Dear members of the CHI Announcements mailing list,
This planned special issue may be of interest to those of you whose
research concerns one or more aspects of ubiquitous computing.
Best regards,
Anthony Jameson
****************************** Call for Submissions ******************************
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research
Special Issue on USER MODELING IN UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING
http://dfki.de/~jameson/umuai-special-issue/
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
Topic Area
The intersection between the fields of user modeling and ubiquitous computing.
Guest Editors
Anthony Jameson, DFKI (http://dfki.de/~jameson/)
Antonio Krueger, Saarland University (http://www.dfki.de/~krueger/main.html)
Anind Dey, Intel Research and UC Berkeley (http://berkeley.intel-research.net/anind/)
Time Line
31 March 2004: Submission of manuscripts
June / July 2004: Receipt of reviews
Fall 2004: Submission of revised manuscripts
First half of 2005: Appearance of the special issue
Journal
"User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization
Research" (http://umuai.informatik.uni-essen.de/) is the primary journal for
substantial research contributions concerning systems that model and adapt to
their users.
Its impact factor in 2002 was among the 20 highest for all computer science
journals.
Web Page
The following web page currently includes the complete contents of the present
message formated with HTML; it will also be updated as new information becomes
available:
http://dfki.de/~jameson/umuai-special-issue/
MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTION
1. MOTIVATION
The field of user modeling has come up with many techniques for modeling and
adapting to computer users, for example, to their preferences, goals, and
intentions, as well as to their cognitive and affective states. Until relatively
recently, these methods were restricted to desktop systems, in which the user's
external context could largely be neglected. With the increasing ubiquity of
mobile and embedded devices, it has become clear that in many cases the
recognition and modeling of the user's external context is essential.
Coming from the other direction, ubiquitous computing has generated many
approaches to recognizing and modeling a user's context, for example his or her
location, physical environment, or social environment. But in most cases there
has been no explicit modeling of users themselves. Recently, an increasing
number of researchers in this area have taken into account the fact that the external
context alone may not determine the most appropriate adaptation to the user. So
they have worked on methods for recognizing and adapting to aspects of the user
such as their activities, general interests, and current information needs.
The purposes of the planned special issue on user modeling in ubiquitous
computing are (a) to make researchers and designers in each community more aware
of the relevant work in the other community; and (b) to provide the first
compendium of substantial research in the intersection between these two areas.
2. EXAMPLES OF ISSUES
Here are some examples of the types of question that arise in the intersection
between user modeling and ubiquitous computing:
Modeling methods:
What do the problems of modeling users and modeling contexts have in common,
in terms of (a) ways of acquiring the necessary information and (b) techniques
for representation and inference? How do the problems differ in these
respects? Which methods (or combinations of methods) are best suited to
modeling both users and contexts?
Practical modeling issues:
What constraints do the special characteristics of mobile and embedded devices
place on methods for user modeling - for example, in terms of capacity
limitations and threats to security and privacy? How can these constraints
best be dealt with?
Application areas:
What examples exist where successful adaptation to both users and contexts has
been realized? What lessons can be learned from these examples?
User studies:
Given that user modeling and context modeling each raise characteristic
challenges for the design of empirical user studies, what empirical methods
can be used when both types of modeling are combined?
3. REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSIONS TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE
To fall within the scope of the special issue, a submission should refer to at
least one specific system and/or general method for modeling some aspect(s) of
users in a ubiquitous computing context. The ubiquitous computing aspect will in
most cases concern either the modeling of context or the characteristic
constraints and problems for user modeling that are raised by ubiquitous
computing.
Detailed studies of application domains for user and context modeling (e.g.,
ethnographic studies) which do not refer to specific systems or methods may fall
within the scope if clear and reliable implications for the design of such
systems and methods are discussed.
Papers that present results that call into question the whole idea of modeling
users in the context of ubiquitous computing can likewise be relevant, provided
that they focus directly on this issue, as opposed to mentioning it in passing.
If you are unsure whether a possible submission falls into the scope of the
special issue, feel free to ask one of the guest editors for advice.
Once you have decided that you will probably submit a manuscript, please send a
tentative title and abstract to at least one of the guest editors. This
information will help us to set up a well-qualified team of reviewers for the
issue and to send further relevant information to authors as it becomes
available.
Detailed instructions for the submission of manuscripts can be found via the
journal home page http://umuai.informatik.uni-essen.de/. When submitting,
please make it clear that your manuscript is to be considered for the special
issue on user modeling in ubiquitous computing.
4. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE JOURNAL
"User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization
Research" (UMUAI) is an archival journal that publishes only manuscripts that
report mature and substantiated research results. The ideas in each submission
have to be validated in some way, usually through some combination of formal
analysis, empirical studies, and/or descriptions of successful system
performance. Papers that propose a promising new idea without providing such
validation may be valuable as workshop or conference presentations, but they are
not yet ready for UMUAI.
Many articles in UMUAI are quite comprehensive, describing the results of
several years of work. Consequently, UMUAI gives "unlimited" space to authors --
as long as what they write is important. Also, it is no problem if the research
described has previously been published in bits and pieces at workshops and
conferences, as long as the integrative article provides significant new
insights.
Adherence to these requirements is one reason why UMUAI special issues typically
come to be regarded as valuable resources which are read and cited for many
years after their appearance.