*** Apologies for cross postings ***


*ExUM Workshop @UMAP 2024 - Call For Papers - *** DEADLINE APRIL, 24 ***
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Workshop on Explainable User Models and Personalised Systems (ExUM@UMAP 2024)

co-located with UMAP 2024 (http://www.um.org/umap2024) - The 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization Monday 1 - Thursday 4 July, 2024 Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExUM_Workshop
Web: http://swap.di.uniba.it/exum/index.html

For any information: marco.polignano@uniba.it

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ABSTRACT
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Adaptive and personalized systems have become pervasive technologies, gradually playing an increasingly important role in our daily lives. Indeed, we are now accustomed to interacting with algorithms that leverage the power of Language Models (LLMs) to assist us in various scenarios. From services suggesting music or movies to personal assistants proactively supporting us in complex decision-making tasks. As these technologies continue to shape our everyday experiences,

it becomes imperative to ensure that the internal mechanisms guiding these algorithms are transparent and comprehensible. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) recognizes the users' right to explanation when confronted with intelligent systems, highlighting the significance of this aspect.
Regrettably, current research often prioritizes the maximization of personalization strategy effectiveness, such as recommendation accuracy, at the expense of model explainability.

To address this concern, the workshop aims to provide a platform for in-depth discussions on challenges, problems, and innovative research approaches in the field. The workshop will specifically focus on investigating the role of transparency and explainability in recent methodologies for constructing user models and developing personalized and adaptive systems.

By bringing together researchers and practitioners, the workshop aims to foster collaboration, knowledge exchange, and the development of novel solutions. Through this collective effort, we can advance the understanding and implementation of transparent and interpretable approaches in adaptive and personalized systems, including integrating Language Models (LLMs) to enhance transparency and enable users to comprehend the internal mechanisms guiding these systems.


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TOPICS
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Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

∑ TRANSPARENT AND EXPLAINABLE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES
o Scrutable User Models
o Transparent User Profiling and Personal Data Extraction
o Explainable Personalization and Adaptation Methodologies
o Novel strategies (e.g., conversational recommender systems) for building transparent algorithms
o Transparent Personalization and Adaptation to Groups of users
o Transparent Personalization based on Large Language Models

∑ DESIGNING EXPLANATION ALGORITHMS
o Explanation algorithms based on the item description and item properties
o Explanation algorithms based on user-generated content (e.g., reviews)
o Explanation algorithms based on collaborative information
o Building explanation algorithms for opaque personalization techniques (e.g., neural networks, matrix factorization)
o Explanation algorithms based on methods to build group models

∑ DESIGNING TRANSPARENT AND EXPLAINABLE USER INTERFACES
o Transparent User Interfaces
o Methodologies for designing transparent interaction
o Novel paradigms (e.g. chatbots, LLMs) for building transparent models

∑ EVALUATING TRANSPARENCY AND EXPLAINABILITY
o Evaluating Transparency in interaction or personalization
o Evaluating the Explainability of the algorithms
o Designing User Studies for evaluating transparency and explainability
o Novel metrics and experimental protocols

∑ OPEN ISSUES IN TRANSPARENT AND EXPLAINABLE USER MODELS AND
PERSONALIZED SYSTEMS
o Ethical issues (Fairness and Biases) in User Models and Personalized Systems
o Privacy management of Personal and Social data
o Discussing Recent Regulations (GDPR) and future directions

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SUBMISSIONS
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We encourage the submission of contributions investigating novel methodologies to exploit heterogeneous personal data and approaches to build transparent and scrutable user models. In particular, we accept three kinds of submissions:

(A) Regular papers (max. 14 pages + references - single-column ACM format)
(B) Ongoing projects, Demo and Short papers (max. 7 pages + references - single-column ACM format);

Submission site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=umap24
During the submission process select “6th Workshop on Explainable User Models and Personalized Systems (ExUM)”

All submitted papers will be evaluated by at least two members of the program committee, based on originality, significance, relevance, and technical quality. Note that the references do not count toward page limits. Submissions should be single-blinded, i.e. authors’ names should be included in the submissions. Papers must be formatted according to the new workflow for ACM publications.

All accepted papers will be published by ACM as a joint volume of Extended UMAP 2024 Proceedings and will be available via the ACM Digital Library. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the particular workshop and present the paper there.

The templates and instructions are available here: ttps://authors.acm.org/proceedings/production-information/taps-production-workflow

- LaTeX (use \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart} in the sample-authordraft.tex file for single-column) - https://portalparts.acm.org/hippo/latex_templates/acmart-primary.zip

- Overleaf (use \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart} for single-column) - https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/acm-official#.WOuOk2e1taQ

- MS Word: https://authors.acm.org/proceedings/production-information/preparing-your-article-with-microsoft-word

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IMPORTANT DATES
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* Full paper submission: April 24, 2024 (GMT)
* Paper notification: May 8, 2024 (GMT)
* Workshop Papers Camera-ready Submission (TAPS system): May 16, 2024 (GTM)

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ORGANIZATION
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Cataldo Musto - University of Bari, Italy
Amra Delić – University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Oana Inel - Zurich University, Switzerland
Marco Polignano - University of Bari, Italy
Amon Rapp – University of Torino, Italy
Giovanni Semeraro - University of Bari, Italy
Juergen Ziegler - University of Duisburg Essen

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PROGRAM COMMITTEE (TO BE EXTENDED)
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Kathrin Wardatzky, University of Zurich
Marco de Gemmis, University of Bari
Veronika Bogina, Tel Aviv University
Dietmar Jannach, University of Klagenfurt
Francesco Barile, Maastricht University
Alain Starke, University of Amsterdam
Ludovico Boratto, University of Cagliari
Benedikt Loepp
Styliani Kleanthous, CYENS CoE and Open University of Cyprus
Erasmo Purificato, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
Pierpaolo Basile, University of Bari
Bart Knijnenburg, Clemson University
Alejandro Bellogin, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Giuseppe Sansonetti, Roma Tre University
Riccardo Guidotti, University of Pisa
Michael Ekstrand, Drexel University
Antonela Tommasel, Aarhus University, ISISTAN Research Institute, CONICET-UNCPBA
Kyriaki Kalimeri, ISI Foundation