable tangible storage devices, and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more computer readable tangible storage devices for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, the program instructions executable to:
• receive the initial search request from a user;
• submit the initial search request to the content provider;
• receive, from the content provider, a set of sample documents and source identifiers for respective ones of the sample documents, the source identifiers identifying respective ones of data sources associated with the respective ones of the sample documents;
• apply a topic model to the set of the sample documents, to obtain a topic representation, the topic representation being descriptive of topics covered by the respective ones of the sample documents;
• present the topic representation to the user;
• receive, from the user, topic relevance scores for respective ones of the topics;
• classify the data sources according to the topic relevance scores, to obtain source relevance scores for respective ones of the data sources;
• and
• based on the source relevance scores, determine a refined search request, the refined search request having an increased selectivity on documents covering a highest-scoring one of the topics.