Call for Papers
Data Mining for Understanding User Needs
A Special Issue of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
(ACM TOCHI)
Introduction
Over the past few decades, computer-based technology has become an indispensable tool
for business and communication and a platform for learning and entertainment
applications. As technology has developed, a range of applications has emerged, from
commerce systems such as those of on-line shopping, to social networking sites where
the focus is on capturing and sharing personal content with others around the world. As a
result of users’ interactions with these applications, a vast amount of data has been
generated. The data can be gathered over time (for example in multiple visits by a single
user) and can be of different types (such as personal information on age and gender, as
well as navigation and transactional data gained as a result of everyday use of the
application). Analyzing the data can help those responsible for the applications to
understand the needs of their users and to evaluate the effectiveness of user interaction.
In turn, this can be used to improve the interface and interaction design, determine more
suitable content, and develop useful services targeted at individual users.
To do so, the data analysis needs to discover relationships within the data by using
intelligent technologies, such as data and text mining. Data mining, also known as
knowledge discovery or sense making, is an interdisciplinary area that encompasses
techniques from a number of fields, including information technology, statistical
analyses, formal reasoning, and computational linguistics, to help analyze, understand or
visualize huge amounts of data. Applying data mining to understand user needs as part of
the application development and evaluation processes is a promising area of research that
may help to identify prescriptions for developing applications that better support the
needs of individual users. It is the main aim of this special issue to encourage this very
promising line of research.
Research Topics
The proposed special issue aims to gather state-of-the-art research at the interface of data
mining and human-computer interaction, with a focus on understanding user
requirements and goals or properties of individual users with data mining techniques.
Papers concerned with novel techniques and significant evaluation will be considered.
With respect to novel techniques, we anticipate that papers will focus on the development
of novel data mining algorithms for understanding the needs of individual users. With
respect to significant evaluation, papers will report important results from empirical
studies that investigate users’ needs and preferences through data mining techniques.
Papers that combine novel techniques and significant evaluation will be particularly
welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
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Classification of human factors on user needs;
Data driven understanding of users needs
Fuzzy clustering of user requirements;
Interactive and/or collaborative data mining
Mining of association rules for web logs;
Mining of customer requirements in e-commerce;
Mining of the needs of digital library users;
Mining of usage data in mobile devices;
Modeling of the evolution of user behavior;
Multi modal sense making
Sensing making for recommender systems
Sequential analysis of observed user actions;
Spatial and temporal discovery of user needs;
Visualization of users’ information seeking.
Submission Procedures
Researchers and practitioners are invited to send an abstract of between 200 to 250 words
to tochi.2007@gmail.com by June 30, 2007. Subsequently, full papers are due by
November 30, 2007 and must be sent to both tochi.2007@gmail.com and the ACM
online manuscript system at: http://acm.manuscriptcentral.com/. Further information,
including TOCHI's submission procedures and advice on formatting and preparing your
manuscript, can be found at: http://www.acm.org/tochi/. To discuss a possible
contribution, please contact the special issue editors at tochi.2007@gmail.com.
Review Process
Submission will be rigorously peer reviewed to the usual high standard of TOCHI. In
general, each submission will be reviewed by three researchers selected from a panel of
reviewers formed for the special issue. The panel will include experts in the areas of data
mining and human-computer interaction. We expect to notify authors of the outcome of
the first round of reviews within three months of the submission deadline.
Important Dates
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Deadline for expression of interest and abstracts submission: 1 month (June
30, 2007)
Feedback to authors: 1 month (July 31, 2007)
Deadline for authors to submit full papers: 4 months (November 30, 2007)
Deadline for reviewers to submit comments: 3 months (February 28, 2008)
Authors notification: 1 month (March 30, 2008)
Deadlines for submission of the final version of the papers: 3 months (June
30, 2008)
Review of the final version: 2 months (August 31, 2008)
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Notification of final acceptance: 1 month (September 30, 2008)
Guest Editors
Dr. Sherry Y. Chen
School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics
Brunel University
Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH, UK
Email: Sherry.Chen@brunel.ac.uk
Professor Rob Macredie
School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics
Brunel University
Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH, UK
Email: Rob.Macredie@brunel.ac.uk
Professor Xiaohui Liu
School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics
Brunel University
Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH, UK
Email: Xiaohui.Liu@brunel.ac.uk
Professor Alistair Sutcliffe (TOCHI Associate Editor)
School of Informatics
University of Manchester
Manchester M60 1QD, UK
Email: Alistair.G.Sutcliffe@manchester.ac.uk