After Twenty-Five Years of User Modeling and Adaptation...What Makes us UMAP?
Paul M. De Bra · 2017
ACM UMAP 2017 is the 25th conference on User Modeling, on Adaptive Hypermedia, or on both together (since 2009). The research has actually been going on for more than 25 years as initially there was a conference only every two years. This keynote offers both reflection on the past and outlook into the future, with the burning question: What makes us UMAP? We perform research on modeling users (individuals as well as groups), not just for fun but to use these models for recommendations and for adaptation. That's not unique to us. In recommender systems analyzing user behavior is needed in order to give better and better recommendations, and likewise an area like educational data mining analyzes how learners study in order to best guide them to new learning material or followup courses. With analysis of social networks and website adaptation we step into the same research area that is covered by the hypertext community. If all of this is "us" but "not just us", where is our identity?