An open-source framework for ExpFinder integrating N-gram vector space model and μCO-HITS

Abstract

<h2>Abstract</h2> Finding experts drives successful collaborations and high-quality product development in academic and research domains. To contribute to the expert finding research community, we have developed ExpFinder which is a novel ensemble model for expert finding by integrating an <mml:math><mml:mi>N</mml:mi></mml:math>-gram vector space model (<mml:math><mml:mi>n</mml:mi></mml:math>VSM) and a graph-based model (<mml:math><mml:mi>μ</mml:mi></mml:math>CO-HITS). This paper provides descriptions of ExpFinder's architecture, key components, functionalities, and illustrative examples. ExpFinder is an effective and competitive model for expert finding, significantly outperforming a number of expert finding models as presented in Kang et al. (2021).