WORKSHOP: Doctoral Consortium at the 2017 ACM User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization Conference (UMAP 2017)

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

This is funding to support travel for about 8 students enrolled in PhD programs in U.S. institutions, to present their accepted papers and posters and/or to attend the Doctoral Consortium associated with the 25th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2017), to be held July 9-12 at the Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia, and which is sponsored by ACM SIGCHI and SIGWEB. User interfaces that adapt themselves to available user information (such as special needs or individual preferences) are becoming increasingly important, so much so that adaptability has become a selling point for software products. A system with the ability to construct and consult a user model (an explicit representation of properties of a particular user or group of users) can adapt diverse aspects of its performance and enhance its effectiveness, usability and/or acceptance in a variety of situations (e.g., to reduce information overload, to improve the quality of information retrieval, filtering and annotation, and to generate useful information visualizations). Applications for user modeling range from electronic commerce and intelligent learning environments to health care and assistive technologies. Relevant platforms for user modeling include mobile and wearable systems and smart environments, as well as individual desktop systems, groupware, adaptive hypermedia, and other web-based systems. The annual UMAP conference is the premier forum at which academic and industrial researchers from all these fields gather to present their latest research and to exchange their complementary insights on user modeling issues. To encourage student participation, UMAP has established two annual awards valued at $1,000 each endowed by the family of the late James Chen, an active User Modeling researcher, for best student papers (papers that represent primarily student research work and where students are lead authors). More information about the conference is available online at http://www.um.org/umap2017/. Attending and presenting their work at UMAP will have a significant impact on the careers of the future generation of user modeling, adaptation, and personalization researchers. First, they will have the opportunity to present their work to a knowledgeable audience and through lively discussions get useful comments at an early stage of their research when it will be most useful. Just as importantly, they will have a chance to meet established researchers and other graduate students doing similar work, to exchange ideas and to make contacts that will be invaluable to them as they progress in their scientific careers. Interacting with young researchers is also beneficial to experienced investigators, by providing fresh ideas and new perspectives. Thus, the Doctoral Consortium is a great confidence builder for the students involved, and highly stimulating to the senior researchers as well. Many past participants in the UMAP Doctoral Consortium have gone on to become well-regarded researchers and practitioners in the field. Students whose work has been selected for presentation at the Doctoral Consortium will benefit from that experience in a number of additional ways. They will be invited to write a paper that will be published in the UMAP 2017 conference proceedings, which will be included in the ACM Digital Library. And they will have a 30-minute window in which to present their work (with a short demonstration where appropriate), including time for questions and discussion. During the question/discussion period and in subsequent informal interactions, organizing committee members and other participants will provide constructive comments on each student's work and attempt to address aspects on which the student has requested advice. The organizers have reaffirmed the long-standing and demonstrated UMAP commitment to diversity; to this end, they will make special efforts to recruit women and members of under-represented groups when selecting the candidates to receive financial support.