About us
Publications
Home
Publications from 2020 and before are not direct results of the SFI MediaFutures, but are key results from our team members working on related topics in MediaFutures.
2016
Mehdi Elahi; Francesco Ricci; Neil Rubens
A survey of active learning in collaborative filtering recommender systems Journal Article
In: Computer Science Review, vol. 20, pp. 29-50, 2016, (Pre SFI).
Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: Active Learning, Cold Start, Collaborative filtering, New Start, New User, Preference Elicitation, Rating Elicitation, Recommender system, WP2: User Modeling Personalization and Engagement | Links:
@article{Elahi2016,
title = {A survey of active learning in collaborative filtering recommender systems},
author = {Mehdi Elahi and Francesco Ricci and Neil Rubens},
url = {https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1574013715300150?token=EA12A462FC07F42733F4F13375217A57D3FDC7F6047C133156CB1F4E4487DF24C5366547DF4530A25942F690233F2E30},
doi = {10.1016/j.cosrev.2016.05.002},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-06-02},
journal = {Computer Science Review},
volume = {20},
pages = {29-50},
abstract = {In collaborative filtering recommender systems user’s preferences are expressed as ratings for items, and each additional rating extends the knowledge of the system and affects the system’s recommendation accuracy. In general, the more ratings are elicited from the users, the more effective the recommendations are. However, the usefulness of each rating may vary significantly, i.e., different ratings may bring a different amount and type of information about the user’s tastes. Hence, specific techniques, which are defined as “active learning strategies”, can be used to selectively choose the items to be presented to the user for rating. In fact, an active learning strategy identifies and adopts criteria for obtaining data that better reflects users’ preferences and enables to generate better recommendations.
So far, a variety of active learning strategies have been proposed in the literature. In this article, we survey recent strategies by grouping them with respect to two distinct dimensions: personalization, i.e., whether the system selected items are different for different users or not, and, hybridization, i.e., whether active learning is guided by a single criterion (heuristic) or by multiple criteria. In addition, we present a comprehensive overview of the evaluation methods and metrics that have been employed by the research community in order to test active learning strategies for collaborative filtering. Finally, we compare the surveyed strategies and provide guidelines for their usage in recommender systems.},
note = {Pre SFI},
keywords = {Active Learning, Cold Start, Collaborative filtering, New Start, New User, Preference Elicitation, Rating Elicitation, Recommender system, WP2: User Modeling Personalization and Engagement},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
In collaborative filtering recommender systems user’s preferences are expressed as ratings for items, and each additional rating extends the knowledge of the system and affects the system’s recommendation accuracy. In general, the more ratings are elicited from the users, the more effective the recommendations are. However, the usefulness of each rating may vary significantly, i.e., different ratings may bring a different amount and type of information about the user’s tastes. Hence, specific techniques, which are defined as “active learning strategies”, can be used to selectively choose the items to be presented to the user for rating. In fact, an active learning strategy identifies and adopts criteria for obtaining data that better reflects users’ preferences and enables to generate better recommendations.
So far, a variety of active learning strategies have been proposed in the literature. In this article, we survey recent strategies by grouping them with respect to two distinct dimensions: personalization, i.e., whether the system selected items are different for different users or not, and, hybridization, i.e., whether active learning is guided by a single criterion (heuristic) or by multiple criteria. In addition, we present a comprehensive overview of the evaluation methods and metrics that have been employed by the research community in order to test active learning strategies for collaborative filtering. Finally, we compare the surveyed strategies and provide guidelines for their usage in recommender systems.
So far, a variety of active learning strategies have been proposed in the literature. In this article, we survey recent strategies by grouping them with respect to two distinct dimensions: personalization, i.e., whether the system selected items are different for different users or not, and, hybridization, i.e., whether active learning is guided by a single criterion (heuristic) or by multiple criteria. In addition, we present a comprehensive overview of the evaluation methods and metrics that have been employed by the research community in order to test active learning strategies for collaborative filtering. Finally, we compare the surveyed strategies and provide guidelines for their usage in recommender systems.
Ignacio Fernandez Tobias; Matthias Braunhofer; Mehdi Elahi; Francesco Ricci; Ivan Cantador
Alleviating the new user problem in collaborative filtering by exploiting personality information Journal Article
In: User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, vol. 26, no. 2-3, pp. 221-255, 2016, (Pre SFI).
Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: Active Learning, Cold-start, Collaborative filtering, Cross-domain, Recommender systems, User Personality, WP2: User Modeling Personalization and Engagement | Links:
@article{Tobias2016,
title = {Alleviating the new user problem in collaborative filtering by exploiting personality information},
author = {Ignacio Fernandez Tobias and Matthias Braunhofer and Mehdi Elahi and Francesco Ricci and Ivan Cantador},
url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285574429_Alleviating_the_New_User_Problem_in_Collaborative_Filtering_by_Exploiting_Personality_Information},
doi = {10.1007/s11257-016-9172-z},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-06-01},
journal = {User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction},
volume = {26},
number = {2-3},
pages = {221-255},
abstract = {The new user problem in recommender systems is still challenging, and there is not yet a unique solution that can be applied in any domain or situation. In this paper we analyze viable solutions to the new user problem in collaborative filtering (CF) that are based on the exploitation of user personality information: (a) personality-based CF, which directly improves the recommendation prediction model by incorporating user personality information, (b) personality-based active learning, which utilizes personality information for identifying additional useful preference data in the target recommendation domain to be elicited from the user, and (c) personality-based cross-domain recommendation, which exploits personality information to better use user preference data from auxiliary domains which can be used to compensate the lack of user preference data in the target domain. We benchmark the effectiveness of these methods on large datasets that span several domains, namely movies, music and books. Our results show that personality-aware methods achieve performance improvements that range from 6 to 94 % for users completely new to the system, while increasing the novelty of the recommended items by 3–40 % with respect to the non-personalized popularity baseline. We also discuss the limitations of our approach and the situations in which the proposed methods can be better applied, hence providing guidelines for researchers and practitioners in the field.},
note = {Pre SFI},
keywords = {Active Learning, Cold-start, Collaborative filtering, Cross-domain, Recommender systems, User Personality, WP2: User Modeling Personalization and Engagement},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
The new user problem in recommender systems is still challenging, and there is not yet a unique solution that can be applied in any domain or situation. In this paper we analyze viable solutions to the new user problem in collaborative filtering (CF) that are based on the exploitation of user personality information: (a) personality-based CF, which directly improves the recommendation prediction model by incorporating user personality information, (b) personality-based active learning, which utilizes personality information for identifying additional useful preference data in the target recommendation domain to be elicited from the user, and (c) personality-based cross-domain recommendation, which exploits personality information to better use user preference data from auxiliary domains which can be used to compensate the lack of user preference data in the target domain. We benchmark the effectiveness of these methods on large datasets that span several domains, namely movies, music and books. Our results show that personality-aware methods achieve performance improvements that range from 6 to 94 % for users completely new to the system, while increasing the novelty of the recommended items by 3–40 % with respect to the non-personalized popularity baseline. We also discuss the limitations of our approach and the situations in which the proposed methods can be better applied, hence providing guidelines for researchers and practitioners in the field.