EU Intensive Programme "Information Foraging" 2012

In 2012, IFL @ Radboud University Nijmegen organizes the 2nd summer school about "Information Foraging" , funded by an Intensive Programme (IP) grant from the EU Lifelong Learning Programme Erasmus. Participating universities in this IP are University of Glasgow, University of Tampere, Université Paul Sabatier, KU Leuven, Universität Duisburg-Essen, University of Amsterdam, Royal School of Library and Information Science (DK), University of Hildesheim, University of Sheffield, University of Milano Bicocca and the University of Strathclyde. Course coordinators are Wessel Kraaij and Theo P. van der Weide. The summer school is endorsed by SIKS, the Dutch research school for Information and Knowledge systems.

About the course theme

The goal of the course is to introduce students to theoretical models and technology related to all facets of (professional) interaction with information in an information seeking context. The topic  ‘Information Foraging’  reflects  the shift of attention in information retrieval research from  static document statistics  towards  i) on-line systems that are designed  for user interaction  and ii) exploiting the collective information access behavior of communities of users. The course has been designed for master or PhD students in computer science, information science or artificial intelligence. It is assumed that students have some basic knowledge of information retrieval methods and models.

Programme

The course consists of 10 days, starting at 27/8/2012 until 7/9/2012. The typical layout of a course day consists of 3,5 hours of lectures in the morning, lunch break, practical assignments and more lectures in the afternoon. All lectures will be given in English. Participating universities will credit this course with 4 ECTS.

Lectures are grouped around four subthemes, at this point we can only give a draft outline of the programme.

1. Information seeking behaviour

• Cognitive models of information seeking
• User oriented and task based IR research

2. Interaction

• Modern interfaces for IR systems
• Monitoring interactionwith eyetracking
• Simulated evaluation methodology
• Social signal processing
• Interactive IR systems for multimedia
• Question answering

3. Context and personalized search

• Context and personalization
• Improved accessibility for target groups 

4. Exploiting explicit and implicit social annotations

• Affective IR
• Logfile analysis
• Collaborative filtering
• Social tagging

Application / Registration

Application consists of two phases. In the first phase we will invite students from the participating universities to register. In the second phase, we will fill the remaining seats with an open call for participation. Only the restricted call is open now.

Application consists of a two step process: The first step is to apply for the summer school through the web form at this website. There is a maximum of 28 grants for students from the participating universities. Registration requires a motivation statement, which will be the basis for selection.  register here

Please register before April 30th 2012. 

Erasmus IP student grants

All students from University of Glasgow, University of Tampere, Université Paul Sabatier, KU Leuven, Universität Duisburg-Essen, University of Amsterdam, Royal School of Library and Information Science (DK), University of Hildesheim, University of Sheffield, University of Milano Bicocca and the University of Strathclyde  can apply for support of the EU Erasmus programme to attend the course. The grant covers 75% of the travel cost plus 399 Euro for covering subsistence (meals/hotel). Participants from the six partner universities are asked to pay a deposit of 50 Euro by bank transfer. Upon receipt of the bank transfer or a copy of a flight reservation, the registration will be finalized. The deposit will be reimbursed at/after the summer school.

SIKS student grants

Thanks to the support of SIKS, a fixed number of seats (free registration) are available for students of the Dutch SIKS research school. SIKS students can apply using the regular application form as soon as the open call for participation has been distributed.

Location and Venue

The city of Nijmegen is of Roman origin and is the oldest in the Netherlands. Today, Nijmegen has 165.000 inhabitants. The city centre boasts a number of characteristic late medieval buildings, such as St. Steven's Church, the old Weigh House, and City Hall. It is a safe and friendly city, brimming with culture and a buzzing social life. Weather permitting, most bars and restaurants serve food and drinks outdoors, which gives Nijmegen the pleasant atmosphere so typical of a university town. Nijmegen has something for everyone, from the Valkhof museum for modern art and Roman archaeology to the Ooijpolder nature reserve, and from the biggest art-house cinema in the Netherlands to the world's largest walking event, the famous Nijmegen four-day marches.

The summer school will be located in the Huygens building on the Radboud university campus, which houses the science faculty. The campus is connected to the city centre by a shuttle bus service (approx. 10 minutes).
 

Accommodation and Meals

Accomodation has been reserved in a holiday cottage park (shared bungalows).
The registration fee covers participation in the courses, course material, coffee breaks and social event. Cheap lunches and dinner are available at the university cafetarias.

IIiX 2012

The summer school is co-located with the Information Interaction in Context Symposium 2012
http://www.iiix2012.org/, which takes place just one week before.