Mr. DLib: Recommendations-as-a-Service (RaaS) for Academia

Only few digital libraries and reference managers offer recommender systems, although such systems could assist users facing information overload. In this paper, we introduce Mr. DLib's recommendations-as-a-service, which allows third parties to easily integrate a recommender system into their products. We explain the recommender approaches implemented in Mr. DLib (content-based filtering among others), and present details on 57 million recommendations, which Mr. DLib delivered to its partner GESIS Sowiport. Finally, we outline our plans for future development, including integration into JabRef, establishing a living lab, and providing personalized recommendations.Comment: Accepted for publication at the JCDL conference 201

Recommender Systems for Digital Libraries: A review of concepts and concerns

The study hopefully has given an understanding of Recommender System (RS) concept and trends of IR systems especially in the domain of digital libraries. It unfolded the concept of RS through the review of literature and presented an outline of the concepts. Paper discussed the importance of recommender systems in the digital library domain. Study further explain the concept of different kind of RS applied to different digital library software systems. This paper shows how recommender systems functions in different library systems and how these recommender system helps to the users to find and retrieve data or information from different databases. The basic aim of this paper is to know the future aspects of recommender systems in digital library systems and the implications according to its need. This paper contains about conceptual base of the recommender systems, their approaches and their usability in different field of information gathering systems Abstract The study hopefully has given an understanding of Recommender System (RS) concept and trends of IR systems especially in the domain of digital libraries. It unfolded the concept of RS through the review of literature and presented an outline of the concepts. Paper discussed the importance of recommender systems in the digital library domain. Study further explain the concept of different kind of RS applied to different digital library software systems. This paper shows how recommender systems functions in different library systems and how these recommender system helps to the users to find and retrieve data or information from different databases. The basic aim of this paper is to know the future aspects of recommender systems in digital library systems and the implications according to its need. This paper contains about conceptual base of the recommender systems, their approaches and their usability in different field of information gathering systems

Supporting Serendipity through Interactive Recommender Systems in Higher Education

Serendipiteetin käsite viittaa onnekkaisiin sattumuksiin, jossa hyödyllistä tietoa tai muita arvokkaita asioita löydetään yllättäen. Suosittelujärjestelmien tutkimuksessa serendipiteetistä on tullut keskeinen kokemuksellinen tavoite. Ihmisen ja tietokoneen vuorovaikutuksen kannalta olennainen kysymys siitä, kuinka käyttöliittymäsuunnittelu suosittelujärjestelmissä voisi tukea serendipiteetin kokemusta, on kuitenkin saanut vain vähän huomiota. Tässä työssä tutkitaan, kuinka suosittelijajärjestelmän mahdollistamaa serendipiteetin kokemusta voidaan soveltaa tutkimusartikkelien suositteluihin korkeakouluopetuksen kontekstissa. Erityisesti työ tarkastelee suositusjärjestelmäsovellusten käyttöä kehittyvissä maissa, sillä suurin osa kehittyvissä maissa tehdyistä tutkimuksista on keskittynyt pelkästään järjestelmien toteutukseen. Tässä väitöskirjassa kuvataan suosittelujärjestelmien käyttöliittymien suunnittelua ja kehittämistä, tavoitteena ymmärtää paremmin serendipiteetin kokemuksen tukemista käyttöliittymäratkaisuilla. Tutkimalla näitä järjestelmiä kehittyvässä maassa (Pakistan), tämä väitöskirja asettaa suosittelujärjestelmien käytön vastakkain aikaisempien teollisuusmaissa tehtyjen tutkimusten kanssa, ja siten mahdollistaa suositusjärjestelmien soveltamiseen liittyvien kontekstuaalisten ja kulttuuristen haasteiden tarkastelua. Väitöskirja koostuu viidestä empiirisestä käyttäjätutkimuksesta ja kirjallisuuskatsausartikkelista, ja työ tarjoaa uusia käyttöliittymäideoita, avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoratkaisuja sekä empiirisiä analyyseja suositusjärjestelmiin liittyvistä käyttäjäkokemuksista pakistanilaisessa korkeakoulussa. Onnekkaita löytöjä tarkastellaan liittyen tutkimusartikkelien löytämiseen suositusjärjestelmän avulla. Väitöstyö kattaa sekä konstruktiivista että kokeellista tutkimusta. Väitöskirjan artikkelit esittelevät alkuperäistä tutkimusta, jossa kokeillaan erilaisia käyttöliittymämalleja, pohditaan sidosryhmien vaatimuksia, arvioidaan käyttäjien kokemuksia suositelluista artikkeleista ja esitellään tutkimusta suositusjärjestelmien tehtäväkuormitusanalyysistä.Serendipity is defined as the surprising discovery of useful information or other valuable things. In recommender systems research, serendipity has become an essential experiential goal. However, relevant to Human-Computer Interaction, the question of how the user interfaces of recommender systems could facilitate serendipity has received little attention. This work investigates how recommender system-facilitated serendipity can be applied to research article recommendation processes in the context of higher education. In particular, this work investigates the use of recommender system applications in developing countries as most studies in developing countries have focused solely on implementation, rather than user experiences. This dissertation describes the design and development of several user interfaces for recommender systems in an attempt to improve our understanding of serendipity facilitation with the help of user interfaces. By studying these systems in a developing country, this dissertation contrasts the study of recommender systems in developed countries, examining the contextual and cultural challenges associated with the application of recommender systems. This dissertation consists of five empirical user studies and a literature review article, contributing novel user interface designs, open-source software, and empirical analyses of user experiences related to recommender systems in a Pakistani higher education institution. The fortunate discoveries of recommendations are studied in the context of exploring research articles with the help of a recommender system. This dissertation covers both constructive and experimental research. The articles included in this dissertation present original research experimenting with different user interface designs in recommender systems facilitating serendipity, discuss stakeholder requirements, assess user experiences with recommended articles, and present a study on task load analysis of recommender systems. The key findings of this research are that serendipity of recommendations can be facilitated to users with the user interface. Recommender systems can become an instrumental technology in the higher education research and developing countries can benefit from recommender systems applications in higher education institutions

Integration of the Scientific Recommender System Mr. DLib into the Reference Manager JabRef

This paper presents a description of integration of the Mr. DLib scientific recommender system into the JabRef reference manager. Scientific recommender systems help users identify relevant papers out of vast amounts of existing literature. They are particularly useful when used in combination with reference managers. Over 85% of JabRef users stated that they would appreciate the integration of a recommender sys- tem. However, the implementation of literature recommender systems requires experience and resources that small companies cannot afford. With the desires of users in mind, we integrated the Mr. DLib scientific recommender system into JabRef. Using Mr. DLib's recommendations- as-a-service, JabRef users can find relevant literature and keep them- selves informed about the state of the art in their respective fields.publishe

A platform for collaborative quality assurance of bibliographical references and notes

In scientific work it is common to work in teams, while dealing with an abundance of literature. With the help of a literature management software these can be collected and managed as well as exported in bibliographies. Many online sources offer functionalities to import references into reference management tools. However, the entries are often incomplete or faulty. Hence, this thesis covers a concept for a reference management platform that supports collaborative work and quality assurance of references. The main ideas are to use a group functionality to support collaboration and a rating system for the quality assurance. Additionally, the users can edit reference entries to improve their quality. As part of this thesis, a prototype was implemented which supports both aspects.Beim wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten wird üblicherweise in Teams gearbeitet. Dabei befasst man sich mit einer Menge von Literatur. Diese kann mit Hilfe von einem Literaturverwaltungsprogramm gesammelt und verwaltet, sowie in Literaturlisten exportiert werden. Viele Onlinequellen bieten die Möglichkeit an Referenzen in Literaturverwaltungsprogramme zu importieren. Jedoch sind diese Referenzen oft unvollständig oder fehlerhaft. Deshalb befasst sich diese Arbeit mit einem Konzept für eine Literaturverwaltungsplattform welche gemeinschaftliches Arbeiten und Qualitätssicherung von Literaturangaben unterstützt. Die Hauptideen sind eine Gruppenfunktion für das Zusammenarbeiten von mehreren Personen und ein Bewertungssystem zur Qualitätssicherung. Darüber hinaus können die Benutzer eine Quellenangabe bearbeiten und somit verbessern. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde ein Prototyp implementiert welche beide Aspekte unterstützt