Submissions were assigned to 1 TC member and received at least 3 reviews. After the initial reviews were submitted, the designated TC facilitated discussion amongst reviewers in order to resolve differences and correct misunderstandings. The TC then provided a recommendation to the Program Chairs. The final decisions were based on these recommendations, the meta-reviews, and reviewer scores.
A total of 131 submissions were reviewed. Out of 80 regular paper submissions, 29 were accepted (36% acceptance rate); out of 51 short paper submissions, 11 were accepted (22% acceptance rate). This year, we did not invite regular papers to be published as short papers, but instead invited them to either be included in the main proceedings as extended abstracts, or be published in the adjunct proceedings Late Breaking Results track (LBR). Six of them were published in the LBR track, and a total of 27 extended abstracts are published in the main proceedings.
The program also features 3 demos, 3 theory, opinion and reflection papers and 14 late breaking results papers presented in UMAP poster session, which collectively showcase the wide spectrum of novel ideas and latest results in user modeling, adaptation and personalization.
We also invited three distinguished keynote speakers, each illustrating significant issues and prospective directions for the field.
Pearl Pu, School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL, describes in her talk the various challenges related to understanding, detecting, and visualizing emotions in large text datasets.
Jennifer Golbeck, University of Maryland, focuses on how to consider issues of privacy and consent when users cannot explicitly state their preferences, The Creepy Factor, and how to balance users concerns with the benefits personalized technology can offer.
Paul De Bra, Eindhoven University of Technology, discusses in his talk "After twenty-five years of user modeling and adaptation what makes us UMAP?" how the field evolved, insights into where the field is headed, and the hottest topics for exploration.
The conference includes a doctoral consortium that provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests under the guidance of distinguished scholars. This track received 15 submissions, of which seven were accepted as full papers and six as posters.
A set of 8 workshops rounded off the program:
EdRecSys: Educational Recommender Systems organized by Kurt Driessens (University of Maastricht, The Netherlands), Irena Koprinska (University of Sydney, Australia), Olga C. Santos (Spanish National University for Distance Education, Spain), Evgueni Smirnov (University of Maastricht, The Netherlands), Kalina Yacef (University of Sydney, Australia), Osmar Zaiane (University of Alberta, Canada)
EvalUMAP: Towards Comparative Evaluation in User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization organized by Owen Conlan, Liadh Kelly, Kevin Koidl, Seamus Lawless, Athanasios Staikopoulos (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
HAAPIE: Human Aspects in Adaptive and Personalized Interactive Environments organized by Panagiotis Germanakos (SAP SE, Germany), Styliani Kleanthous-Loizou (University of Cyprus, Cyprus), George Samaras (Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus), Vania Dimitrova (University of Leeds, UK), Ben Steichen (Santa Clara University, USA)
PALE: Personalization Approaches in Learning Environments organized by Milos Kravcik (RWTH Aachen University, Germany), Olga C. Santos (UNED,Spain), Jesus G. Boticario (UNED, Spain), Maria Bielikova (FIIT STUBA,Slovakia), Tomas Horvath (Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary)
PATCH: Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage organized by Liliana Ardissono (University of Torino, Italy), Cristina Gena (University of Torino, Italy), Tsvi Kuflik, (University of Haifa, Israel)
SOAP: Surprise, Opposition, and Obstruction in Adaptive and Personalized Systems organized by Peter Knees (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria), Kristina Andersen (Studio for Electro Instrumental Music, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Alan Said (Recorded Future, Gothenburg, Sweden), and Marko Tkalcic (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
THUM: Temporal and Holistic User Modeling organized by Cataldo Musto (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy), Amon Rapp (University of Torino, Italy), Federica Cena (University of Torino, Italy), Frank Hopfgartner (University of Glasgow), Judy Kay (University of Sidney, Australia), Giovanni Semeraro (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy) Veronika Bogina (University of Haifa, Israel), David Konopnicki (IBM Research, Haifa, Israel), Tsvi Kuflik (University of Haifa, Israel), Bamshad Mobasher (DePaul University, Chicago, USA)
WPPG: Fifty Shades of Personalization, Workshop on Personalization in Serious and Persuasive Games and Gameful Interactions organized by Elke Mattheiss (Austrian Institute of Technology), Marc Busch (Austrian Institute of Technology), Rita Orji (University of Waterloo, Canada), Gustavo F. Tondello (University of Waterloo, Canada), Andrzej Marczewski (Motivait, UK), Wolfgang Hochleitner (University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria), Michael Lankes (University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria), Manfred Tscheligi (University of Salzburg, Austria).
Finally, UMAP hosted two tutorials:
Semantics-Aware Techniques for Social Media Analysis, User Modeling, and Recommender Systems (half-day) by Pasquale Lops and Cataldo Musto(University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy)
Designing cross-space learning analytics and personalised support (half-day) by Roberto Martinez-Maldonado (University of Technology Sydney, Australia), Abelardo Pardo (University of Sydney, Australia) and Davinia Hernandez-Leo (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain).