User interfaces that adapt themselves to individual needs and preferences or available user information are becoming increasingly important, to the degree where adaptability has become a selling point for software products. A system with the ability to construct and consult user models can adapt diverse aspects of its performance to individual users or user groups, thus enhancing its effectiveness, usability, and/or acceptance in a wide variety of situations. Personalized interfaces are of special importance in dealing with information overload and navigation by personalizing and improving the quality of information retrieval and filtering, information restructuring and annotation, as well as information visualization.
User modeling has been found to enhance the effectiveness and usability of software systems in a variety of situations. A user model is an explicit representation of properties of a particular user, and a system that constructs and consults user models can adapt diverse aspects of its performance to individual users. 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) provide the premier forum in which academic and industrial researchers from all of these fields can 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 by approximately 8 graduate students to present their accepted papers and posters at and/or to present their research plans at the Doctoral Consortium associated with the 18th event in the UMAP series, to be held June 20-24, 2010, in Waikoloa, Hawaii. More information about the conference is available at www.hawaii.edu/UMAP2010.
UMAP-10 will include a Doctoral Consortium session, thereby continuing a tradition established at UMAP-09 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-10 adjunct 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. Both during the question/discussion period and during subsequent informal interactions, the 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.
Broader Impacts: 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. Lively discussions with young researchers are also useful to more experienced investigators, in that they provide new perspectives and fresh ideas. Thus, the Doctoral Consortium is a great confidence builder for the students involved, and highly stimulating to the established researchers who participate. The organizers have committed that the majority of funded students will be currently enrolled in Ph.D. programs in the United States. In selecting the students who will receive travel funds, the organizers will give preference to students who can reasonably prove that they would have difficulty participating in the conference due to financial constraints, and will also strive for diversity (gender, racial, ethnic, disabilities, institutional, etc.) among the selected students.
Bringing young and creative researchers to UMAP 2010 helped advance an important and socially valuable research field. For the supported graduate students, the cost of attending the UMAP 2010 conference exceeded their travel budget. Thus, NSF funding significantly impacted the careers of the next generation of User Modeling researchers, by enabling twenty-one of them to take part in an important event they would otherwise have missed. The students got the opportunity to gain wider exposure in the community for their innovative work and to obtain feedback and guidance from senior members of the research community. Participation also helped foster a sense of community among these young researchers, by allowing them to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers at a critical stage in their professional development. For example, at the UMAP 2010 Posters and Demos evening reception, even though attendees were undoubtedly tired after a full day of paper sessions that had started at 8 a.m., not to mention jet-lag, most of the attendees stayed for long periods to enjoy the camaraderie of their fellow researchers. Even after three full hours, more than a third of the attendees were still present and at the four-hour mark, a still sizeable crowd seemed unwilling to let go of a perfect evening even as the hotel staff was cleaning up. This grant was especially successful at supporting women students. Eight out of the 21 supported students were female. This 38% ratio is more than three times the 11.3% ratio of women Bachelor degrees granted in 2008-9 as reported in the latest CRA Taulbee survey. Continued student travel support from NSF and other sources is very important to the success of the UMAP Conference series. Many students save their best work for submission to UMAP because they know that if their paper
