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From: Zia Syed <zs@COMP.RGU.AC.UK> Date: Mon Oct 21, 2002 2:45:26 PM US/Eastern To: WEB-RESEARCH-UK@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS- UM 2003: 9th International Conference on User Modeling Reply-To: Web Research UK <WEB-RESEARCH-UK@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>

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--------------------- UM 2003: 9th International Conference on User Modeling

http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~um2003

June 22 to June 26, 2003 University of Pittsburgh Conference Center Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA

CALL FOR PAPERS

The International User Modeling Conferences are the events at which research foundations are being laid for the personalization of computer systems. In the last 15 years, the field of User Modelling has produced significant new theories and methods to analyze and model computer users in short and long-term interactions. A user model is an explicit representation of properties of individual users or user classes. It allows the system to adapt its performance to user needs and preferences. Methods for personalizing human-computer interaction based on user models have been successfully developed, applied and evaluated in a number of domains, such as information filtering, e-commerce, adaptive natural language and hypermedia presentation and tutoring systems.

New trends in HCI create new and interesting challenges for User Modeling. While consolidating results in traditional domains of interest, the User Modeling field now also addresses problems of personalized interaction in mobile, ubiquitous and context-aware computing and in user interactions with embodied, autonomous agents. It also considers adaptation to user attitudes and affective states. Previous successes in User Modeling research reflect the cooperation of researchers in different fields, including artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, education, cognitive psychology and linguistics. The International User Modeling Conferences are characterized by active participation of people from these areas and by lively discussions in a pleasant environment. UM 2003 is the latest in a conference series begun in 1986, and follows recent meetings in Sonthofen (2001), Banff (1999), Sardinia (1997), Hawaii (1996) and Cape Cod (1994). As in past conferences, UM03 offers the following forms of participation: tutorials, invited talks, paper and poster sessions, a doctoral consortium, workshops and system demonstrations.

AREAS OF INTEREST include, but are not limited to:

* theoretical issues of user modeling: inference techniques (neural networks, numerical uncertainty management, logic-based formalisms, machine learning); consistency checking; * construction of user models: contents of user and student models (including knowledge, beliefs, goals, plans, attitudes, personalities and emotions); observation of users' behavior, user modeling agents; user modeling in mobile systems; * exploitation of user models to achieve: adaptive information filtering and retrieval, personalized natural language understanding and generation, delegation of tasks from user to system, adaptation of tutorial strategies; * applications of user modeling techniques: teaching systems, on-line help environments, e-commerce, adaptive NL and hypermedia generation, embodied conversational agents, support of collaboration, support of users with special needs; * practical issues of user modeling: privacy, security, evaluation.

DEADLINES

November 11, 2002 - preliminary workshop proposals November 18, 2002 - papers November 25, 2002 - posters November 25, 2002 - final workshop proposals November 25, 2002 - tutorial proposals January 25, 2003 - Doctoral Consortium submissions

INVITED SPEAKERS

Michael Pazzani, Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine Rosalind Picard, MIT Media Laboratory Kurt VanLehn, Computer Science Department, University of Pittsburgh

SUBMISSIONS:

Papers and Posters:

Submissions are invited that describe original academic or industrial research on some aspect of user modeling. Following the past User Modeling conferences, the proceedings of UM'2003 will be published by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI/LNCS). The paper and poster submissions should follow as close as possible the Springer LNCS format and should be submitted electronically as PDF or Postscript files. For instructions on the LNCS paper format, see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html

The page limit is 10 pages for paper submissions and 3 pages for posters. Please indicate whether the first (or main) author is a student to qualify for the best student award. Detailed submission instructions will be available from the conference web site.

Workshops and Tutorials

The purpose of the workshops is to provide an informal forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss novel applications and techniques of user modeling. The formats of the workshops will be determined by their organizers, who are encouraged to foster discussion and exchange of ideas by including mechanisms other than traditional paper presentations, differentiating their workshops clearly from typical conference sessions. All workshops will last either one-half day or (preferably) a full day.

The purpose of a tutorial is either to offer an introduction to a fairly broad topic for newcomers to user modeling or to enable experienced participants to deepen their knowledge of a more specific topic. Each tutorial will last one-half day. Detailed submission instructions for workshop proposals and tutorials will be available from the conference web site http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~um2003.

Doctoral Consortium

Continuing a tradition that started in 1994, the UM Doctoral Consortium aims to provide qualified Ph.D. students with the opportunity to present their on-going research to the UM community. The Doctoral Consortium is a great forum to receive useful feedback from a knowledgeable audience, to exchange ideas, compare approaches and meet fellow researchers in the field. Submissions should describe Ph.D. research that is at a stage where feedback from the broader UM community might be of value. Thus, we expect students to be close to make their research proposal, or to have made it but have at least a year of work remaining before completion of their thesis.

Submissions must be a maximum of three pages (including references) and should clearly specify: (i) the problem(s) that the proposed research is addressing (ii) the main contribution(s) of the research to the UM field (iii) the proposed solution(s), including a brief description of work already done and a tentative plan for future work. Detailed submission instructions will be available from the conference web site http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~um2003

CONFERENCE SITE:

Following UM conference series practice, UM'03 conference will be held at the Conference Center at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (http://www.pitt.edu/~ccupj). The center is tucked into 650 acres of beautiful woodlands in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, a region well known for its hiking, biking, and whitewater opportunities as well as for several world-class attractions such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (http://www.paconserve.org)

ORGANIZATION:

Conference Chair: Peter Brusilovsky, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Program Co-Chairs: Albert Corbett, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Fiorella de Rosis, University of Bari, Italy

Doctoral Consortium Co-Chairs: Sandra Carberry, University of Delaware, USA Cristina Conati, University of British Columbia, Canada

Workshop Co-Chairs: Frank Wittig, Saarland University, Germany Anthony Jameson, DFKI, Germany

Program Committee: David Albrecht, Australia Liliana Ardissono, Italy Mathias Bauer, Germany Sandra Carberry, USA Noelle Carbonell, France Keith Cheverst, UK David Chin, USA Cristina Conati, Canada Piotr Gmytrasiewicz, USA Brad Goodman, USA Haym Hirsh, USA Kristina H=F6=F6k, Sweden Eric Horvitz, USA Anthony Jameson, Germany Judy Kay, Australia Alfred Kobsa, USA Antonio Krger, Germany Diane Litman, USA Gordon McCalla, Canada Kathleen McCoy, USA Antonija Mitrovic, New Zealand Riichiro Mizoguchi, Japan Helen Pain, UK Cecile Paris, Australia Barry Smyth, Ireland Constantine Stephanidis, Greece Carlo Tasso, Italy Julita Vassileva, Canada Gerhard Weber, Germany Ingrid Zukerman, Australia

Local Advisory Committee: Ken Koedinger, Carnegie Mellon University Christian Lebiere, Carnegie Mellon University Jack Mostow, Carnegie Mellon University

Publicity Chair: Ayse Goker, The Robert Gordon University, UK

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Chair: Peter Brusilovsky School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh 135 North Bellefield Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 email: peterb@pitt.edu Tel.: +1 (412) 624 9404 http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~peterb

UM03 is being organized under the auspices of User Modeling, Inc. The list of sponsors currently includes Microsoft, Kluwer Academic Publishers, and James Chen Family.

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