geistlogistic

Just discovered that the workshop proposal from our dataTEL project and the MAVEL project by Miguel-Angel Sicilia got accepted. So we will run another workshop on Data sets for Technology Enhanced Learning (dataTEL).

The Alpine Rendez-Vous (ARV) has a very inspiring setup. It is not a standard conference, but a set of independent workshops located at the same time in the same hotel. We will identify most pressing research challenges based on workshop submissions. For each of these challenges, we will allow around 2 hours discussion, started off through about two short submission presentations or keynotes. The final 2 hours of the last workshop day will be utilised to bring the results of the individual discussions together and to chart a vision of the future of TEL amplified by publicly available data sets. The re-worked versions of accepted submissions will be published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects (IJELLO).

Here is a draft version of the scope of the workshop:
Personalisation and analysis of user interaction data is a key approach to overcome the plethora of information in the knowledge society. It is expected that personalised learning has the potential to reduce delivery costs, to create more effective learning environments and experiences, to accelerate study time, and to increase collaboration between learners. Recommender systems and information filtering are some of the promising technologies to support people in finding most suitable information and peer learners. They are increasingly applied in Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) in various European projects in order to personalise learning content and connect suitable peer learners according to their context (e.g., individual needs, preferences, and learning goals).

In the world of consumer recommender systems, it is a common practise to use different data sets as benchmarks to evaluate new recommender systems algorithms (MovieLens, Book-Crossing, EachMovie data set). In TEL, there are no standardised data sets publicly available, so that the outcomes of different recommender systems within TEL are hardly comparable.

So far, no universally valid knowledge exists on algorithm that can be successfully applied in a certain learning setting. Having such data sets could be a first major step towards a theory of personalisation within TEL that can be based on empirical experiments with verifiable and valid results.

Therefore, the objective of this workshop is to explore suitable data sets for TEL – with a specific focus on recommender and information filtering systems that can take advantage of these data sets. In this context, new challenges emerge like unclear legal protection rights and privacy issues, suitable policies and formats to share data, required pre-processing procedures and rules to create sharable data sets, common evaluation criteria for recommender systems in TEL and how a data set driven future in TEL could look like.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:
- publicly available data sets for educational systems
- dealing with legal protection rights towards data sets on a European level
- privacy preservation for educational data sets
- methods of effective anonymisation of educational data sets
- management and pre-processing procedures for educational data sets
- future scenarios for educational data sets
- impact of educational data sets for learners and teachers
- mash-ups based on educational data sets
- recommender approaches that are based on educational data
- evaluation methodologies and metrics for educational recommender systems

The organisers are:

Katrien Verbert (K.U.Leuven, BE)
Riina Vuorikari (European Schoolnet, BE)
Stefanie Lindstaedt (KnowCenter, AT)
Martin Wolpers (Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology, DE)
Miguel-Angel Sicilia (University of Alcalá, ES)
Nikos Manouselis (Greek Research and Technology Network, GR),
Hendrik Drachsler (Open University of the Netherlands, NL)

STELLAR has very close submission dates we have to stick to:

The final call will be announced pretty soon: 15.09.2010
Submission of extended abstract (500-1000 words): October 1st, 2010
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: October 15th, 2010
Submission of papers: December 17th, 2011
Workshop: March 27th to March 31st, 2011

Well we will spread the word at the 15.09.2010.

Workshop on Recommender Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning (RecSysTEL)
Barcelona, Spain, 29-30 September 2010

Organised jointly by
- 4th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2010)
- 5th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2010)

http://adenu.ia.uned.es/workshops/recsystel2010/

AIM & TOPICS

Technology enhanced learning (TEL) aims to design, develop and test socio-technical innovations that will support and enhance learning practices of both individuals and organisations. It is an application domain that generally addresses all types of technology research & development aiming to support of teaching and learning activities. Information retrieval is a pivotal activity in TEL, and the deployment of recommender systems has attracted increased interest during the past years.

Recommendation methods, techniques and systems open an interesting new approach to facilitate and support learning and teaching. There are plenty a resource available on the Web, both in terms of digital learning content and people resources (e.g. other learners, experts, tutors)
that can be used to facilitate teaching and learning tasks. The challenge is to develop, deploy and evaluate systems that provide learners and teachers with meaningful guidance in order to help identify suitable learning resources from a potentially overwhelming variety of choices.

The aim of the Workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners that are working on topics related to the design, development and testing of recommender systems in educational settings as well as present the current status of research in this area and create cross-disciplinary liaisons
between the RecSys and EC-TEL communities. Overall, it aims to outline the rich potential of TEL as an application area for recommender systems, as well as expose participants to the challenges of developing such systems in a TEL context.

Topics include but are not limited to:

* User tasks to be supported by recommender systems in TEL
* Focus of recommendation in TEL
* Requirements for the deployment of TEL recommender systems
* Publicly available data sets for TEL recommender systems
* Recommendation algorithms and systems for TEL
* Transfer of successful algorithms and systems from other application areas
* Evaluation criteria and methods for TEL recommender systems

IMPORTANT DATES

20 June 2010: Submissions
16 July 2010: Notifications
1 August 2010: Camera-ready of accepted papers
29-30 September 2010: RecSysTEL Workshop in Barcelona

DATATEL CHALLENGE

Published data sets in recommender systems, such as the MovieLens and EachMovie ones, are very often used in experimental testing of new recommendation algorithms. Very few data sets are publicly made available online for TEL applications. Thus, it is not possible yet for TEL recommender systems’ researchers to apply and benchmark their algorithms on existing, public data sets.

To this end, the DATATEL Theme Team of the European STELLAR Network of Excellence (http://www.stellarnet.eu) is sponsoring the DATATEL Challenge: a call for TEL Data Sets that invites research groups to submit existing data sets from TEL applications that can be used as input for TEL recommender systems (e.g. ratings, tags, bookmarks).

The winner of the DATATEL Challenge will receive a best TEL Data Set award as well as travel/subsistence support to attend the RecSysTEL Workshop.

SUBMISSIONS

The Workshop accepts a variety of submission types:
* Full papers: 12 pages
* Short papers: 6 pages
* System/service demos: 2 pages
* TEL Data sets: 2 pages and data set file (specs/format to be announced soon)

Papers should be original and not previously submitted to other venues.
Submission will be available through the EasyChair submission system:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=recsystel2010

If you haven’t an EasyChair account yet, you’ll be asked to create it before you can access the RecSysTEL’10 page.

PUBLICATION

Workshop proceedings will be published in a seperate volume by a publisher
that will be announced soon.

In addition, authors of best full papers will be invited to submit a revised version
of their manuscripts for a Special Issue in a prestigious international journal
such as the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies.

STEERING COMMITTEE
* Jesus G. Boticario, aDeNu – Spanish National University for Distance Education (Spain)
* Peter Brusilovksy, University of Pittsburgh (USA)
* Erik Duval, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
* Denis Gillet, Swiss Federal Institute of Lausanne (Switzerland)
* Stefanie Lindstaedt, Know-Center Graz (Austria)
* Peter Scott, Open University (UK)
* Fridolin Wild, Open University (UK)
* Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer FIT (Germany)
* Riina Vuorikari, European Schoolnet (Belgium)

CO-CHAIRS
* Nikos Manouselis, Greek Research & Technology Network (Greece)
* Hendrik Drachsler, Open Universiteit Nederlands (The Netherlands)
* Katrien Verbert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
* Olga C. Santos, aDeNu – Spanish National University for Distance Education (Spain)

ABOUT RecSys 2010 and EC-TEL 2010

The 4th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2010) is the premier annual event on research and applications of recommender technologies. It will promote a close interaction among practitioners and researchers, reaching a wider range of participants including those from Europe and Asia. See http://recsys.acm.org/2010/ for details.

The 5th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2010) brings together technological developments, learning models, and implementations of new and innovative approaches to training and education. The conference traditionally explores how the synergy of multiple disciplines can provide new, more effective and more especially more sustainable, technology-enhanced learning solutions to learning problems. See http://www.ectel2010.org for details.

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