We are pleased to invite you to participate in the premier annual event on research and applications of recommendation technologies, the Seventh ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2013). The previous conferences have been distinguished by a strong level of interaction between researchers and practitioners in the sharing of ideas, problems and solutions, and the 2013 conference will continue in this tradition. The fully-refereed proceedings will be published by the ACM and, like past RecSys proceedings, are expected to be widely read and cited.
We construe recommender systems broadly, including applications ranging from e-commerce to social networking, platforms from web to mobile and beyond, and a wide variety of technologies ranging from collaborative filtering to case-based reasoning. Topics of interest for RecSys 2013 include (but are not limited to):
Algorithm scalability
Case studies of real-world implementations
Computational advertising
Conversational recommender systems
Context-aware and multidimensional models
Evaluation metrics and studies
Explanations and evidence
Group recommenders
Impact studies
Innovative/New applications
Machine learning for recommendation
Novel paradigms
Personalization
Preference elicitation
Recommendation algorithms
Social recommenders
User interfaces
Security, privacy, trust, and reputation
Semantic web technologies for recommendation
Theoretical foundations
User modelling
User studies
As in previous years Best Paper and the Best Poster awards will be presented as part of the conference main social event.
Important Dates
Please submit an abstract on or before May 6, 2013. The final submissions are due on May 13. We will inform the authors about the results of the review process on July, 8, and the camera-ready versions are due on July 22. All deadlines refer to 23:59 in the UTC time zone.
Paper Format and Submission
All submissions and reviews will be handled electronically in PDF format. RecSys 2013 submissions should be prepared according to the standard ACM SIG proceedings format. Please use Easychair for uploading your submissions. The review process is single-blind, not double-blind (i.e. not anonymized). Thus, please include the author’s names.
There are two paper submission categories:
LONG PAPER submissions should report on substantial contributions of lasting value. The maximum length is 8 pages in the standard ACM SIG proceedings format. Each accepted long paper will be presented in a plenary session as part of the main conference program. We expect the review process to be highly selective: in 2011, the acceptance rate for full papers was 20%.
SHORT PAPER submissions typically discuss exciting new work that is not yet mature enough for a long paper. The maximum length is 4 pages in the standard ACM SIG proceedings format. Each accepted short paper will be presented in a poster session. The presentation may include a system demonstration.
Note: Please note that rejected long paper submissions will not be automatically considered as short papers.
Call for Tutorial Proposals
RecSys 2013 is pleased to invite proposals for tutorials to be held in conjunction with the conference. The goal of the tutorials is to provide the larger conference community an opportunity to learn about recommender system concepts and techniques and serve as a venue to share presenters’ expertise with the global community of recommender system researchers and practitioners.
Tutorials are 90 minute intensive instructional sessions focused on specific topics including, but not limited to:
Introductions to recommender systems or specific techniques
Methodologies for evaluating and measuring
Building and deploying recommender systems
Designing the user experience
Intersections of recommender systems with other domains
We actively encourage both researchers and industry practitioners to submit tutorial proposals.
Please submit tutorial proposals on or before May 20. We will inform the authors about the results of the review process on June, 24, and the camera-ready versions are due on July 29. All deadlines refer to 23:59 in the UTC time zone.
Proposal Format and Submission
The tutorial proposal should be a PDF document no more than 2 pages long, submitted by e-mail to and organized as follows:
1. Tutorial Title 2. Name, email address, and affiliation for tutorial instructor(s). Each listed instructor should present at the conference. 3. Detailed bulleted outline of the tutorial (this should take most of the proposal’s space) 4. Targeted audience, prerequisite knowledge 5. Importance of this topic for the RecSys community 6. History of prior tutorials from the instructor(s)
Call for Workshops
RecSys 2013 is pleased to invite proposals for workshops to be held in conjunction with the conference. The goal of the workshops is to provide additional venues for presenting research on topics of interest and an informal forum to discuss research questions and challenges.
We encourage proposals for a wide range of workshops, including but not limited to:
Working group meetings organized around a specific problem; such workshops may wish to ask participants to submit a short white paper or position statement.
One day mini-conferences on specialized topics; such workshops may have their own paper submission and review processes.
Mini-competitions or challenges around selected topics with individual or team participation.
We welcome proposals for half-day and full-day workshops.
We encourage you to contact us in advance with workshop ideas; we will work with prospective workshop organizers to help them design successful proposals. We actively encourage both researchers and industry practitioners to submit proposals.
Apr 15, 2013: Workshop proposals
May 06, 2013: Decisions announced
Jul 19, 2013: Workshop paper submission deadline
Jul 22, 2013: One pager camera-ready to ACM
Aug 16, 2013: Author notification
Aug 30, 2013: Camera-ready workshop papers
Oct 12-13, 2013: Workshops at RecSys
All deadlines refer to 23:59 in the UTC time zone.
Proposal Format and Submission
The workshop proposal should be a PDF document no more than 4 pages long, submitted by e-mail to and organized as follows:
1. Workshop title
2. Name, email address, and affiliation for workshop chair(s)
3. Requested duration (half day or full day), and maximum number of participants
4. Short description of workshop for use in advertising workshop to prospective participants. This description should include the topic, format, and details about what type of submission is requested from prospective attendees. It should not include the title and organizers (all of which will be inserted by the conference).
5. Description of workshop activities. Outline how the workshop will be organized and how the time will be spent. If the workshop is selective, also outline the process of selecting participants.
6. Description of plans for promoting the workshop (aside from the conference website and announcements, how will you let people know about this workshop).
7. Plans for disseminating the results of the workshop (if any).
8. History of prior workshops on this topic (if any).
Call for Demos
The RecSys 2013 demo session provides an exciting way for researchers and developers to present new recommender ideas, show off their work, and get valuable feedback from the recommender systems community. We invite demonstrations of developments in all aspects of recommender systems, including (but not limited to):
Interaction techniques (preference elicitation interfaces, recommendation presentation, explanations, and more)
Tools for development and analysis of recommender systems (design tools, evaluation systems, analytics tools)
Innovative applications of recommender systems
Recommender experiments (showing something new to RecSys attendees could be a valuable source of data on user interaction with your recommender concept)
RecSys demos provide innovators and researchers a unique opportunity to get feedback from the recommender systems community on their ideas. It can even be an chance to collect evaluation data; if you have a system in need of evaluation, why not take advantage of the conference attendees. We particularly welcome demonstrations that will include conference attendee participation (possibly encouraging participants to register before the conference date). Such demonstrations can be a valuable test bed for a wide variety of applications such as recommending social connections, group-based recommenders of restaurants, research papers to read, your next co-author or even your next co-founder. We hope the opportunity to engage the conference attendees will inspire creative and novel demonstrations.
RecSys has an excellent history of being well-attended by industry representatives — past conferences have had attendees and presenters from Ebay, Pandora, Twitter, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, Amazon and IBM. The blend of industry and academic attention provides an excellent environment to demonstrate and discuss your latest invention or idea. Taking advantage of this environment, the demo track is particularly useful for several groups:
Researchers wanting to allow attendees to interact with their work, not just see it presented, and possibly gather usage data for feedback.
Deployed recommender systems available to interact with.
Early stage start-ups looking to showcase their ideas and gain feedback and exposure.
RecSys 2013 Demo Chair
Rong Zheng, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
Important Dates
Please send your demos to on or before May 27. We will inform the authors about the results of the review process on June, 24, and the camera-ready versions are due on July 29. All deadlines refer to 23:59 in the UTC time zone.
Submissions
Demos should be submitted via e-mail to and must include:
1. A two page, camera-ready extended abstract describing the demonstrated technology for publication in the conference proceedings (proceedings are published by ACM; use the ACM SIG format used by the long & short papers to format your abstract). For formatting templates please see here. 2. A one-page summary of the demo system and the required setup and any additional user engagement envisioned such as pre-registration of attendees. If the system will feature an installable component (e.g. mobile app) or web site for users to use throughout or after the conference, please mention this; exact URLs and installation instructions can be provided as the conference approaches. The summary should also provide information about the presenter(s), including their relationship to the project. 3. A video of your system in action. (optional)
Demonstrations will be prominently featured during the 2013 RecSys conference. In addition to presenting during an interactive reception session, we will consider featuring demos during other parts of the conference as well, for example during breaks. Demo proposals may include such requests.
We look forward to a great demo session this year.
Call for Doctoral Symposium
The Recommender Systems 2013 Doctoral Symposium provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests under the guidance of a panel of distinguished research faculty. We invite students who feel they would benefit from this kind of feedback on their dissertation work to apply for this unique opportunity to share their work with students in a similar situation as well as senior researchers in the field. The strongest candidates will be those who have an idea and an area, and have made some progress, but who are not so far along that they can no longer make changes. Typically, this means they will have made their dissertation proposal, but still be about a year from completion. The feedback from attendees in previous years has been very positive and the Doctoral Symposium has been considered very useful by attendees in providing research guidance.
Submissions deadline is May 27. We will inform the applicants about the results of the review process on June, 24, and the camera-ready versions are due on July 29. All deadlines refer to 23:59 in the UTC time zone.
The symposium has the following objectives:
1. Provide a supportive setting for feedback on students’ current research and guidance on future research directions. 2. Offer each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from faculty and students outside their own institution. 3. Promote the development of a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research. 4. Contribute to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.
Several doctoral students and selected faculty mentors will be invited to participate. Student participants will have their extended abstracts (4 pages) published in the conference proceedings. They will also have the opportunity to present a poster of their work during the poster session at the main conference.
All participants are expected to attend the entire symposium, including a group dinner taking place before the conference (subject to availability of funding). Each student will present his or her work to the group with substantial time allowed for discussion and questions by participating faculty and other students.
Being accepted into the symposium is an honor, and involves a commitment to giving and receiving thoughtful commentary with an eye towards shaping the field and upcoming participants in the field.
Applying for the Doctoral Symposium
Submissions are invited from current graduate students pursuing a PhD project who would benefit from detailed workshop discussions of their doctoral research by a panel of established researchers. Funding for selected applicants may be available to offset some accommodation expenses — please check back here or email the chairs for updates.
Submission materials consist of:
1. An extended abstract (see below). 2. A curriculum vitae. 3. A one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation (see below).
Submit your contribution to . Your contribution should be named lastname_ds.pdf, where lastname is your family name. The file must be no larger than 5 Mbytes in size.
Extended Abstract
Prepare a four-page extended abstract of your thesis work in the ACM SIG Proceedings Format, including: title, author information, abstract, keywords, thesis research summary, and references. The extended abstract, if accepted for the Doctoral Symposium, will be published in the Conference Proceedings. The extended abstract will be evaluated with regard to:
1. Originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques. 2. Importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues and themes in recommender systems. 3. Rigor and validity of claims, argumentation, methodology, results, and interpretations. 4. Clarity and persuasiveness of expression.
Example abstracts accepted for the Recommender Systems’11 Doctorial Symposium can be found here.
Additional factors, such as position within the doctoral process and institutional representation, may be taken into account if the number of applicants is particularly large. Candidates who have a developed idea but who still have time to be influenced will receive the strongest consideration. This typically means that the candidate will have made a dissertation proposal but still be approximately a year away from completion. Participants in the symposium will be selected by the Doctoral Symposium Committee.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference (with the exception that the contributions will be made available to the symposium participants one week before the event). Submissions should contain no information or materials that are proprietary at publication time.
Doctoral Symposium Checklist
Well in advance of the deadline: 1. Create your submission materials: 1.1. Write an extended abstract according to the ACM SIG Proceedings Format. The abstract must print to no more than 4 pages. 1.2. Write a curriculum vitae. 1.3. Write a one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation. 2. Package all materials into a single PDF file. Name it according to the following convention: lastname_ds.pdf. Submit it to . 3. Test that your PDF prints correctly and that is it no larger than 5 Mbytes.