Intelligent User profiling Silvia schiaffino 2 and Analia amandil I ISISTAN Research Institute. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de buenos Aires, Campus Universitario, Argentina CONICET, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, Argentina [sschia, amandi ]@exa.uniceneduar Abstract. User profiles or user models are vital in many areas in which it is essential to obtain knowledge about users of software applications. Exam- ples of these areas are intelligent agents, adaptive systems, intelligent tutor ing systems, recommender systems, intelligent e-commerce applications, and knowledge management systems. In this chapter we study the main is- es from the perspectives of these research fields We examine what information constitutes a user profile, how the user pro file is represented; how the user profile is acquired and built; and how the profile information is used. We also discuss some challenges and future rends in the intelligent user profiling area ntroduction a profile is a description of someone containing the most important or interesting facts about him or her. In the context of users of software applications, a user profile or user model contains essential information about an individual user. The motivation of building user profiles is that users differ in their preferences, inter- ests, background and goals when using software applications. Discovering these differences is vital to providing users with personalized services The content of a user profile varies from one application domain to another. For xample, if we consider an online newspaper domain, the user profile contains the types of news(topics) the user likes to read, the types of news(topics) the user does not like to read, the newspapers he usually reads, and the user's reading hab- its and patterns. In a calendar management domain the user profile contains in- formation about the dates and times when the user usually schedules each type activity in which he is involved, the priorities each activity feature has for the user, the relevance of each user contact and the user's scheduling and rescheduling habits. In other domains personal information about the user, such as name, age, b, and hobbies might be important Not only the content of user profiles differs from one domain to also how the information they contain is acquired. The content of a user profile can be explicitly provided by the user or it has to be learned using some intelligent M. Bramer(Ed ) Artificial Intelligence, LNAI 5640, pp. 193-216, 2009 o Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009M. Bramer (Ed.): Artificial Intelligence, LNAI 5640, pp. 193 – 216, 2009. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 Intelligent User Profiling Silvia Schiaffino1,2 and Analía Amandi1,2 1 ISISTAN Research Institute, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Campus Universitario, Argentina 2 CONICET, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina {sschia,amandi}@exa.unicen.edu.ar Abstract. User profiles or user models are vital in many areas in which it is essential to obtain knowledge about users of software applications. Exam￾ples of these areas are intelligent agents, adaptive systems, intelligent tutor￾ing systems, recommender systems, intelligent e-commerce applications, and knowledge management systems. In this chapter we study the main is￾sues regarding user profiles from the perspectives of these research fields. We examine what information constitutes a user profile; how the user pro￾file is represented; how the user profile is acquired and built; and how the profile information is used. We also discuss some challenges and future trends in the intelligent user profiling area. 1 Introduction A profile is a description of someone containing the most important or interesting facts about him or her. In the context of users of software applications, a user profile or user model contains essential information about an individual user. The motivation of building user profiles is that users differ in their preferences, inter￾ests, background and goals when using software applications. Discovering these differences is vital to providing users with personalized services. The content of a user profile varies from one application domain to another. For example, if we consider an online newspaper domain, the user profile contains the types of news (topics) the user likes to read, the types of news (topics) the user does not like to read, the newspapers he usually reads, and the user's reading hab￾its and patterns. In a calendar management domain the user profile contains in￾formation about the dates and times when the user usually schedules each type of activity in which he is involved, the priorities each activity feature has for the user, the relevance of each user contact and the user's scheduling and rescheduling habits. In other domains personal information about the user, such as name, age, job, and hobbies might be important. Not only the content of user profiles differs from one domain to another, but also how the information they contain is acquired. The content of a user profile can be explicitly provided by the user or it has to be learned using some intelligent