Scheduling Support System for Academic Conferences
Based on Interpersonal Networks
Masahiro HAMASAKI, Hideaki TAKEDA, Ikki OHMUKAI, Ryutaro ICHISEThe Graduate University for Advanced Studies/National Isstitute of INformatics
hamasaki@grad.nii.ac.jp/2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo JAPANBackground

Approach

To activate discussion in academic conferences and promote communication
among participants, it is important for participants to find interesting presentations and to know what kinds of people participate and which participants
share similar concerns. However, it is hard for a user to learn such information from a large amount of information on presentation and participants.

System Outline
The system dynamically generates the following four types of HTML pages.
Each HTML page is linked mutually basedon the relationship stored in the databases
A user can browse the generated HTMLpages freely and even add a new relationship.

Users can make and sharepersonal schedules andfriend-list
my friend!
Oh, I foundfriend list..
Add him to myt's
Oh, tha sting paper!
an intere

Hum, he'll checkthese papers..

I mustadd
my schedu it tole..

HTML Pages
timetable

accesspaper

Users

Request to add Know-links & Check-links* Know-link: User add it to persons who she/he knows* Check-link: User add it to papers which she/he is interested inKey Features
Based on online timetable of conference
Users can make a personal schedule andan interpersonal network
Users can share private finromation withsimple access control based on interpersonal networks
The System recommends persons and papers to users using links which user added

checked papers

membersBBS

My Page (I-know List)

All papers have each
BBS. It can be used byonly members who added Check-link to the paper.

It's like a personal portal. Thereare own papers, hyper links ofsome services and know-links
list

comments

user's papers of this conf.
persons whom user knows
or is known byrecommended items

And the system recoomend items only formembers using links
added by members

Results of Know-link Networks
The system was used by 276 users. 160 users of them
added 1840 Check-links and 99 users of them added
840 Know-links.
There are two types of interpersonal networks. on thesystem. One is coauthor networks which is generated
from relations among joint authors.And the other isknow-links networks.
Know-links network has a tendency of small-world
network and function as a connector for coauthor networks

Papre
Recommendation

kec

No. of Recommended Items

Accessed recommended items

ck

Ch

120

175

60

0

using
Check-link

Che

using
Know-link

are recommended items

4 types of recommendation methods

Ave. of no. ofChecked-Links&0

using
Check-link

150
using Check-linkusing
Know-link

Person Recommendation30

ck

is user

Acepted recommended items

350

Paper Recommendation
eckCh

The result shows that:
Using check-links: find items which
many people are interested inUsing know-links: can find items whicha small community that including userand her/his friends are interested in locally

PersonRecommendation

Che

Results of Recommendation
There are 4 types of recommendation methods:
using Know-links or Check-links
recommend Papers or Persons to users

Know-links Network

Coauthor Network

owKn

added links: 2683
know-links: 840
check-links: 1843

recommended items

sessions include
checked papersowKnSystemstart: 2003/4/30
end: 2004/6/7
users: 276
who added know-links: 99
who added check-links: 149

The system recommends
papers and persons usinglinks which user addedCheckJSAI2004
date: 2003/5/30-6/4
place: Niigata, JAPANparticipants: 457
sessions: 35
papers: 256
authors: 514

Recommendation

It's a personal timetable ofconf. When a user add acheck-link to papers, it isupdated.

owWe applied this system to theacademic conference called
JSAI2003 (Japaneses domestic conf. for AI)

Oh, these areinteresting!

Personal ScheduleKnExperiments

RecommWhich paper will?
my friends checkckperson(author)n!!
endatio

who is there?

Which papers
is iteresting?

Che

updateDB

sessiontype of
What r is there?
papeUsing 'Check-links'

CGI

The system recommends papers
and persons to user using links
added by users

User wants to find interesting papers and persons

Using 'Know-links'

generate

We proposed the system which adopted a "person as content" strategy.
It means that persons are information sources; it treats persons as information nodes that are accessible to other users. These nodes are connected through interpersonal network based on their own relationships.

using Know-link

Paper Recommendation