International Workshop Towards User Modeling and Adaptive Systems for All (TUMAS-A 2009): Modeling and Evaluation of Accessible Intelligent Learning Systems. July 6 or 7, 2009, Brighton, UK, in conjunction with AIED 2009 Conference
Call for papers.
International Workshop Towards User Modeling and Adaptive Systems for
All (TUMAS-A 2009): Modeling and Evaluation of Accessible Intelligent
Learning Systems to be held in conjunction with the 14th International
Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2009), July
6th - 10th 2009, Thistle Hotel, Brighton (England).
Important Dates
- Half-page abstract submissions: April 9, 2009.
- Workshop paper submissions: April 16, 2009.
- Notification of paper acceptance to authors: May 12, 2009.
- Workshop camera-ready copy due: May 26, 2009.
- Workshop day: July 6 or 7 (to be confirmed), 2009.
Workshop Background
There is a growing interest in providing technology-mediated lifelong
learning services for ALL. Although an increasing number of the users
interested in these services are adult learners and people with
disabilities most available settings do not consider accessibility
requirements. The lifelong learning paradigm recognizes that, in a
knowledge based society, education and work are integrated throughout
people's lives. In this context, technology is expected to attend the
learning needs of the students in a personalized way. This paradigm,
of increasing importance in current knowledge-based societies, has
particularities that make not possible reusing existing solutions from
other fields. For instance, users (learners in this case) are moved by
objectives and thus more motivated in the activities performed.
Efficiency (learning efficiency) is critical, since usually people
require getting some skills of knowledge to be immediately applied.
Thus, it is a hot research issue how to build learning systems that
care which consider the functional diversity of users so that their
accessibility needs are met.
TUMAS-A is a series for workshops aimed to foster the research in
learning environments that provide a personalized, accessible and
ubiquitous support for their users (learners, facilitators,
professors, etc) using the appropriate technologies and standards.
Many fields can provide fruitful discussion to these research goals.
To take advantage of this multi-disciplinary need, the TUMAS-A
workshops are being organized in conjunction with relevant conferences
from different but related fields. In this way, the 1st TUMAS-A
workshop was organized in 2007 in conjunction with the User Modeling
conference. Relevant feedback was obtained regarding how users and
their interactions should be modeled. Last year, in the WI/IAT 2008
conference, the 2nd TUMAS-A workshop put the focus on the intelligent
technology that could be used to support that modeling. Both
conferences provided outcomes to establish the pillars for deploying
learning systems that care on the needs of all the users, in all the
contexts.
We consider that AIED is an appropriate audience for the 3rd edition
of the TUMAS-A workshop and can contribute to enrich aforementioned
issues with new insights on knowledge representation for learning
systems that care for any type of user, including their interaction
and accessibility needs, from their wide perspectives in intelligent
systems and cognitive science for educational computing applications.
All fields involved in the AIED community are of major relevance for
this workshop. Moreover, the benefit is mutual, since this 3rd edition
of the TUMAS-A workshop in AIED 2009 brings together the experience
from previous editions.
Workshop Topics
Most of the topics addressed by the AIED 2009 main conference are of
relevance for the TUMAS-A 2009 workshop. However, our objective is to
foster the AIED community to explicitly take into account all users
and all contexts when building learning systems that care, that is,
this workshop primary focuses on the accessibility aspects of
intelligent systems that adapt to the needs of the users, both from
the design and the evaluation point of view. In particular, we have
selected the most relevant topics from the AIED main conference to the
workshop goals and reformulated them to suit the objectives of TUMAS-A
2009 as follows:
- Modeling and Representation. To build learning systems that care for
all, the different elements of learning process have to be modeled
such as the actors (learners, facilitators, etc), the competence to
achieve and the tasks to carry out, the problem-solving processes, and
the learning contexts, including device interaction issues (e.g.,
those supporting mobile learning). In this modeling process, which can
consider diverse pedagogical alternatives and intelligent
technologies, the accessibility requirements are to be taking into
account, following the principles of the user-centered design.
- Learning Contexts and Domains. The workshop was originated from the
lifelong learning domain where open, ubiquitous, standard and
web-based environments can support all users both individually and in
groups taking into account their accessibility preferences.
- Intelligent Technologies. Many different technologies are of
application to build learning systems that care for all. In this
workshop, we focus on those that can support an inclusive, dynamic and
interoperable adaptation, such as data mining and machine learning,
knowledge representation and reasoning and semantic web technologies
and standards.
- Evaluation. Evaluation methodologies from the human-computer
interaction are of high importance when designing usable and
accessible systems and evaluating the impact of the learning systems
from the users perspective. The compilation of best practices and
experiences/lessons learned are crucial for the field.
Workshop Format
The workshop is organized as a half-day workshop that can accommodate
an initial round of short presentations from the participants, and a
highly interactive discussion following the Learning Cafe methodology.
This methodology has been successfully proven at the past editions of
TUMAS-A workshops.
Paper authors are asked to provide a short (e.g. 5-minute)
presentation where they highlight the open topics from those addressed
in the workshop from their experience and research. These key issues
will serve as the starting point for the Learning Cafe discussions.
Read more about the Learning Cafe Methodology at
http://adenu.ia.uned.es/workshops/wi-iat08/tumasa08/format.htm
.
Submission and Publication Instructions
Submissions of original on-going works and previously unpublished
research related to research challenges and initiatives in Artificial
Intelligence in Education domain to support the needs for all in the
Lifelong Learning paradigm are requested. See Workshop Topics section
at
http://adenu.ia.uned.es/workshops/wi-iat08/tumasa08/topics.htm
.
Different submission categories have been established:
- Full papers (up to 10 pages),
- Short papers (up to 5 pages),
- Posters (2-3 pages).
Moreover, it is recommended (but not mandatory) to submit a half-page
abstract with a tentative title and list of authors one week in
advance to the workshop submission deadline.
The formatting template should be the same as the template for the
main conference, please see at
http://www.aied2009.com/aied-submissions.html
for further information about this template.
Submissions should be done via EasyChair in PDF format. Details will
be provided on the workshop website.
Workshop Chairs
- Jesus G. Boticario (jgb@dia.uned.es) aDeNu Research Group - UNED, Spain,
- Olga C. Santos (ocsantos@dia.uned.es) aDeNu Research Group - UNED, Spain,
- Jorge Couchet (jorge.couchet@dia.uned.es) aDeNu Research Group - UNED, Spain,
- Ramon Fabregat (ramon@eia.udg.edu) Institute of Informatics and
Aplications (IIIA), Universitat de Girona, Spain,
- Silvia Baldiris (baldiris@eia.udg.edu) Institute of Informatics and
Aplications (IIIA), Universitat de Girona, Spain,
- German Moreno (gmoreno@eia.udg.edu) Institute of Informatics and
Aplications (IIIA), Universitat de Girona, Spain.
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