The Result Assessment Tool (RAT) is the free open-source software for examining and assessing search results. To learn more about the capabilities of RAT and to gain inspiration for own research, we invited researchers from all over the world to join us for the third annual RAT Community Meeting in Hamburg on Friday, September 26, 2025.
What is RAT and How Can You Use It? – Dirk Lewandowski
This talk will introduce the RAT software and its various components. You will learn about the types of studies that can be conducted using RAT. Additionally, we will explain RAT’s modules for designing studies, collecting data, juror assessment, and performing automatic data analysis.
In this presentation, we will discuss the new features we have developed since the last community meeting. This includes:
- With our new scrapers for Large Language Models, it is possible to gather, evaluate and analyze responses from systems like Google’s AI Overviews.
- The Query Sampler, the tool for exploring search queries, is integrated into RAT now.
Learn more about our plans to make RAT more powerful, flexible, and sustainable:
- By integrating RAT into a larger research software infrastructure, you can connect it seamlessly to other tools for surveys, data analysis, and more.
- We are exploring a future option to install RAT locally on your own computer or institutional server. You gain full control over the tool and ensure that all sensitive research data remains securely within your institution.
- We will provide you with an update about the formation of the new RAT association.
Have a brief look on the various studies conducted with the assistance of RAT and on the specific features of RAT that were utilized for this purpose, such as result overlap, classification or retrieval effectiveness studies in fields like political, health or information science.
Learn more about the functionalities of RAT and how you can use it for your own study ideas. You will be guided through the process of
- creating a study
- identify relevant search queries
- collecting data from search engines
- analyzing the results
- having jurors evaluate the results.
Workshops
We will conduct studies using RAT in small groups. Based on your ideas, we will
- design the studies collaboratively
- discuss methodological questions
- outline the initial steps for implementation.
Workshop Summary
In this session, you will have the chance to share and discuss the results of the workshop groups with the other participants in a relaxed atmosphere.
