Query Log Analysis:

Social and Technological Challenges

A workshop at the 16th International World Wide Web Conference
May 8, 2007 - Banff, Alberta, Canada

Overview

Schedule

Program
   Speakers
   Full Papers
   Position Papers

Call for Participation

Important Dates

Organizing Committee

Related Workshops

Call for Participation

The past few years have seen a surge in research that uses personal search histories and search systems' query logs. Such research is enabling users to find more of what they are looking for, quickly and easily. However, it comes at a social cost. Query logs capture explicit descriptions of users’ information needs. Logs of interactions that follow a user’s query (e.g., click-though and navigation patterns) capture derivative traces that further characterize the user and their interests. The data is rich with personal detail, creating opportunities and risk. The social and technological challenges of working with such data have important implications for query log analysis research.

This workshop will provide an interdisciplinary venue for collective thinking about query log analysis from all its angles. By bringing together stakeholders from various disciplines we hope to expand the understanding of the problems and concerns raised by all parties. This workshop will open a dialogue within the research community on collecting query log data, sharing information without compromising user privacy, and tapping into the collaborative knowledge that can be found in query logs.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

1. Technology
• Ranking with query logs (QLs)
• Query refinement using QLs
• Collaborative filtering based on QLs
• Targeted advertising using QLs
• Use of sessions and cookies in QLs
2. Social
• Ethics of QL collection and use
• Legal issues in QL collection and use
• Policies and practices of query logging
• Implications of QL data
• Raising public awareness about query logs
3. Security
• Anonymization of QL data
• User-driven masking of QL recording
• Blocking QL recording
4. Standards
• Developing standards for producing and sharing logs
• Producing QL practices similar to the Robots Exclusion Standard

We invite submissions of papers describing original work in these areas or in related areas. Papers may describe empirical research, work in progress, or theoretical explorations.

Important dates:

Paper Submission	12 February, 2007
Acceptance Notification	21 March, 2007
Camera-ready revisions due	30 March, 2007

Registration is limited. Interested participants are asked to submit a statement of interest describing their research or area of expertise and their reason for wanting to participate.

Submitting papers/position papers/attendance requests:

Regular papers (up to 8 pages long) and position papers (up to 4 pages) should be submitted in PDF format to: http://www.easychair.org/WWW2007Workshops/

Authors should follow the guidelines for conference submissions found at http://www2007.org/submission-workshops.php. Please indicate if the work described is also published elsewhere.

Attendance requests — please email a short bio and a short position statement to QueryLogs@yahoogroups.com or to any of the organizers (up to 500 words, PDF preferred).

Papers accepted to the workshop will be included in the WWW2007 Workshop proceedings and distributed to participants on a CD-ROM. Attendees are invited to submit a full paper to a special issue of the ACM Transactions on the Web with an expected publication date is early 2008.

Query: