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Toine Bogers <[log in to unmask]>
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Toine Bogers <[log in to unmask]>
Tue, 15 Nov 2016 13:28:21 +0000
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SCST 2017: 2nd Workshop on Supporting Complex Search Tasks (co-located with CHIIR 2017)

Oslo, Norway

March 11, 2017

Description & Objectives

One of the current challenges in information access is supporting complex search tasks. A user's understanding of the information need and the overall task develops as he or she interacts with the system. Supporting the various stages of this task involves many aspects of the system, e.g. interface features, presentation of information, retrieving and ranking.

The Supporting Complex Search Tasks workshop (SCST 2017) aims at creating and fostering an interdisciplinary forum where researchers can exchange ideas about alternative experiments and prototypes, and contribute to the development of a research agenda in supporting complex search tasks.

Topics of interest

We invite position papers addressing open research questions related to:

* Context: What are the obvious use cases and applications of complex search?
* Tasks: What are essential features of work tasks and search tasks to take into account?
* Heterogeneous sources: With a multitude of information, varying from introductory to specialized, and from authoritative to speculative or opinionated, when to show what sources of information?
* Search process: How does the information seeking process evolve and what are relevant differences between different stages?
* UI/UX: What affordances are required and in what stage of the search process? How can we make the search process transparent to the user? How and when does the initiative shift between system and user?
* Evaluation: How do we evaluate and compare approaches? Which measures should be taken into account?


This is a workshop proper where discussion is central, and all attendees are active participants. We will start the workshop with a full round of introductions of all participants, making everyone feel welcome and part of the workshop. Then, the workshop continues with two short keynotes by keynote from academia to be confirmed and keynote from industry to be confirmed to set the stage and ensure all attendees are on the same page.

Next, we will have presentations of contributed papers, with each paper getting a 1-minute boaster and a poster presentation in an interactive poster session.

There will be 3-4 breakout groups seeded from the open research questions (see Goals) and the contributed papers, each group thoroughly prepared by a chair who guides the discussion, with examples from relevant IR evaluation campaigns such as the TREC Session and Tasks Tracks and the SBS Interactive and Suggestion Tracks, and from concrete examples of complex support systems with their UX and UI challenges. The breakout groups will report to the audience and a panel of experts, with continued discussion on what we learned, concrete plans for the next year, and a roadmap for the longer term.

The discussion will continue during a social event, where the discussion will continue in a more informal way over food and drinks, deep into the Oslo night. The organizers have gained a proud reputation for their open and inclusive workshops, leading to new research collaborations, other workshops, and new evaluation tracks.

The results will be disseminated in various ways:

* A high quality, peer reviewed workshop proceedings, published in the CEUR  workshop proceedings series (
* A report on the results of the workshop in the ACM SIGIR Forum of June 2017.
* Depending on the outcome, we will consider a special issue in an appropriate journal.
* Last, but not least, the results can be fed into the running tracks at TREC, CLEF, and other evaluation campaigns.


The workshop will bring together a varied group of researchers—bridging CHI and IR in a natural way—with experience covering both user- and system-centered approaches, to work together on the problem and potential solutions, and identify the barriers to success and work on ways of addressing them.

Authors can submit both research and position papers. Papers can be 2+1 pages max., with 2 pages of narrative text and an additional page for tables/figures/notes/references. Submitted papers will be peer-reviewed in a double-blind review process.

Important dates

* Paper submission deadline: February 1, 2017
* Notification of acceptance: February 20, 2017
* Camera-ready deadline: March 1, 2017
* SCST 2017 Workshop: March 11, 2017


* Nick Belkin (Rutgers University)
* Toine Bogers (Aalborg University Copenhagen)
* Diane Kelly (University of Tennessee)
* Jaap Kamps (University of Amsterdam)
* Marijn Koolen (Huygens ING)
* Emine Yilmaz (University College London)

For further questions, please contact a member of the organizing committee.

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