Second Workshop on LifeLong User Modelling

Nowadays, we are surrounded by technology that assists us in our everyday life. We use GPS devices to navigate from A to B, we use all kind of sensors to track our sport activities, we query the WWW for information while on the go and we use all kinds of devices and software to communicate with our friends and family and share opinions, pictures, etc. With today’s technology, we have the capability to automatically record at large-scale the places that we have been to, things we have seen, people we communicate with and how active we are – we’re already creating a lifelog.

This creation of lifelogs offers new possibilities for personalization but the resulting data volume raises new challenges. Analyzing this large data corpus will enable us to better understand ourselves: What are my habits and interests? Or, even more specific: Do I live a healthy life? Answering these questions can lead to a more conscious lifestyle. One big challenge is the creation and management of long term, even life long, user models These must capture salient aspects about the user over very long periods of time, possibly spanning periods from early childhood into old age. These models have to handle changing interests over time. Also, such lifelogging models have to be usable by different applications. Other challenges pertain processing big data and identifying user interests, skills etc. and their usage in real world systems like health or recommendation systems. Following the successful First Workshop on Lifelong User Modelling which was held in conjunction with UMAP 2009, this workshop aims to engage researchers from both user modelling and lifelogging communities to discuss emerging research trends in this field.