CIKM WORKSHOP REPORTInternational ACM Workshop on Contextualized Attention Metadata:Collecting, Managing and Exploiting Rich Usage Information(CAMA 2006)
Martin Wolpers, Jehad Najjar, Erik Duval
Ariadne Foundation and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium{martin.wolpers, jehad.najjar,erik.duval}@cs.kuleuven.be1

Introduction

Providing flexible access to relevant information in an effective and efficient way remains achallenge. Approaches based on attention metadata present novel opportunities to deal with thischallenge. Attention metadata indicate what end users do with information objects. Applications suchas authoring tools, search tools, repositories, email applications, blogs and wikis can generateattention metadata. Collecting, managing, merging, analyzing and exchanging distributed attention
metadata enables advanced tools to exploit data about user experiences in heterogeneous contexts formore flexible user information interaction. For instance, users of one application can berecommended relevant material, based on their attention given to information that they haveinteracted with in other applications. More concretely, this approach could allow a user
recommendation service to take into account whether the end user is processing her email orauthoring a scientific paper while she is listening to the music.
CAMA 2006 was held in conjunction with the 15th ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge
Management (CIKM 2006) in Arlington, USA, on November 6-11, 2006. Contextualized attention
metadata is a cross-disciplinary research topic that combines diverse fields like databases,
information retrieval, knowledge representation, knowledge management, user modelling,
recommender systems, learning technologies, etc. The main objective of the workshop was to bring
together researchers, practitioners, and developers to discuss recent advances and identify futurechallenges.

2Topics of Interest

The main topics of the workshop included:• Attention Metadata collection frameworks• Management of large volumes of attention metadata• Real-Time stream based attention metadata processing• Methods and algorithms for analysis of attention metadata• Log Analysis in databases and web applications• Information mining in attention metadata streams• Information extraction in attention metadata streams• Privacy and Security• Personal Information Management• Representation of attention metadata• Attention metadata services• Applications of attention metadata streams• Merging of attention metadata streams
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The workshop attracted 16 international researchers from various communities, ranging fromdatabase and information retrieval to knowledge management and eLearning. The workshop was held
in an highly interactive format with continuous discussions in between and during presentations.
Participants found the workshop very productive and successful. More details about the workshop
can be found online at http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/cama2006/.
The workshop program consisted of six paper presentations and two keynote speakers. The three
short and three long papers were organized in two tracks dealing with the two main issues of attention
metadata, namely capture and usage of metadata focussed on attention.
In order to have a highly interactive environment for the full day workshop, we started the firstsession by asking the workshop participants to contribute their thoughts. They were asked to state
their definition of attention metadata and how they envision using it in their contexts? The summaryof their answers yields a number of definitions of attention metadata:
Attention metadata describes the behaviour with which users deal with information. It can becollected by observing the user’s activities. It possibly allows deriving conclusions on the user’s
interests and goals by relating activity to content. Furthermore, by relating attention metadata ofseveral users, behavioural patterns might be observed.
Steve Gillmor, our first keynote speaker, elaborated on current developments with GestureBank(http://www.gesturebank.com/), a non-profit organization that aims to open the usage of attention
metadata to a wider public, by providing a solution for secure and reliable storage of private attention
metadata. Currently, attention metadata in GestureBank is captured with the AttentionTrust(http://attentiontrust.org/) recorder. Enabling the user to stay in control of her data is their mainconcern.
David Wiley (Utah State University), our second keynote speaker, discussed how attention metadata
can support web-based reading in working groups. The approach is based on observing how groupmembers read web content. The observations are used to suggest further reading by providing
personalized RSS feeds that include the suggestions.

3Paper Presentations

The first session of the workshop dealt with the use of contextualized attention metadata. The
applications ranged from usage metrics to ranking and decision making.
Joe Pagano (Library of Congress, USA) presented Benefits and challenges of developing a publicsector metrics program using commercial tools. The paper discusses how the Library of Congressdeveloped a metrics program using commercially available tools. Individual commercial tools for(web) metrics analysis are discussed in relation to their usability in the Library of Congress. The
focus lies on organizational and technical issues, e.g. the integration and relation of data fromdifferent tools that use different data formats and implementation challenges in different information
system environments.
Xavier Ochoa (Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Ecuador) discussed the Use ofContextualized Attention Metadata for Ranking and Recommending Learning Objects. The paper
proposes and details the use of Contextual Attention Metadata, gathered from different tools used inthe lifecycle of a Learning Object, to create ranking and recommending metrics. Four types ofmetrics are detailed: Link Analysis Ranking, Similarity Recommendation, Personalized Ranking andACM SIGIR Forum93

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Contextual Recommendation. While designed for Learning Objects, the authors show that thesemetrics could also be applied to rank and recommend other types of reusable components like
software libraries.
David Archer (Portland State University, USA) discussed Capturing and ReUsing Human attention
in Corporate Decision Making. This context involves gathering, organizing, conflict-solving andusing fine-grained information from diverse sources and formats to evaluate scenarios and choose
courses of action. Though the pertinent information is readily available it is typically not integrated
and ready for use. Tools for organizing this information are scarce, in part because the desired
structure is often not pre-defined or available in an existing ontology. The authors introduce a
construct called a manifestation, along with the notion of collections of manifestations, to support
decision making based on the requirements and constraints of a corporate decision making
environment while focussing on the entity in question.
The second session focussed on the capturing contextualized attention metadata from various
perspectives.
Dimitrii Zagorodnov (University of Tromso, Norway) presented WAIFR: Web browsing attention
recorder based on a state-transition model. This paper presents a model for a software component
that monitors user interaction with a computer system and distributes summaries of that interaction toremote repositories. The model is illustrated with a prototype, implemented as a Web browser
extension, for recording temporal aspects of Web browsing, such as time spent reading a page or
keeping it open. To give the user control over privacy exposure and network resource usage that are
inherent in remote monitoring, the design allows the user to specify how detailed the summaries are
and whom they are sent to.
Bernhard Schandel (University of Vienna, Austria) presented The SemDAV Project: Metadata
Management for Unstructured Content. In this paper, the authors point out why the file system hassignificant drawbacks for efficient management of metadata. To overcome these issues, theirapproach extends the well-known WebDAV protocol enabling metadata to be retrieved, stored,managed and used in searching and browsing situations.
The last presentation was given by Stefania Costache (L3S Research Center, Germany) onApplication Independent Metadata Generation. The paper deals with the capture and use of attention
metadata to personalize the usage of information stored on the user’s desktop. To achieve this,contextual information across heterogeneous media types, file formats, and applications should beannotated and linked. The paper presents a light weight system which monitors the file structure andautomatically generates metadata based on user activities. The authors illustrate the utility ofextracted metadata by showing how it can be leveraged to enhance conventional full-text desktop
search.

4Discussion

The workshop was a successful event fostering discussions about the various issues involved inattention metadata. Participating researchers from various communities contributed their expertiseand research findings to advance the field of attention metadata further.
Lively discussions continued throughout the whole workshop, using the paper presentations as topic
feeds rather than separating papers from each other. All participants actively commented on thepresentations by reflecting on their own work and by relating to the other presentations.
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The discussion ranged from the issues of collecting attention metadata, contextualizing attention
metadata, privacy and security to possible uses of attention metadata. The participants agreed thattools are still missing to collect contextualized attention metadata from heterogeneous sources.
Nevertheless, research in the diverse communities already shows that the storage of such data is not
the real issue anymore. Instead, research focuses on the observation and exchange of contextualized
attention and how this data is then analyzed and used. RSS as the “transport medium” is a promising
way of sharing attention metadata, because the data provider can control content and access to it
through appropriate tools. All participants agreed that contextualized attention metadata enables user
profiles that capture the user’s behavioural patterns more precisely. Therefore, the participants expectthat patterns describing the user behaviour will be used for personalization. Furthermore, such user
profiles will be dynamic in the sense that they are able to incorporate new real-time observations
about the user.
Privacy and security issues require that the user stays in control of her data. Attention metadata
provided allows for a highly detailed and personal user profile. As such, this profile is of high value
to all sorts of interested parties, like for instance for advertisement purposes. In order to prevent theabuse of these personal data, technologies need to empower users to stay in control of their data.
Users need to be able to control which data they provide to whom and when. With GestureBank,
Steve Gillmor presented one solution that allows users to fully control their data while, at the sametime, enabling a non-profit business model that supports the possibly commercial interests ofattention metadata providers and parties interested in their data.

5Conclusion

The workshop enabled participants to get acquainted with and discuss attention metadata related
research approaches stemming from various communities. As a result, the participants conclude thatthe number of available sources for contextualized attention metadata is rapidly growing, spanningfrom the collection of simple web browsing-based attention and behaviour to mouse gestures andmonitoring work on the user’s desktop.
The participants identified the two following research issues where further work is necessary. The useof contextualized attention metadata has not yet been researched to its full extend. Very preliminary
work emerges that shows highly encouraging results. Commercial and industrial uptake is not yet
there. Emerging fields are for example advanced usage statistics, behavioural pattern mining andfinally advanced personalisation to meet the requests of the single user.
Furthermore, significant advances are necessary to ensure privacy and security.
We want to thank the organizers of the CIKM conference for their support. Special thanks go themembers of program committee, who did a great job on reviewing the submissions. Finally, we also
thank the authors and the participants for moving this research field forward.

6Future Workshops

CAMA2006 was the first initiative that brought together researchers interested in attention metadata
to discuss uses, challenges and future directions. Next year, we will organize CAMA2007 to continue
the fruitful discussions on contextualized attention metadata and its applications. The workshop was
supported by ACM CIKM organizers and the European Network of Excellence PROLEARN.

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