Important Dates

• Abstract submission deadline: July 26th, 2024

• Paper submission deadline: August 2nd, 2024

• Author notification: September 13th, 2024

• Camera-ready version: September 27th, 2024

• NORMalize workshop: October 18th, 2024

Anywhere on Earth (AoE) timezone, marked at 23:59:59.

Call For Papers

Recommender systems are used in a many different domains, from recommending recipes to song playlists. They increasingly act as "gatekeepers" to what users are exposed to online. Therefore it is important that we, as designers of these systems, think about the norms and values appropriate to the domain when designing and evaluating these recommender systems, such that they have a positive impact on society.  For example, should news recommender systems ensure that different viewpoints are presented to its users? Or, how should a travel recommender system consider sustainability aspects?

We invite original work in the form of full papers, short papers and extended abstracts. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Normative/Value-Sensitive Algorithm Design

• How can different norms and values be operationalized?

• How can we design algorithms that optimize for these norms and values?

• How can we balance these multiple objectives and multiple stakeholders?

Metrics & Evaluation Methods

• How should norms and values be measured? 

• What data representations are required to measure a norm or value ?

• How do metrics for norms and values behave in different domains? Do they generalize? 

• How should we design experiments that measure norms and values? 

Datasets

• How can norms and values be operationalized in available public datasets?

• What is the influence of the data representation on the metric? 

• New datasets that contain annotations and metadata that can be used to compute metrics of norms and values.

Case Studies

• What norms and values are of interest in practice?

• What issues do you face when operationalizing norms and values? 

• Empirical studies of how recommender systems behave with regards to norms and values. 

Philosophical & Conceptual Work

• Which norms and values are of interest in a specific domain and why?

• How should these norms and values be balanced?

Submissions and Template

We accept contributions in the form of

• Full papers (7-12 pages single-column excl. references) are expected to report on novel and original technical contributions with strong normative foundations.

• Short papers (4-6 pages single-column excl. references) that discuss exciting new ideas or theories that may not have gone through elaborate experimental validation. 

• Extended abstracts (3 pages single-column excl. references) that discuss important challenges faced when applying normative thinking to the design and evaluation of recommender systems. We especially invite industry participants and participants working in public services to share how normative thinking is currently being applied within their organizations and the challenges they may face.

The contributions will be submitted via EasyChair. 

Authors should submit manuscripts that follow the CEURART style and will be reviewed following a double-blind process. Every paper will be reviewed by at least two reviewers, one with a background in computer science and one with a background in the humanities or social sciences. By having at least one reviewer from each domain, we aim to ensure that papers combine a strong technical contribution with strong normative thinking. 

Only papers using the above template will be considered.

Program Committee