User interfaces that adapt themselves to available user information (such as special needs or individual preferences) are becoming increasingly important, so much so that adaptability has become a selling point for software products. A system with the ability to construct and consult a user model (an explicit representation of properties of a particular user or group of users) can adapt diverse aspects of its performance and enhance its effectiveness, usability and/or acceptance in a variety of situations (e.g., to reduce information overload, to improve the quality of information retrieval, filtering and annotation, and to generate useful information visualizations). Applications for user modeling range from electronic commerce and intelligent learning environments to health care and assistive technologies. Relevant platforms for user modeling include mobile and wearable systems and smart environments, as well as individual desktop systems, groupware, adaptive hypermedia, and other web-based systems.
The annual International Conferences on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP) are the premier forum at which academic and industrial researchers from all these fields gather to exchange their complementary insights on user modeling issues. UMAP is a merger of the long-running and successful International Conferences on User Modeling (UM, 1986-2007), and the more recent important series of Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems Conferences (AH, 2000-2008). This is funding to support travel for up to 5 students currently enrolled in PhD programs in U.S. institutions, to present their accepted papers and posters and/or to attend the Doctoral Consortium associated with the 22nd UMAP Conference (UMAP 2014), to be held in Aalborg, Denmark, on July 7-11. More information about the conference is available at www.um.org/umap2014/.
This year's UMAP will once again include a Doctoral Consortium session, thereby continuing the tradition established at UMAP 2009 and before that at both the UM and AH conferences. Lively and useful discussions have enabled students to receive suggestions about their ongoing research and allowed more experienced participants to hear some fresh ideas and view some of the new trends in the field. Students whose work has been selected for presentation at the Doctoral Consortium will be invited to write a paper that will be published in the UMAP 2014 conference proceedings. They will have 15 minutes to present their work (which may include a short demonstration if appropriate), to be followed by an additional 15 minutes for questions and discussion. During both the question/discussion period and in subsequent informal interactions, organizing committee members and other participants will provide constructive comments on each student's work and attempt to address aspects on which the student has requested advice.
Attending and presenting their work at UMAP, the top conference in its field, will have a significant impact on the careers of the future generation of user modeling, adaptation, and personalization researchers. Students who participate in the Doctoral Consortium will also benefit from that experience in several ways. First, they will have the opportunity to present their work to a knowledgeable audience and get useful comments at an early stage of their research when it will be most useful. Just as importantly, they will have an opportunity to meet established researchers and other graduate students doing similar work, to exchange ideas, and to make contacts that will be invaluable to them as they progress in their scientific careers. Interacting with the young researchers is also useful to more experienced investigators, by providing new perspectives. Thus, the Doctoral Consortium is a great confidence builder for the students involved, and highly stimulating to the established researchers who participate. Many past participants in the UMAP Doctoral Consortium have gone on to become well-regarded researchers and practitioners in the field. The organizers have reaffirmed the long-standing and demonstrated UMAP commitment to diversity; to this end, they will make special efforts to recruit participants who are women and members of under-represented groups, and they will ensure institutional diversity by supporting no more than one student from any given university.
