SIGIR 2010 Workshop on the
Simulation of Interaction: Automated Evaluation of Interactive IR

SIGIR 2010, July 23, Geneva
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/access/simint/

*Extended deadline* for submissions: June 11

Dear Colleague:

TREC-like test collections enable automated evaluation of
non-interactive Information Retrieval and have led to great advances
in IR over the past 20 years. However, real-life IR is interactive,
and therefore non-interactive experiments cannot represent all aspects
of system usage and the information seeking process. Therefore it is
necessary to consider aspects of interaction in the design of IR
experiments. We have however learned over the years that
user-oriented interactive IR experiments are (i) challenging to
design,(ii) laborious and costly to carry out, (iii) often limited in
scope due to the limited test subjects, and (iv) lack replicability.

The simulation of interaction provides an interesting and powerful
alternative to user experiments. Through new automated evaluation
methodologies that consider the user and the interface, the simulation
of interaction could enable lots of fruitful research in Interactive
IR, which could not otherwise be performed.

To explore the challenges and possibilities of Automated Evaluation of
Interactive Information Retrieval, the SIGIR Workshop SimInt 2010:
Simulation of Interaction Workshop is being held at the ACM-SIGIR
Conference in Geneva.

The goals of the workshop are as follows:

1. To provide an open and friendly forum for the discussion and debate
of Simulation of Interaction for Automated Evaluation.
2. To discuss, debate and define Automated Evaluation, in particular
through the Simulation of Interaction
3. To provide report on the developments and outcomes of the workshop
and provide a useful online resource for the community on automated
evaluation for IIR.

The workshop discussion will start through online participation with
the group website where participants will be able to access and
comment on submissions and contribute to the list of resources, while
at the workshop we plan to hold a very interactive and fast paced
workshop with loads of discussion.

The deadline for submissions is *June 11, 2010* and the workshop is on
July 23, 2010, at SIGIR. For more information on the workshop and
submissions, see the workshop website at:

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/access/simint/

If you are interested in participating, then please submit either a
new and novel contribution paper or a position paper to the workshop
-- see the call for papers on the website. And plan to be an active
participant -- this workshop is not for the faint hearted!

Workshop Organizers
- Leif Azzopardi
- Kal Järvelin
- Jaap Kamps
- Mark Smucker