http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/~katrien/arv

The workshop is part of the STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous, November 30 - December 3, 2009, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

SCOPE
The development and proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies has impacted the way users retrieve and use information and the way they interact with each other. Web-based communities, wikis, blogs and social networks are some of the applications that have emerged in recent years. An important feature of Web 2.0 applications is that they experience an exponential growth of both users and content, leading to potentially viral social networking, collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing opportunities. This is especially true for professional individuals and communities which rely on rapid distribution of novel, innovative knowledge and learning content.

With the explosion of available content and applications on the Web, recommender systems have become crucial to assist learners in finding relevant content as well as tools. There has been much research done in the area of recommender systems over the past decade. Most of this research focuses on recommending content to users and vice versa, through collaborative filtering, content-based approaches or a combination of both. The goal of this workshop is to explore recommendation for learning - with specific focus on recommendation based on contextual information of the learner. In this context, new challenges emerge for understanding and capturing the context of the learner and exploiting such contextual information for creating intelligent recommendations and combinations of Web 2.0 applications, content and semantic structures. Examples include personalized learning environments that recommend and combine content and functionalities from various web sources, adapted to the needs and context of the learner.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

- discovery and modelling of personal, social and contextual information to support the recommendation of resources and applications for learning
- examples of context-aware recommender systems to support learning
- context-aware data management and processing
- semi-automatic aggregation and sequencing of content/tools relevant to the learning context
- semi-automatic identification and evolution of semantic structures underlying the collaboration behaviour of the users
- semi-automatic identification of user profile data and their interconnectivity
- reputation and trust management
- online communities and social networking
- privacy preservation
- evaluation methodologies and metrics

SUBMISSIONS
Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research as papers (4-8 pages). Including demonstrations is explicitly encouraged. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by at least three members of the program committee for originality, significance, clarity, and quality.

Re-worked versions of accepted submissions will be published in the Journal of Universal Computer Science (JUCS).

All questions and submissions should be sent to: katrien.verbert@cs.kuleuven.be

WORKSHOP STRUCTURE
Based on workshop submissions, the organizers will identify key research challenges. The workshop program will be organized as a series of discussions around these challenges, introduced through presentations of accepted submissions and keynote presentation. The final session of the workshop will bring together the results of the discussions and chart a common understanding of the future of context-aware recommendation for learning.

ORGANIZERS
Katrien Verbert (K.U.Leuven, Belgium)
Erik Duval (K.U.Leuven, Belgium)
Stefanie Lindstaedt (KnowCenter, Austria)
Denis Gillet (EPFL, Switzerland)
Peter Scott (Open University, UK)

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission of extended abstract (500-1000 words) : August 31, 2009
Notification of acceptance of abstracts:  September 12, 2009
Submission of papers: October 15, 2009
Workshop: December 2-3, 2009

VENUE DETAILS
The workshop will be held at the Dorint Sporthotel Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

For information on traveling to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, please check the STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous website:
http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp3/rendez-vous/

Funding for lodging and food will be available for a number of participants.

THE ALPINE RENDEZ-VOUS
This 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous is the second event of a series. It is organized and funded by STELLAR, a new European network of excellence on learning technologies (http://www.stellarnet.eu/). It is not a conference, but a set of independent workshops held in the same hotel during the same week. Five workshops will be held on the Monday-Tuesday and four other workshops on the Wednesday-Thursday. On the Tuesday afternoon, all workshop participants are invited to join a common section, the Rendez-Vous, ending up with a social event.