%0 Journal Article %1 citeulike:7890372 %A Farzan, Rosta %A Brusilovsky, Peter %D 2011 %J Computers in Human Behavior %K community course-recommender participation recommender %N 1 %P 276--284 %R 10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.005 %T Encouraging user participation in a course recommender system: An impact on user behavior %U http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.005 %V 27 %X User participation emerged as a critical issue for collaborative and social recommender systems as well as for a range of other systems based on the power of user community. A range of mechanisms to encourage user participation in social systems has been proposed over the last few years; however, the impact of these mechanisms on users behavior in recommender systems has not been studied sufficiently. This paper investigates the impact of encouraging user participation in the context of CourseAgent, a community-based course recommender system. The recommendation power of CourseAgent is based on course ratings provided by a community of students. To increase the number of course ratings, CourseAgent applies an incentive mechanism which turns user feedback into a self-beneficial activity. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of our course recommendation system and its incentive mechanism. We also report a dual impact of this mechanism on user behavior discovered in two user studies.

@article{citeulike:7890372, abstract = {{User participation emerged as a critical issue for collaborative and social recommender systems as well as for a range of other systems based on the power of user community. A range of mechanisms to encourage user participation in social systems has been proposed over the last few years; however, the impact of these mechanisms on users behavior in recommender systems has not been studied sufficiently. This paper investigates the impact of encouraging user participation in the context of CourseAgent, a community-based course recommender system. The recommendation power of CourseAgent is based on course ratings provided by a community of students. To increase the number of course ratings, CourseAgent applies an incentive mechanism which turns user feedback into a self-beneficial activity. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of our course recommendation system and its incentive mechanism. We also report a dual impact of this mechanism on user behavior discovered in two user studies.}}, added-at = {2017-11-15T17:02:25.000+0100}, author = {Farzan, Rosta and Brusilovsky, Peter}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/23f148b3682b4945a3b8430233ea99ffe/brusilovsky}, citeulike-article-id = {7890372}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.005}, day = 16, doi = {10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.005}, interhash = {73a263536e468a6c30b61c6e5dc3c515}, intrahash = {3f148b3682b4945a3b8430233ea99ffe}, issn = {07475632}, journal = {Computers in Human Behavior}, keywords = {community course-recommender participation recommender}, month = jan, number = 1, pages = {276--284}, posted-at = {2011-01-05 00:28:32}, priority = {0}, timestamp = {2019-02-12T15:45:27.000+0100}, title = {{Encouraging user participation in a course recommender system: An impact on user behavior}}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.005}, volume = 27, year = 2011 }