From: Kathleen McCoy [mccoy@cis.udel.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 3:23 PM To: A. Eliens Cc: 'UM 2007 PC Chairs' Subject: Re: [Fwd: Returned mail: see transcript for details]: Submission Number 61 to UM2007 Dear Anton, I am sorry that my email was unclear. I am afraid that we were not able to accept your paper, and the mail sent out by our conference system was blocked from entry to your mail box (I attempted to forward it with my earlier mail). I have appended the original mail below, which contains the reviews for your paper. Best wishes, Kathy McCoy > Dear Dr. Anton Eliens: > > We regret to inform you that your paper, titled > > Rate, Recommend, Regret -- an Expert-based Approach to > the Personalization of Guided Tours > > has not been accepted for presentation in the conference program. > > This year the selection process was very competitive with a large > number of high quality submissions. We were able to accept 30 full > papers and 34 posters out of 169 papers submitted (153 as full papers > and 16 as posters). > > Papers went through a rigorous reviewing process: each paper was > reviewed by at least three Program Committee members, who are > experts in the topics of the conference. We trust that the reviewers' > comments will help you to improve your paper for resubmission elsewhere. > For instance, we hope that you will consider resubmitting the paper to > one of the workshops taking place at the conference. The due date for > the workshops is February 7th and the workshops page can be found at: > http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/um2007/workshops.php > > We remind you that the conference will take place in Corfu, Greece, > 25-29 June, and we invite you to attend. > > Best regards, > > Cristina Conati > Kathy McCoy > UM2007 Program Chairs > > *** PAPER REVIEWS *** > > The reviews and comments are attached below. > > ====================================================================== > ====== > UM 2007 Reviews for Submission #61 > ============================================================================ > > Title: Rate, Recommend, Regret -- an Expert-based Approach to the > Personalization of Guided Tours > > Authors: Anton Eliens and Yiwen Wang > ============================================================================ > REVIEWER #1 > ====================================================================== > ====== > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Reviewer's Scores > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Overall Score Recommendation: Mild Accept > Suggested Presentation Type: Paper > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Comments > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > - User Modeling Contribution: What is the main contribution of this > paper to the field of User Modeling? > > The paper presents a model for the generation of adapted guided tours > in a cultural heritage domain. The model is based on an innovative > decision theory. > > - Significance: How important are the claims? Will the lessons learned > have an impact on research in User Modeling, or is it of minor > significance but still interesting? > > The approach is interesting, however it is not evaluated nor compared > to other approaches so it is unclear what is the advantage of this > respect to other work. > > - Clarity of Presentation: Does the paper clearly present what was > done? Is it well-written and well-structured? > > The paper is clearly written (although I could not follow all the > math) in general but lacks a concrete example that shows how this > approach works in practice. > > Instead of digressing on the use of an animated agent to visually > implement the guide, the authors should consider adding a step by step > example that shows how the interaction would evolve in one case respect to another. > > - Originality: How original is the approach? How exciting and > innovative is the research it describes? > > It sounds innovative to me. However comparison with other models or an > evaluation are both missing. > > - Correctness/Soundness: Are the reported claims and results correct > and valid? Is the approach sound? > > There is no evaluation of kind reported, nor a concrete example so it > is difficult to judge the real value of the work. > > - Comparison with Prior Work/References: Do the authors make clear > where this paper fits with respect to existing literature? Are > differences with existing work well motivated? Are the references > adequate and necessary? > > There is no actual reference to other methods for adapting cultural > heritage content to users. Although not too common, the idea of > cultural adaptation for online use is not new. The conferences Museums > on the Web and ICHIM both have published works on personalization, > e.g. Bowen and Filippini-Fantoni (2004) Personalization and the Web > from a Museum Perspective. I think this area is worth a search and a > read. > > - Other comments (use as many lines as you need): > > You have misspelled the name of one of the authors of your main book > of reference it is Cesa-Bianchi & Lugosi (not Lucosi) > > Another mispell: Abramovic work is "Terra della Dea Madre" (not "Terra > degli della Madre" - note the capital letters) > > ============================================================================ > REVIEWER #2 > ====================================================================== > ====== > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Reviewer's Scores > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Overall Score Recommendation: Mild Reject > Suggested Presentation Type: Poster > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Comments > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > - User Modeling Contribution: What is the main contribution of this > paper to the field of User Modeling? > > I am a bit unclear what the contribution of paper is. I suppose it is > the decision-theory-based recommendation technique, but this is not > explained in sufficient detail that I can really say it is a > contribution. > > - Significance: How important are the claims? Will the lessons learned > have an impact on research in User Modeling, or is it of minor > significance but still interesting? > > I think the idea of recommending sequences of items is important and > somewhat complex. The lessons learned are unclear as no evaluation is > included. > > - Clarity of Presentation: Does the paper clearly present what was > done? Is it well-written and well-structured? > > Many aspects of the paper are unclear. I found the use of lowercase > for minor headings quite distracting. > > - Originality: How original is the approach? How exciting and > innovative is the research it describes? > > I believe the "regret" based approach is novel, but it is not > described in sufficient detail to compare it to other schemes. > > - Correctness/Soundness: Are the reported claims and results correct > and valid? Is the approach sound? > > Insufficientlyu detailed to be sure. > > - Comparison with Prior Work/References: Do the authors make clear > where this paper fits with respect to existing literature? Are > differences with existing work well motivated? Are the references > adequate and necessary? > > The only references are to other work in cultural heritage > applications. The authors have missed a great opportunity to look at > work in recommending sequences in the domain of music playlists. There > is a substantial body of research along these lines. > > P. Avesani, P. Massa, M. Nori, and A. Susi. Collaborative radio > community. In Proceedings of Adaptive Hypenedia, Malaga, Spain, 2002. > Springer Verlag. > > Hayes, C., Cunningham, P. Smart Radio: Building Music Radio on the > Fly. Expert Systems 2000, Cambridge, UK, December 2000. > > - Other comments (use as many lines as you need): > > ============================================================================ > REVIEWER #3 > ====================================================================== > ====== > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Reviewer's Scores > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Overall Score Recommendation: Reject > Suggested Presentation Type: Paper > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Comments > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > - User Modeling Contribution: What is the main contribution of this > paper to the field of User Modeling? > > Authors presented a system to generate guided tours based on experts' > ratings and preferences which have been collected and stored in the > database. Unfortunately the presentation is so poor that it is hard to > see how these ratings and preferences were represented and used to > generate the recommendations. Even though the authors briefly > introduced concept graphs and decision theory, it is still not clear > to me how the methods work. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to me that > there have been any evaluations carried out to prove that the proposed > methods indeed work. Therefore, i don't see any significant > contributions of this work to the field of user modeling. > > - Significance: How important are the claims? Will the lessons learned > have an impact on research in User Modeling, or is it of minor > significance but still interesting? > > Not very significant. > > - Clarity of Presentation: Does the paper clearly present what was > done? Is it well-written and well-structured? > > As already mentioned, there is a lot of room to improve the > presentation of the ideas of your work. > > - Originality: How original is the approach? How exciting and > innovative is the research it describes? > > Recommendations based on experts' opinions have existed even in > offline situations (the editorial's picks, an expert's suggested > tours). I don't see major originality of the work. > > - Correctness/Soundness: Are the reported claims and results correct > and valid? Is the approach sound? > > I don't see any evidence which supports the soudness of the methods > and the claims. > > - Comparison with Prior Work/References: Do the authors make clear > where this paper fits with respect to existing literature? Are > differences with existing work well motivated? Are the references > adequate and necessary? > > No comparison with prior work was provided. > > - Other comments (use as many lines as you need): A. Eliens wrote: > Dear Kathy > > What exactly does that mean, that my submission was blocked? Did my > paper get reviewed, and if so what was the result? > > Best regards > > Anton Eliens > > -----Original Message----- > From: Kathleen McCoy [mailto:mccoy@cis.udel.edu] > Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 6:03 AM > To: eliens@cs.vu.nl > Cc: UM 2007 PC Chairs > Subject: [Fwd: Returned mail: see transcript for details]: Submission Number > 61 to UM2007 > > Dear Anton Eliens, > > The mail sent to you concerning your submission was blocked. I hope > this message gets through. > > Best wishes, > Kathy McCoy > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details > Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:59:37 -0800 > From: Mail Delivery Subsystem > To: > >