Invited Talk by Michael Ekstrand

Title: Where are the People? Political, Ethical, and Humanist Foundations for Information Access
Date: Thursday, September 18th, 2025 18:00
Location:  FAV 1 Helmut Veith, Favoritenstraße 9-11, 1040 Vienna

Abstract: Modern information access technologies have broadened both access to information and the ability to disseminate new information. In this talk, he takes up the question of why we develop and deploy information access technologies. As information and information access have profound impact on both individual people and the societies they shape and inhabit, clearly defining the goals of such systems is necessary to properly evaluate them and to ensure that information access promotes healthy, well-informed, and democratic societies. Michael Ekstrand will discuss several goals that may be set for an information access system; how those may support or oppose broader economic, political, ethical, or social objectives and principles; and how specific goals affect the evaluation of the effectiveness, behavior, and impacts of information access systems.

Biography: Michael Ekstrand is an assistant professor of information science at Drexel University, where he leads the Impact, Novation, Effectiveness, and Responsibility of Technology for Information Access Lab (INERTIAL). His research blends human-computer interaction, information retrieval, machine learning, and statistics to try to make information access systems, such as recommender systems and search engines, good for everyone they affect. In 2018, he received the NSF CAREER award to study how recommender systems respond to biases in input data and experimental protocols and predict their future response under various technical and sociological conditions, and is co-PI on the NSF-funded POPROX project to develop shared infrastructure for user-facing recommender systems research.

Our Vision

This research initiative aims to address the growing concerns surrounding recommender systems by developing more nuanced approaches that consider domain-specific contexts and user preferences. Beyond traditional accuracy metrics, the focus is on incorporating measures of novelty, diversity, and serendipity in recommendations. A multi-level user model will be introduced, encompassing individual, group, and network levels, utilizing multi-faceted feature sets to capture implicit preferences. Clustering techniques and social relations will further enhance user understanding. The goal is to create a more comprehensive user model facilitating systematic exploration of beyond-accuracy measures across various domains. Additionally, the research will analyze the dynamics of these measures over time and evaluate the long-term impacts of bias. This endeavor aligns with the principles of Digital Humanism, emphasizing fairness and broader societal concerns in algorithmic systems.

Partners

YKMB GmbH

YKMB GmbH is a newly established startup on a mission to disrupt online fashion retail. It has been co-founded in late 2019 in Vienna by an experienced team of marketing, sales and computer science experts who realized that something very essential is missing in purchasing online: The social experience of shopping together with your friends, which provide instant feedback on what suits you and what to get. The results of the CD Laboratory will be used to improve the current product and help to develop new ones.

Preisvergleich Internet Services AG

Preisvergleich Internet Services AG hosts the price comparison plattform Geizhals, which operates in Austria, Germany, the UK and Poland. Geizhals is designed to streamline the shopping process by combining their advanced data analytics and extensive product database. The goal is to empower users to make informed purchasing decisions by effortlessly comparing prices from multiple online retailers. This service optimizes the shopping experience, enabling users to save both time and money in the process of finding the right product at the right place. The results of the CD Laboratory will be used to increase the knowledge about the customer preferences and introduce strategies to elicit them.

Industry Collaborations