Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Recommendation Systems for Software Engineering (RSSE 2012) @ ICSE 2012


CALL FOR PAPERS

3rd International Workshop on Recommendation Systems for Software Engineering
RSSE 2012


Zurich, Switzerland, June 4, 2012
Co-located with ICSE 2012


twitter: @rsse


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IMPORTANT DATES
---------------
* Paper submission: February 17, 2012
* Paper notifications: March 19, 2012
* Camera-ready copy: March 29, 2012
---------------
CALL for PAPERS
---------------
Recommendation systems for software engineering are tools that help developers and managers to better cope with the huge amount of information faced in today's software projects. They provide developers with information to guide them in a number of activities (e.g., software navigation, debugging, refactoring), or to alert them of potential issues (e.g., conflicting changes, failure-inducing changes, duplicated functionality). Similarly, managers get only to see the information that is relevant to make a certain decision (e.g., bug distribution when allocating resources). Recommendation systems can draw from a wide variety of input data, and benefit from different types of analyses.
Although many recommendation systems have demonstrable usefulness and usability in software engineering, a number of questions remain to be discussed and investigated: What recommendations do developers, managers, and other stakeholders actually need? How can we evaluate recommendations? Are there fundamentally different kinds of recommenders? How can we integrate recommendations from different sources? How can we protect the privacy of developers? How can new recommendation systems leverage lessons from existing ones?
In this workshop, we will study advances in recommendation systems, with a special focus on evaluation, integration, and usability.
Specific areas of interests include, but are not limited to:
- Infrastructure of recommendation systems
- Application of techniques from artificial intelligence and information retrieval
- Mining software artifacts for recommendations
- Recommendation systems for software reuse
- Recommendation systems for teams and managers
- Recommendation systems for software quality
- Recommendation systems for requirements engineering
- Software navigation, debugging, refactoring, and collaboration
- Software analytics and recommendations
- Presentations of recommendations including usability issues and recommendation rationale
- Evaluation of recommendation systems
- Benchmarks for recommendation systems
- Ethical and social issues such as privacy, trust, and behavioral shaping
Our goals are (1) to bring together a diverse segment of the community, in terms of career stage, geography, and background; (2) to solidify a body of knowledge about RSSEs; and (3) to identify ways in which RSSE research can be applied to, and benefit from, other existing research efforts.
---------------------
FORMAT and GUIDELINES
---------------------
We invite two kinds of submissions:
Long position papers (up to 5 pages) that describe ongoing work, preliminary results, or formal demonstrations of tools. They will be reviewed for topicality, novelty, and potential to spark useful discussions in the workshopâ€"a subset of these will be selected for presentation during the workshop, the remaining accepted long position papers will be part of a poster session.
Short position papers (2 pages) that describe new ideas, recent experiences, or preliminary tool support. They will be reviewed for topicality and potential to grow into substantive research contributions. Accepted short position papers will be invited to a poster/informal demonstration session.
All papers must conform to the IEEE Computer Society Formatting Guidelines and must not exceed the page limits mentioned above, including figures and references. All submissions must be in English. Papers must be submitted electronically, in PDF format. The submission site is hosted by EasyChair and can be accessed from the workshop website.
All accepted papers will distributed to the workshop participants. Long and short position papers will be invited to be included in a workshop proceedings to be added to the ACM and the IEEE CS Digital Libraries.
It is the desire of the organizers that discussion of research at the workshop does not preclude publication of closely related material at conferences or journals. Authors of accepted papers will be able to choose whether to include their papers in the workshop proceedings.

-----------------------
CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION
-----------------------
Workshop Organizers:
- Walid Maalej, TU Muenchen, Germany
- Martin Robillard, McGill University, Canada
- Robert J. Walker, University of Calgary, Canada
- Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, USA

Program Committee:
- Giuliano Antoniol, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
- Andrew Begel, Microsoft Research, USA
- Jane Cleland-Huang, DePaul University, USA
- Alexander Felfernig TU Graz, Austria
- Harald Gall, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
- Sung Kim, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
- Andrian Marcus, Wayne State University, USA
- Mira Mezini, TU Darmstadt, Germany
- Emerson Murphy-Hill, North Carolina State University, USA
- Alex Orso, GeorgiaTech, USA
- Denys Poshyvanyk, The College of William & Mary, USA
- Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria, Canada
- Jianjun Zhao, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
- Suresh Thummalapenta, IBM Research, India
- Dongmei Zhang, Microsoft Corp., China
- Andreas Zeller, Saarland University, Germany

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

AMCIS 2012 Mini-Track: Diffusion of IS Innovations in Social Networks

AMCIS 2012

Minitrack: Diffusion of IS Innovations in Social Networks
Track: Adoption and Diffusion of Information Technology (SIGADIT)
August 9-12, 2012, Seattle, Washington

CALL FOR PAPERS
The diffusion of information systems (IS) innovations can be visualized as a process of communication by which members of a social system may become aware of IS innovations over time. The social system may comprise individuals or organizations, deal with formal or informal connections, exist for hedonic or instrumental purposes, structured as aristocratic or egalitarian networks, and based on strong or weak ties among members. Communication mechanisms and patterns within such social systems can vary considerably and can significantly affect the diffusion process over time. We solicit theoretical expositions and empirical investigations that deal with the diffusion of IS innovations.

Topics relevant for this mini-track include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Types of communication channels for diffusion of IS innovations
- Relationship between network characteristics (e.g., network centrality) and diffusion
- Speed of diffusion of IS innovations within networks
- Effects of organizational (or network level) mechanisms on diffusion
- Political moves underlying diffusion of IS innovations
- Positive and negative communication regarding IS innovations and diffusion
- Patterns of diffusion (e.g., S-shaped curve) within social networks
- Modeling diffusion within social networks

DATES
First week of January, 2012: Manuscript Central will start accepting paper submissions
March 1, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): Deadline for paper submissions
April 2, 2012: Authors notified of acceptance decisions
April 20, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): Camera ready copy due for accepted papers

SUBMISSIONS:
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2012

Mini-track Chair:
Anand Jeyaraj, Wright State University

Deadline Extension: 2nd Workshop on Context-awareness in Retrieval and Recommendation (CaRR2012)

CALL FOR PAPERS

2nd WORKSHOP ON CONTEXT-AWARENESS IN RETRIEVAL AND RECOMMENDATION (CARR 2012) in conjunction with IUI 2012

February 14, 2012 - Lisbon, Portugal

General Information:
--------------------
Following the successful 2011 Workshop on Context-awareness in Retrieval and Recommendation we are delighted to invite you to the second installment which will be held in conjunction with the 2012 Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces.

Context-aware information is widely available in various ways such as interaction patterns, location, devices, annotations, query suggestions and user profiles and is becoming more and more important for enhancing retrieval performance and recommendation results. At the moment, the main issue to cope with is not only recommending or retrieving the most relevant items and content, but defining them ad-hoc. Further relevant issues are personalizing and adapting the information and the way it is displayed to the user’s current situation (device, location) and interests.

In this workshop we focus on the integration of context for retrieval and recommendation. We recognize a general content context and a user-centric content context. A general content context is a common case defined by time, weather, location and many similar other aspects. A user-centric content context is given by the content of user profiles such as language, interests, devices used for interaction, etc.

Important Dates:
--------------------------
* Paper submission [EXTENDED]: January 6th, 2012
* Notification: January 20th, 2012
* Camera-ready submission: January 27th, 2012
* Workshop: February 14th, 2012

Call for Papers:
----------------
The aim of the CaRR Workshop is to invite the community to a discussion in which we will try to find new creative ways to handle context-awareness. Furthermore, the workshop aims at improving the exchange of ideas between different communities involved in research concerning, among other HCI, machine learning, information retrieval and recommendation.
The workshop is especially intended for researchers working on multidisciplinary tasks who want to discuss problems and synergies.

The participants are encouraged to address the following questions:
* Which benefits come from context-aware retrieval and recommendation systems?
* How do user interfaces handle context?
* In what ways can context improve HCI?
* How can we combine general- and user-centric context-aware technologies?
* How should context affect the way information is presented?
* Which new means for collecting user feedback does UbiComp provide?
* What new type of items (beyond books, news and movies) are worth recommending by means of context-aware systems (e.g. places, friends, apps)?

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following aspects:
* Context-aware information retrieval
* Context-aware profiling, clustering and collaborative filtering
* Machine learning for context-aware information retrieval and ontology learning
* Ubiquitous and context-aware computing
* Use of context-aware technologies in UI/HCI
* Context-aware advertising
* Recommendations for mobile users
* Context-awareness in portable devices

Paper submissions and reviews will be handled electronically through the CaRR page in EasyChair (which will be made available at a later point in time).


Organizers and Committees:
--------------------------
General Chairs (info@carr-workshop.org):
* Ernesto William De Luca - TU-Berlin
* Matthias Böhmer - German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
* Alan Said - TU-Berlin
* Ed Chi - Google Inc.

Program Committee:
* Omar Alonso - Microsoft, USA
* Hideki Asoh - AISt, Japan
* Tim Hussein - University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
* Linas Baltrunas - Telefonica Research, Spain
* Toine Bogers - Royal School of Library Information Science, Denmark
* Li Chen - Hong Kong Baptist University, China
* Karen Church - Telefonica Research, Spain
* Marco Degemmis - University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy
* Ido Guy - IBM, Israel
* Brijnesh-Johannes Jain - TU-Berlin, Germany
* Dietmar Jannach - TU-Dortmund, Germany
* Alexandros Karatzoglou - Telefonica Research, Spain
* Carsten Kessler - University of Münster, Germany
* Alfred Kobsa, UC Irvine, USA
* Antonio Krüger - DFKI, Saarbrücken, Germany
* Michael Kruppa - DFKI, Berlin, Germany
* Martha Larson - TU-Delft, The Netherlands
* Ulf Leser - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
* Pasquale Lops - University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy
* Petteri Nurmi - HIIT, Finnland
* Till Plumbaum - TU-Berlin, Germany
* Francesco Ricci - Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
* Markus Schedl - Johannes Kepler University, Austria
* Armando Stellato - University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
* Domonkos Tikk - Gravity, Hungary
 

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

i-Know 2012 - 12th Int. Conf. on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies

Call for Papers


i-know 12
12th International Conference on Knowledge Management and
Knowledge Technologies, 
5 to 7 September 2012, Graz, Austria


Submission Deadline: April 02 2012


Focusing on the Synergies of Knowledge Computing Disciplines


i-KNOW is the premier conference series on Knowledge Management & Knowledge Technologies in Europe. Founded in 2001, it annually attracts over 500 international attendees. i-KNOW acts as an incubator for innovation by bringing together relevant disciplines and communities.
i-KNOW has developed into the crystallization point for different disciplines of knowledge computing, such as machine learning, semantic technologies, social networks, context-aware computing, etc. Renown researchers from all these knowledge computing disciplines meet to present and discuss their approaches and explore novel ways of integrating them. This multitude of approaches, all applied to the management of knowledge, accounts for the highly innovative atmosphere of i-KNOW. This is further strengthened by the I-SEMANTICS Conference which is being held concurrently for 6 years already.
For 12 years now, i-KNOW brings together researchers, practitioners, enterpreneurs, and technology developers in Knowledge Management & Knowledge Technologies to address the current challenges and advances in the field. With nearly 50% of participants comming from business or industry the i-KNOW
offers the unique setting for in-depth discussions between researchers and practitioners.
Like all major societal challenges, knowledge management touches diverse aspects of life and thus needs a multi-disciplinary approach for finding solutions. i-KNOW addresses this by including experts and researchers from Business Science and the Social Sciences. This interdisciplinary environment offers the opportunity to establish collaborations, strengthen links and cross-fertilize core disciplines.
The i-KNOW conference series has the tradition of bringing together Europe´s and US leading researchers with local practitioners involved in Knowledge and Innovation Management. Deliberately reaching out to the Americas, i-KNOW offers impulses and insights from additional research communites which otherwise would be left untapped.
i-KNOW 2012 will continue the successful tradition of the conference series and will specifically provide interactive and innovative formats to support the synergies of knowledge computing fields.

Important Dates
============
• Submission Deadline: April 02, 2012
• Notification of Acceptance: May 07, 2012
• Camery Ready Version: June 04, 2012
In addition to full and short papers, we also invite contributions for posters and demonstrations. Have a look at the Paper Submission page for more details.

Conference Topics
===============
From both research and innovative practice perspectives the following topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to:
Knowledge Management
• Theories, Concepts, and Models of Knowledge Management
• Relationship between Knowledge Management and Professional Learning
• Innovation Management and innovative Business Models
• Enterprise 2.0 and Corporate Web 2.0
• Computer-Mediated Communication, Working and Learning with Social Media
• Evaluation and Use Case Studies of Knowledge Management
• Knowledge Management in the Future Internet
• Viral Marketing
Knowledge Technologies
• Social Media, Social Web, and Social Network Analysis
• Web 2.0, Future Internet, and Web Science
• Semantic Technologies
• Linked (Open) Data
• Artificial Intelligence
• Rule-based Systems
• (Knowledge) Service Infrastructures and Web Services
• Cloud Computing
• Adaptive, context-aware systems
• Mobile computing approaches
• Trust & privacy approaches
Knowledge Context
• Capturing usage data and context data
• Sensor-based context capture
• Analyses of user context data: User modelling, both theoretical and technical contributions, User model maintenance, Statistical and machine-learning analyses
• Privacy and security, both technical and user-interaction issues
• Context-aware systems
• Context-aware recommender systems
• Context-based adaptive systems
• User-adaptive systems
• User Interaction with context-aware systems
• Applications, especially: TEL – User Context in Technology Enhanced Learning, PIM – User Context in Personal Information Management, CSCW – User Context in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
Knowledge Evolution
• Models/Theories/Concepts of Collaborative Knowledge Creation and Evolution, e.g. Coevolution Model, Collaborative knowledge construction and modeling, Knowledge Maturing
• Models of emergent social media properties, such as Models of social media users and their motivations and goals, Models of propagation and influence in twitter, blogs and social tagging systems, Models of expertise and trust in twitter, wikis, newsgroups, question and answering systems
• Tools and Methods that support collaborative knowledge creation/evolution of knowledge
• Empirical Studies on collaborative knowledge creation, sharing, communication etc. within organisations and communities of practice
• Ontology Evolution
• Information Quality
• Research Methodology: Social Science Research Methods, Inferential Statistics
Knowledge Discovery
• Information retrieval and search
• Multimedia and cross-modal retrieval
• Cross-language retrieval
• Knowledge discovery on unstructured and multimedia data
• Semantic-enhanced knowledge discovery
• Knowledge discovery in the Future Internet
• Information quality on the Web
• Information diffusion and reuse
• Knowledge relationship discovery and statistical relational learning
• Large Scale Knowledge Discovery
• Text mining and semantic enrichment
• Natural language processing
• Scalable machine learning methods
• Topic detection and tracking
• Data structures, frameworks, and models underlying knowledge discovery data mining

i-KNOW 2012 Special Tracks
======================
In addition to the topics listed above, this years conference offers the opportunity to contribute to two Special Tracks which target the topics of Visual Analytics and Science 2.0. Both Special Tracks will take place on the first conference day (September 5, 2012) and will each feature a whole day of scientific advances, in-depth analysis, and application of the topic in focus.
TAVA '12 – Special Track on Theory and Applications of Visual Analytics For the list of possible topics for the TAVA special track, please refer directly to the TAVA Call for Papers. Science 2.0 Special Track
For the list of possible topics for the Science 2.0 special track, please refer directly to the Science 2.0 Call for Papers.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Joint European Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning (JTEL Summer School 2012)


Joint European Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning 2012

Estoril, Portugal May 20 – 26, 2012

First Announcement

Deadline for applications: March 1st, 2012

We are pleased to announce the 8th Joint European Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning, to take place from Monday, May 21st to Friday May 25th, 2012. Pre-summer school activities are organized all day on Sunday, May 20th.

The summer school aims to encourage participants to adopt a critical stance in thinking about the role of technologies in providing opportunities for learners and the potential of these opportunities in terms of learning.

The summer school provides a learning environment where participants get opportunities to: develop their research skills; increase their knowledge base; collaborate with others in their own and complementary research areas; engage in debate; have access to experts in the field; and discuss their own work.  

The programme will include lectures from a broad range of domains which contribute to advancing the field of Technology Enhanced Learning. TEL research projects are encouraged to provide students with a perspective of the state-of-the-art research under study in their working groups. The programme will also include practical and methodological workshops and opportunities for doctoral candidates to develop their personal research. Students will have opportunities to present and discuss their doctoral work.

Applications should be submitted online before Thursday, March 1st, 2012. The online application form will be available from Friday, January 6th, 2012 at www.JTELSummerSchool.eu. (Domain will be active soon!)

Applicants will be required to submit:
 
- a CV outlining their educational background and work experience (maximum one page);

- a letter of motivation, explaining why they want to participate in the Summer School (maximum one page);

- a letter of support from their PhD advisor, which should include a statement of the level of support the institution is able to supply.
Applicants requiring financial support for participation should explicitly mention it in their motivation letter, briefly explaining their circumstances. It is expected that applicants working on research projects which are able to fund them will not apply for financial support. To ensure a high ratio between tutors and students the school will be limited to 60 PhD students.

In order to increase social contacts among the summer school participants, the programme includes several social events. A variety of sport activities will also be offered to the summer school participants. A cultural excursion is organised on the Sunday preceding the summer school.

Support

This year the JTEL Summer School will benefit from special funding from the STELLAR Network of Excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning and the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Venue Description

The Summer School will take place in Estoril, Portugal. Situated on the coast, half-hour by train from Lisbon, Estoril has a wonderful climate and a superb natural environment, known as the Portuguese Riviera. The richness of the heritage of Estoril Coast, reflects its Royal historic past. To walk around the region is to have the sensation of living in another time, to belong in another world.

The Estoril Coast also knows how to adapt itself to the present, incorporating its “glamour”, delicacy,  and royalty into a wide range of environments and activities. Surfers will find the best waves at Carcavelos Beach and Guincho Beach is very popular for wind and kite surfing.

Nowhere else in the world can such changes of scenery and such contrasting atmospheres be experienced in such a small area as the Estoril Coast. The region offers a concentration of different experiences.


Accommodation and social events

Accommodation and summer school facilities will be made available at Hotel Vila Galé Estoril, (http://www.vilagale.pt/pages/hoteis/?hotel=12 ) located right along Estoril Coast, two minutes away from the sea and overlooking the  charming Tamariz Beach.

PhD students are asked to share double rooms with other PhD students.


Cost of Summer School

The cost for PhD students is Euro 570 (including accommodation - 7 nights in double rooms, meals and excursions,).  JTEL has secured funding to provide funding for about 40 PhD student grants to cover summer school  accommodation, catering, and events. Please indicate if you are applying for a scholarship in your application.

Calendar

March 1st, 2012: Deadline for submitting applications to the Summer School

April 1st, 2012:  Notification of acceptance

May 1st, 2012: Pre-Summer School videoconferences begin
May  21, 2012:  Summer School begins




Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Table of Contents: IxD&A Journal - Challenges in Evaluating Educative Experiences of Flexible and Personal Learning Environments

IxD&A Journal (N. 11-12, 2011)

The special issue on:

"Challenges in Evaluating Educative Experiences of Flexible and Personal
Learning Environments"

is now on-line and papers are available for downloading.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
* IxD&A implements the Gold Open Access (OA) road to its contents *
===================================================================

Table of Contents
-----------------

Preface by Carlo Giovannella and Effie Lai-Chong Law

* Carlo Giovannella, Simone Carcone, Andrea Camusi
'What and how to monitor complex educative experiences. Toward the
definition of a general framework', pp. 7-23

* Marianna Obrist, Florian Förster, Daniela Wurhofer, Manfred Tscheligi,
Jörg Hofstätter
'Evaluating First Experiences with an Educational Computer Game: A
multi-Method Approach', pp. 26-36

* Nikolaos Marianos, Madalina Ungur, Nikos Manouselis
'Evaluating a Personal Learning Environment for Digital Storytelling', pp.
37-50

* Maria-Jesus Rodriguez-Triana, Alejandra Martinez-Mones, Juan-Ignacio
Asensio-Perez
'Monitoring Collaboration in Flexible and Personal Learning Environments',
pp. 51-63

* Francesco Di Cerbo, Gabriella Dodero, Laura Papaleo
'Experiencing Personal Learning Environments and Networks using a 3D Space
Metaphor', pp. 64-76

* Ines Giunta
'Heuristic Environments', pp. 77-82


Monday, December 19, 2011

JRPIT Special Collection on "Software Engineering for eLearning"

Special Collection on "Software Engineering for eLearning"

Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology (JRPIT)
(ISI WoK JCR Indexed Journal)



Important dates

* Submission deadline: December 31, 2011 (FIRM! - this submission deadline  will not be extended!)
* Completion of first round of reviews: February 15, 2012
* Minor / Major revision due (first round): April 1, 2012
* Completion of second round of reviews: May 15, 2012
* Final decision notification: June 1, 2012
* Camera-ready submission of the accepted papers: June 30, 2012

Special collection description

In the last decade, eLearning systems have become a standard tool in training both in academia (universities, schools, ...) and in the business (employee training programs, lifelong learning...) This situation has generated
an increasing demand for services and functionalities resulting in highly complex systems from a technological point of view and from the point of view of design and development. It makes it necessary to extend and adapt the general methods of software engineering for this particular field in order to design, implement and maintain these applications. In this sense, it has set a new discipline with specialized methods and distinctive characteristics: e-Learning Engineering. Therefore, the purpose of the special issue is to bring together, in a single publication, results regarding all the aspects concerning this emerging discipline of e-learning engineering, which deals with the successful and systematic conception, design, development, deployment, maintenance and exploitation of e-Learning systems. Thus, this special collection will deal with the different aspects of software development, but particularized to the field of e-learning. Major topics addressed by the collection include but are not limited to:

* Software Requirements Engineering in e-learning
* Software architectures, modeling, specification, design and development of eLearning systems
* Software technologies used in the development of complex eLearning systems
* Management of multidisciplinary / interdisciplinary teams of educators, domain experts and developers in the production and maintenance of  e-learning systems, applications and contents
* Testing, verification and validation of software in eLearning
* Quality Assurance of eLearning systems; Empirical Methods in Software Engineering in the domain of eLearning
* Evaluation of the usability of applications, systems and eLearning platforms and user satisfaction (students, teachers, etc.)
* Model-driven Software Development in e-Learning
* Software Language Engineering and eLearning
* Practical experiences and lessons learned

Submission instructions

Manuscripts, which should be prepared following the JRPIT guidelines (http://www.acs.org.au/jrpit/JRPITAuthors.html ), must be equivalent to ten to
sixteen printed pages (3500 to 6000 words). The articles will be peer reviewed by at least two external experts. Interested authors should e-mail an electronic copy of their manuscript to
jrpit@ballarat.edu.au (CC to jlsierra@fdi.ucm.es and asarasa@fdi.ucm.es) by
the submission deadline. Please, include " JRPIT: Submission for the Special Collection on 'Software Engineering for eLearning' " in the subject of your e-mail. For more information about the special collection, contact the  guest editors:

* Jose-Luis Sierra-Rodriguez (jlsierra@fdi.ucm.es)
* Antonio Sarasa-Cabezuelo (asarasa@fdi.ucm.es)


Other relevant TEL calls
IEEE ICALT 2012
6th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL-2012)
Educational Data Mining Conference EDM2012
GamesDays & Edutainment 2012
Linked Learning (LiLe 2012) - WWWW 2012 Workshop
Interactive Learning Environments Special Issue on LMS - Evolving from Silos to Structures
J.UCS Special Issue: Technology for learning across physical and virtual spaces
IRRODL Special Issue on Technology Enhanced Information Retrieval and Processing for Online Learning


IRRODL Special Issue on Technology Enhanced Information Retrieval and Processing for Online Learning

Special Issue on Technology Enhanced Information Retrieval and Processing

for Online Learning
in
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (SSCI
Journal)


Online learning has been developed for over decades and has become an important tool for education. Many tutors design web-based teaching materials and share them in the learning management systems.
Learners develop knowledge from those materials, tutor supports, and the collaborations with other learners in distance in the online learning environment and platforms. While information technology changes rapidly
and the variety of online learning activities increase, especially with the aid of social network and Web 2.0 tools that are available to instruction designers, we may need to consider how to provide learners personalized pedagogical service which can help them learn more efficiently. In order to have such personalized service, both course contents and learner's characteristics need to be well analyzed.
How to retrieve useful information from learning materials, data stored in the learning management systems, and discussions and interactions among learners and how to design and use information retrieval technologies to improve learner's online learning performance become interesting and important topics.
The purpose of this special issue is to explore how models, theories, and solutions of information retrieval and content analysis can be used in online learning and what benefits users can receive from such systems and agents.

Guest Editors (in alphabet order):
Dr. Maiga Chang, Dr. Rita Kuo, Dr. Gene Loeb, Dr. Bolanle Olaniran

Suggested topics: We cordially invite authors to submit high quality manuscripts for any application domain as long as the core of  the manuscript belongs one or more of the following:
- Affect sensing from text
- Credibility and reliability of data
- Culture in information retrieving
- Data archiving and retrieval
- Data/Text mining in a learning content
- Evaluation models for NLP/IR/IE/Ontology-based research and systems
- Human computer interaction issues and challenges that NLP/IR/IE/Ontology-based solutions for online distance learning
- Individual knowledge acquisition from user behavior analysis
- Information retrieval and extraction algorithms
- Information retrieving and processing computing tools, systems and applications for online learning
- Intelligent tutoring agents/systems based on NLP, Information Retrieval (IR), Information Extraction (IE), and Ontology
- Knowledge navigation in learning content
- Knowledge construction
- Learning content analysis by semantic web technology
- Leaning content organization and knowledge management
- Learning style and learning preferences in data retrieval
- Mobile dissemination and retrieval
- Multi-agent based information processing systems and applications
- Not-so-successful cases and the lessons learnt
- Ontology learning
- Practical experiences in using & deploying NLP/IR/IE/Ontology-based research for online learning
- Questioning and Answering applications and systems
- Social Network Analysis based of content and of activities occurring in Web 2.0 applications
- Social networks and interactions in learning communities
- Successful cases of applying NLP/IR/IE/Ontology-based research to online learning
- Web 2.0, 3.0, X.0

Important dates and manuscript guidelines:
All submissions have to follow International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) research article guidelines (and should be submitted online by April 30, 2012. All submissions will be reviewed by at least three peer reviewers, the final camera-ready manuscripts have to be revised by the author(s) according to reviewer comments before resubmitting by June 1, 2012. The important dates are:

- Submission deadline: April 30, 2012
- Review result notification: July 15, 2012
- Revised manuscript submission deadline: August 31, 2012
- Acceptance notification: September 30, 2012
- Final camera-ready manuscript submission deadline: October 31, 2012

IRRODL research article guidelines at:
http://www.irrodl.org/miscfiles/documents/IRRODL_Research_Article_Guidelines.pdf
Please submit your article to the IRRODL site at http://www.irrodl,org, after registering as an author and hopefully also offering to be a reviewer by clicking the reviewer category in the enrollment form
and noting your area of research expertise.
For queries, please contact Dr. Maiga Chang (maiga.chang@gmail.com)


Sunday, December 18, 2011

Limited time access to SNAM Journal


Social Network Analysis and Mining
Published by Springer
Free Access to this journal for a limited time!
View this journal for free on SpringerLink now through December 31, 2011
http://www.springerlink.com/content/122064/?Content+Status=Accepted

Editor-in-Chief:
Reda Alhajj
University of Calgary, CANADA

Volume 1 / Number 1 / January 2011: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1869-5450/1/1/
Volume 1 / Number 2 / April 2011: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1869-5450/1/2/
Volume 1 / Number 3 / July 2011: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1869-5450/1/3/
Volume 1 / Number 3 / Nov. 2011: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1869-5450/1/4/

You are invited to consider "Social Network Analysis and Mining" Journal, (SNAM) as the main outlet for your high quality research papers. The SNAM journal provides a rapid forum for the dissemination of original research articles in all areas of social networks analysis and mining as interdisciplinary research platform.
Manuscripts should be submitted to the journal online at
http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/journal/13278
The rapid increase in the interest in social networks has motivated the need for a more specialized venue with wider spectrum capable of meeting the needs and expectations of a variety of researchers and readers. Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM) is a multidisciplinary journal to serve both academia and industry as a main venue for a wide range of researchers and readers from social sciences, mathematical sciences, medical and biological sciences and computer science.
The SNAM journal is proud to have an outstanding group of editors who widely and rigorously cover the multidisciplinary score of the journal. They are known to be research leaders in the field of social networks analysis and mining. Further, the SNAM journal is characterized by providing thorough constructive reviews by experts in the field and by the reduced turn-around time which allows research results to be disseminated and shared on timely basis. The target of the editors is to complete the first round of the refereeing process within about 8 to 10 weeks of submission. Accepted papers go to the online first list and are immediately made available for access by the research community.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Special session - Evolutionary Computation in Social Network Analysis and Applications in 2012-WCCI



Call for Papers
Special session--- Evolutionary Computation in Social Network Analysis and Applications in 2012-WCCI:


Social networks have created a new communication culture and behavior for 21st century. With the highly developed electronic facilities (computer, iPod, smart phone etc) and mature virtual communication environment (facebook, twitter, forum, video conference, etc) in the recent decade, social networking has shown more and more significant impact to almost every aspect of human life, from the most common online shopping, social relations to the extreme terrorism and riots. The great importance of the social networks provides a great and can-not-miss opportunity to the Evolutionary Computation community. 

Social networking is complicated, evolving and dynamic. The traditional social network analysis based on static graph theory is far from enough to handle these challenges whereas evolution computation techniques show great promising. The existing research of evolutionary computation in social network analysis and mining includes analyzing commercial and e-commercial activities, social learning, financial exchange and stock forecasting, diffusion of novelty, belief networks, happiness and friendship evolving analysis etc. To promote the further research and applications of evolutionary computation in social network analysis, this special section will provide the a forum to bring together cutting edge research in applying the evolutionary computation to social network analysis and mining as well as related real applications. It will help develop novel approaches, discover new problems, share application experiences, and enhance the research efforts and awareness in this important area. 

Topics of interest include but are not limited to
Theories and Methods:
·        Knowledge discovery in social networks
·        Intelligent models and methods for social network analysis
·        Embedded/hybrid method for social network analysis
·        Adaptive social network learning
·        Dynamics and evolution patterns of social networks
·        Contextual social network analysis
·        Dynamics and evolution patterns of social networks
·        Contextual social network analysis
·        Social Behavior Modeling Analysis
·        Intelligent multi-agent systems for social networks

Applications:
·        Social network behavior monitoring and abnormal detection
·        Intelligent E-learning
·        Intelligent E-health care
·        Intelligent E-entertainment
·        Intelligent E-commerce
·        Intelligent E-education
·        Social network Junk identification and filter
·        Social information retrieval
·        Social network security
·        Terrorism detection through web-social network
·        Innovation/information/knowledge/technique diffusion in social network

Paper Submit ion

Please go to the following link:
Click the link to “Submission to IEEE-CEC 2012” which redirects you to the paper submission of conference of IEEE-CEC 2012.
Please select the Main research topic* as “Evolutionary Computation in Social Network Analysis and Applications before submission.

Important Date

Paper submission deadline
January 18, 2012
Paper acceptance notification date
Feb 20, 2012
Final paper submission deadline
April 2, 2012
Early registration
April 2, 2012
Conference Dates
June 10-15, 2012

Keywords

Social network analysis, Social web mining, hybrid learning method, knowledge discovery, information retrieval

Contact

Dr. Di Wang
EBTIC, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE;
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Dr. Xiao-Jun Zeng
School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Special session - Fuzzy Systems in Social Network Analysis and Applications in 2012-WCCI



                                                                                                                  
Call for Papers
 Special session---Fuzzy Systems in Social Network Analysis and Applications in 2012-WCCI:

Call for paper


Social networks have created a new communication culture and behavior for 21st century. With the highly developed electronic facilities (computer, iPod, smart phone etc) and mature virtual communication environment (facebook, twitter, forum, video conference, etc) in the recent decade, social networking has shown more and more significant impact to almost every aspect of human life, from the most common online shopping, social relations to the extreme terrorism and riots. The great importance of the social networks provides a great and can-not-miss opportunity to the Fuzzy System community.

Social networking is complicated and full of uncertainties. The traditional social network analysis based on static graph theory is far from enough to handle these challenges whereas fuzzy logic and fuzzy systems show great promising to solve these uncertainties. The existing research of in social network analysis and mining includes analyzing commercial and e-commercial activities, social learning, financial exchange and stock forecasting, diffusion of novelty, belief networks, happiness and friendship evolving analysis etc. To promote the further research and applications of fuzzy system in social network analysis, this special section will provide the a forum to bring together cutting edge research in applying the fuzzy system to social network analysis and mining as well as related real applications. It will help develop novel approaches, discover new problems, share application experiences, and enhance the research efforts and awareness in this important area.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to
Theories and Methods:
·        Knowledge discovery in social networks
·        Intelligent models and methods for social network analysis
·        Embedded/hybrid method for social network analysis
·        Adaptive social network learning
·        Dynamics and evolution patterns of social networks
·        Contextual social network analysis
·        Dynamics and evolution patterns of social networks
·        Contextual social network analysis
·        Social Behavior Modeling Analysis
·        Intelligent multi-agent systems for social networks

Applications:
·        Social network behavior monitoring and abnormal detection
·        Intelligent E-learning
·        Intelligent E-health care
·        Intelligent E-entertainment
·        Intelligent E-commerce
·        Intelligent E-education
·        Social network Junk identification and filter
·        Social information retrieval
·        Social network security
·        Terrorism detection through web-social network
·        Innovation/information/knowledge/technique diffusion in social network

Paper Submission

Please go to the following link:
Click the link to “Submission to Fuzz-IEEE 2012” which redirects you to the paper submission of conference of Fuzz-IEEE.
Please select the Main research topic* as “Fuzzy Systems in Social Network Analysis and Applications before submission.

Important Date

Paper submission deadline
January 18, 2012
Paper acceptance notification date
Feb 20, 2012
Final paper submission deadline
April 2, 2012
Early registration
April 2, 2012
Conference Dates
June 10-15, 2012

Keywords

Social network analysis, Social web mining, hybrid learning method, knowledge discovery, information retrieval

Contact

Dr. Di Wang
EBTIC, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE;
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Dr. Xiao-Jun Zeng
School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK