EAGER: Personalization and social networking for short-term communities

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal explores in a novel fashion an understudied social phenomenon - the nature and dynamics of short-term professional communities. Modern community-based systems such as social networking and recommender systems have to date been effectively limited in applicability to large, long-term communities. The research goal addressed by this proposal is to maximize information- and people-finding in short-term professional communities. The subject of the investigation is professional research conferences (a specific kind of small short-term community). The project will explore new methods to leverage information about user interests and contacts, which is already available from multiple external sources, and develop cross-cutting techniques for existing social technologies.