NewsREEL 2016 in Evora

Author: Andreas Lommatzsch

The NewsREEL challenge allows researchers to test recommender algorithms in a real-world scenario. The NewsREEL challenge provides an online task (Living Lab) in that news articles recommendations must be provided in real time. The recommendation quality is evaluated based on real user feedback using the Click-Through-Rate as performance metric. In the offline task the task organizers provide components for re-playing datasets collected in the online task. This allows researchers to investigate recommender algorithms in detail in an exactly reproducible setting. Since the online and the offline task use the same data format, researchers can analyze implemented algorithms both online and offline as well as investigate the correlation of the measured results. The main research focus lies on the multi-dimensional benchmarking of recommender algorithms based on dynamic, stream-based data. A detailed summary of NewsREEL lab can be found in the CLEF 2016 proceedings.

The NewsREEL runs 2016 as a lab of the CLEF conferences (Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum). Beside the NewsREEL challenge, there are several other challenges covering a broad spectrum of topics ranging from advanced text analysis in PAN (uncovering Plagiarism, Authorship and Social Software Misuse) to multi-media analysis in LifeCLEF to the social media analysis in the Cultural Microblog workshop. There has been a lot a very fruitful discussion giving ideas for new research approaches. CLEF 2017 will be held in Dublin (Ireland), 11-14 September 2017. NewsREEL will also run in 2017 as a CLEF lab.

The CLEF 2016 conference has been organized by the University of Évora, being the second oldest university in Portugal. Évora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, known for the well-preserved old town center and a large number of historical monuments such as the Roman Temple. The following photos give a visual impression of the town and the conference.