INTROSPECTIVES 2024:
Reflections on Recommender Systems:
Past, Present, and Future

Workshop at ACM Recommender Systems 2024 in Bari, Italy

Objectives

With the RecSys conference now turning 18 years old, the recommender systems (RS) discipline ventures into “adulthood”. This workshop serves as a platform for introspection, examining the evolution of Recommender Systems from its origins in CHI to its current state heavily influenced by and focusing on machine learning. We aim to foster discussions on the past, present, and future of the RecSys discipline, inviting the community to reflect on key questions such as the maturation of RecSys, shifts in research focus, and the impact and success of RecSys in practice. Topics include the changing landscape of RecSys problems, the evolving role of RecSys in addressing choice overload to the current motivations driving RecSys adoption. The workshop encourages open dialogue and critical reflection, bringing forth introspective questions to collaboratively explore the past, present, and future of RecSys as it transitions into adulthood.

Call for Extended Abstracts

In 2024, the RecSys conference turns 18 years old, the age of majority in most parts of the world. As the conference, and the recommender systems (RS) discipline, ventures into adulthood, this workshop serves as a vehicle for reflecting on what we have done so far, and where we are heading to in the future.

As a research community, RecSys has its roots in human-computer interaction, machine learning, and e-commerce. Papers presented at the RecSys conference in recent years point towards an increased focus on machine learning-oriented research with a lesser focus on the topics from RecSys’ youth.

INTROSPECTIVES, a spiritual follow-up to the PERSPECTIVES workshop series, will be an in-person and interactive workshop in Bari. With the insights gained from PERSPECTIVES, and from being members of the RecSys community, we want to invite recommender systems researchers and practitioners to a forum for discussing the past, the present, and the future of the recommender systems discipline.

As INTROSPECTIVES is primarily a vehicle for discussion, we will not be publishing proceedings after the workshop. Thus, instead of papers, this is a call for questions and topics to be submitted as extended abstracts of maximum two pages in ACM’s double column format, and discussed at the workshop. A starting point, we present potential topics in the list below; however any questions and topics within the larger RecSys space are welcome. The abstracts will be made available on the workshop’s website.

  • How have recommender systems matured in the last 20 years?
  • How do current recommender systems problems differ from those from 20 years ago?
  • What impact have recommender systems, and recommender systems research had since their inception?
  • Why has recommender systems research and practice become successful (has it)?
  • What is the real new reason for having a recommender? Is it still choice overload as a starting point?

Submission Guidelines

We encourage submissions on topics including those above. No proceedings will be published. Extended abstracts will be made available on the workshop website. Authors are encouraged to post their abstracts on arXiv.org

Abstracts must be submitted through EasyChair and will go through selection and editorial review by the workshop organizers. Submissions should not be anonymized.

Format

Format Instructions for Word and LaTeX authors are given below:

  • Microsoft Word: Write your paper using ACM’s interim template. Follow the embedded instructions to apply the paragraph styles to your various text elements. The text is in double-column format and no additional formatting is required at this stage.
  • LaTeX: Please use the latest version of the Primary Article Template – LaTeX to create your submission.

Submissions should be sent through EasyChair page by August 30, AoE.

Make sure to select the “INTROSPECTIVES: Reflections on Recommender Systems Past, Present, and Future” track when creating a submission.

Important Dates

  • Extended abstract submission: August 30, 2024, AoE
  • Author notification: September 13, 2024
  • Workshop: October 18th, 2024, 09:00-12:30

Program

Politecnico di Bari, Aula Magna

09:00 Welcome
09:10 Keynote “People Who Liked This Also Liked … A Publication Analysis of Three Decades of Recommender Systems” by Barry Smyth (further information)
10:00 Pitch talk “Two Decades of Recommender Systems: From Foundational Models to State-of-the-Art Advancements (2004-2024)” by Bahareh Rahmatikargar, Pooya Moradian Zadeh, and Ziad Kobti (pdf)
10:15 Pitch talk “Adoption of Recommender Systems: Observations, Trends and Leveling the Playing Field” by Jaidev Shah and Miguel González-Fierro (pdf)
10:30 Coffee break
11:00 Panel with Peter Brusilovsky, Olivier Jeunen, and Sole Pera
11:45 General discussion
12:15 Overflow and closing

Organizers