Topics

While most of the research in recommender systems is focusing on recommendation techniques (algorithms), which often boils down to rating or ranking prediction algorithms, there is still too little discussion on the impact of the system’s generated recommendations and the system/user interaction on the decision making behavior of users. However, supporting and influencing the decision-making process is the true ultimate goal of a recommender system. Hence, it is important to design new recommendation techniques and interaction modalities that can effectively support users in making better decisions. Therefore, with this workshop we aim to discuss how to go beyond recommendation techniques and algorithm evaluations and focus the attention on their effect on users.

In particular, this year we aim at going beyond the analysis of a single user/system interaction and therefore discuss the global effects of recommendations on a network of users. In fact, recommenders are accessed by networked users. Recommendations may, for instance, favour the diffusion of a particular movie or a specific news article within a social network. To the contrary, recommenders are also influenced by the network itself, since, for instance, many recommendation systems generate suggestions by leveraging the observations of how users consumes or share items in a network.

Objectives

This workshop aims at bringing researchers and practitioners from different research communities, such as user interaction, decision-making and recommender systems, together. It especially focuses on integrating research interests across these different communities. In addition, we aim at providing a platform for discussing approaches, models, research results and case studies that address a broad range of issues related to recommender systems and user interaction. We are specifically interested in bringing interdisciplinary research challenges and emerging research directions to the forefront.

Specific Topics

• Social choice
• Group Decision Making
• Multi agent systems
• Network Analysis
• Information Diffusion in Networks
• Ecology of Decision Making
• Societal implications of information filtering and personalisation
• Persuasion in social networks
• Social Psychology of Decision Making
• Social Robots and recommendations
• Reciprocal Recommender Systems