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The Art of Crafting Recommendations

Seminar: Summer Semester 2022; Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg; Faculty of Engineering, Department of Computer Science

News

  • (Feb 18, 2022) Website created, dates confirmed

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Seminar Content

Personalization techniques and recommender systems have come of age and have become integral parts of our everyday life on the Web. They represent suitable means for decision support and are thus of utter practical relevance while – at the same time – being based on solid theoretical foundations in statistics and machine learning.

At the same time, while having those solid theoretical foundations, recommender systems also exhibit very practical aspects and thus represent a domain of research where theory and practice keep driving the frontier in tandem, making recommender systems research one of the most vividly investigated.

The seminar at hand aims to investigate the foundations and algorithmic clockworks of recommender systems, their limitations and applications to different domains, as well as their practical use.

Application Procedure

We kindly ask prospective participants to apply via the university’s online application system for participation in the indicated seminar. Please note that the number of participants is limited to 10 with no exception.

Administrative Stuff

The seminar is organized as an “en bloc seminar”, consisting of two sessions with mandatory participation.

  • Session I: The first session will be held on Monday, April 25, 2022, from 2pm s.t. to 6pm (via video conference). The aim of this first session is to provide all participants with basic knowledge about recommender systems and what will be asked of students in terms of presentation skills and the writing of a scientific report, present the topics to be elaborated in presentations, and assign topics to participants. Moreover, the first session will address the organization of the second session.
  • Session II & III: The second and third session will feature the oral presentations of all 7 participants and take place Monday, May 30, 6pm s.t. to 11pm, and Tuesday, May 31, 6pm s.t. to 11pm (via video conference).

Additional information:

  • ECTS: 4 cr. (equals 2 SWS)
  • Language: English/German

Prerequisites for Passing

Participation in all three sessions is absolutely mandatory. Also, the students need to submit certain deliverables that will be graded:

  • Written report; submission date will be announced in the first session (submit to cai.ziegler at hotmail dot de)
  • Oral presentation (English or German) of 30 mins; discussion and question 10 mins (presentations have to be in PPT)

The final grade is composed 60% oral presentation plus participation in discussions, and 40% written report.

Topics and References

Topics and references are contained in the document handed out in the first session. Note that the indicated paper references are only meant as starting point.

Students are highly encouraged to search for other suitable references.