Judit Bar-Ilan (, 1958–2019) was an Israeli computer scientist known for her research in

informetrics Informetrics is the study of quantitative aspects of information, it is an extension and evolution of traditional bibliometrics and scientometrics. Informetrics uses bibliometrics and scientometrics methods to study mainly the problems of literat ...

and

scientometrics Scientometrics is a subfield of informetrics that studies quantitative aspects of scholarly literature. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academic journals, the understanding of scientific citati ...

. She was a professor of information science, and head of the Department of Information Science at

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

Education and career

Bar-Ilan was born in 1958. She was a student at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1981, an education diploma in 1982, a master's degree in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1990. Her dissertation, ''Applications of One-Way Functions and Randomization in Security Protocols'', was jointly supervised by Michael O. Rabin and Michael Ben-Or. After working for a year as a visiting lecturer at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...

, Bar-Ilan returned to the Hebrew University as an external teacher and later teaching fellow and teacher in library, archive and information studies. She joined the Bar-Ilan University Department of Information Science in 2002, where she was head of department from 2008 to 2012 and was promoted to full professor in 2010.

Contributions

Bar-Ilan did important work early in her career in the

fault tolerance Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to maintain proper operation despite failures or faults in one or more of its components. This capability is essential for high-availability, mission-critical, or even life-critical systems. Fault t ...

distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...

, and her dissertation research was in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

. However, she is best known for her research on

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the task of identifying and retrieving information system resources that are relevant to an Information needs, information need. The information need can be specified in the form ...

, and

web search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

s. Her interest in these topics stemmed from her work in the early 1990s on applications of distributed computing in

library science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...

. This work led her to perform important studies in the late 1990s on the accuracy, reliability, and stability over time of search engine results, and on the ability of search engines to handle non-English queries. She also used search engine results to study the link structure of the web, and applied methodologies including content analysis, user surveys, and user studies in these areas. Later in her career, her interests shifted to

, including

citation analysis Citation analysis is the examination of the frequency, patterns, and graphs of citations in documents. It uses the directed graph of citationslinks from one document to another documentto reveal properties of the documents. A typical aim would b ...

and studies of the

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

as well as

altmetrics In scholarly and scientific publishing, altmetrics (stands for "alternative metrics") are non-traditional bibliometrics proposed as an alternative or complement to more traditional citation impact metrics, such as impact factor and H-index, ''h ...

for measuring scholarly productivity. She also investigated the patterns of politically motivated internet activity.

Recognition

The

International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics The International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics was founded in 1993 in Berlin at the International Conference on Bibliometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics. It is an association for professionals in the field of scientometrics. Th ...

gave Bar-Ilan their

Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal The Derek de Solla Price Memorial Award, or Price Medal, was conceived to honor Derek J. de Solla Price for his contributions to information science and for his crucial role in developing the field of scientometrics. The award was launched by Tibor ...

in 2017, "for her distinguished contribution to the field of scientometrics". The Association for Information Science and Technology gave her their Research in Information Science Award in 2018, for "sustained contributions to informetrics, bibliometrics information retrieval, and most recently altmetrics, domains at the core of information science". A special memorial issue dedicated to Judit Bar-Ilan was published in the journal

Scientometrics Scientometrics is a subfield of informetrics that studies quantitative aspects of scholarly literature. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academic journals, the understanding of scientific citati ...

in June 2020.

Personal life

Bar-Ilan died on July 16, 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bar-Ilan, Judit 1958 births 2019 deaths Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University Israeli women computer scientists Israeli computer scientists Burials at Har HaMenuchot