Automatic text summarization has enjoyed great progress over the last years. Now is the time to re-assess its focus and objectives. Does the current focus fully adhere to users' desires or should we expand or change our focus? We investigate this question empirically by conducting a survey amongst heavy users of pre-made summaries. We find that the current focus of the field does not fully align with participants' wishes. In response, we identify three groups of implications  . First, we argue that it is important to adopt a broader perspective on automatic summarization . Based on our findings, we illustrate how we can expand our view when it comes to the types of input materialthat is to be summarized , the purpose of the summaries and their potential formats. Second, we define requirements for datasets that can facilitate these research directions. Third, usefulness is an important aspect of summarization that should be included in our evaluation methodology; we propose a methodology to evaluate the usefulness of a summary . With this work we unlock important research directions for future work on automatic summarization and we hope to initiate the development of methods in these directions .
Automatic text summarization has enjoyed great progress over the last years. However, there is little research that investigates whether the current research focus adheres to users' needs. Importantly, these needs are dependent on the envisioned target group of the generated summaries. One such important target group is formed by students, due to their usage of summaries in their study activities. For this reason, we investigate students' needs regarding automatically generated summaries by means of a survey amongst university students and find that the current direction of the field does not fully align with their needs. Motivated by our findings, we formulate three groups of implications that together help us formulate a renewed perspective on future research on automatic summarization . First, the educational domain requires a broader perspective on automatic summarization , beyond the approaches that are currently the standard. We illustrate how we can expand these approaches regarding the input material , the purpose of the summaries and their potential format and we define requirements for datasets that can facilitate these research directions. Second, we propose a methodology to evaluate the usefulness of a summary based on the identified needs of a target group. Third, in more general terms, we hope that our survey will be reused to investigate the needs of different user groups of automatically generated summaries to broaden our perspective even further .
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. Based on our findings, we
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Third, usefulness is an important aspect of summarization that should be included in our evaluation methodology;
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. With this work we unlock important research directions for future work on automatic summarization and we hope to initiate the development of methods in these directions
based on the identified needs of a target group. Third, in more general terms, we hope that our survey will be reused to investigate the needs of different user groups of automatically generated summaries to broaden our perspective even further