MOTIVATION
===========

The workshop follows the previous SPeL 2008, SPeL 2009, SPeL 2010, SPeL 2011,
DULP & SPeL 2012 and SPeL 2013 workshops, held in conjunction with the SAINT
2008 conference, WI/IAT 2009 conference, DEXA 2010 conference, ICWL 2011
conference, ICALT 2012 conference and ICSTCC 2013 conference respectively. The
general topic of the workshop is the social and personal computing for web-
supported learning communities.

Web-based learning is moving from centralized, institution-based systems to a
decentralized and informal creation and sharing of knowledge. Social software
(e.g., blogs, wikis, social bookmarking systems, media sharing services) is
increasingly being used for e-learning purposes, helping to create novel
learning experiences and knowledge. In the world of pervasive Internet,
learners are also evolving: the so-called "digital natives" want to be in
constant communication with their peers, they expect an individualized
instruction and a personalized learning environment, which automatically adapt
to their individual needs. The challenge in this context is to provide
intelligent and adaptive support for collaborative learning, taking into
consideration the individual differences between learners.

This workshop deals with current research on collaboration and personalization
issues in Web-supported learning communities, leading towards the creation of
a truly social and adaptive learning environment. Its aim is to provide a
forum for discussing new trends and initiatives in this area, including
research about the planning, development, application, and evaluation of
intelligent e-learning systems, where people can learn together in a
personalized way through social interaction with other learners.


TOPICS OF INTEREST
==================

The workshop welcomes submissions covering aspects of collaboration, social
interactions, adaptivity and personalization in technology enhanced learning,
particularly related to issues about:

* Social learning environments
* Theory and modeling of social computing in education
* Web 2.0 tools for collaborative learning
* Personal learning environments
* Lifelong learning networks
* Virtual spaces for learning communities
* Social networks analysis and mining
* Computer-supported collaborative learning
* Personalized and adaptive learning
* Adaptation methods and techniques for groups of learners
* Intelligent learner and group modeling
* Collaborative filtering and recommendations for learners
* Game-based social learning
* Personalized mobile learning applications
* Cloud-based social learning
* Intelligent agent technology for social learning
* Metadata, folksonomies and tagging
* Semantic web and ontologies for personalized learning
* Cognitive, motivational and affective aspects for personalization
* Practice and experience sharing


PAPER SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION
==================================

The workshop papers should be formatted according to the Springer LNCS Authors Guidelines (http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0) and they should not exceed 10 pages.

Papers should be submitted in PDF format, through the Easychair system: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=spel2014.

All accepted workshop papers will be published as a post-proceedings volume in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).


WORKSHOP CHAIRS
================

Elvira Popescu - University of Craiova, Romania
Sabine Graf - Athabasca University, Canada


Please refer to the workshop website (http://software.ucv.ro/~epopescu/spel2014) for more information and contact us at: popescu_elvira@software.ucv.ro or sabineg@athabascau.ca for any inquiry.