Making Recommender Systems Available for On-Line Research One exciting opportunity for a community resource is the maintenance of live recommender systems that can be used by researchers to conduct on-line experiments. If a set of well-trafficked recommender systems were available, researchers could"borrow"a set of users and divert them to an experimental version of the system. The nature of the borrowing(e.g, specific volunteering, general volunteering, etc. and the form of borrowing(e.g, user impressions vs user for time period, etc. )would need to be determined based on the integrity of the system and the needs of the research To make user-borrowing a possibility, the community would need a set of recommender systems, mechanisms for diverting certain users to experimental systems, standards of data collection, and mechanisms to ensure the safety of human subjects and the long-term integrity of the site. While thi experimental model needs refinement, it presents an exciting opportunity that is enabled by the Internet and While the groupLens Research group does not yet have infrastructure for diverting users to experimental sites, we are developing this infrastructure to facilitate our MovieLens research. We can envision maintaining a collection of well-used recommender systems(not necessarily all housed centrally)on which researchers could experiment. A steering committee could set guidelines for research usage(including nstitutional review) and could manage the integrity of the site Other Resources Other recommender systems resources currently exist. We do not propose replacing these, rather we propose to link to these resources or to host them, depending on the preference of the maintainer. Among other resources of interest are: lists of recommender systems, recommender systems bibliographies, directories of researchers, calls for papers, and e-mail lists Steps Forward We see this workshop as the first step in a process. Our first goal is to obtain feedback from and brainstorm ideas with the recommender systems research community. Depending on the feedback we receive, we anticipate the following steps Short term lentify existing resources, continue development of our resources, identify interested researchers(possible steering committee), develop more detailed proposal/plan. Medium Term. Seek funding to develop/maintain resource(government and/or industry ) form steering committee, develop web site with resource collection Long Term. Document and maintain collection, hold periodic training sessions and workshops facilitate low-overhead research( students should be able to experiment with RS analysis in course projects), grow the RS fieldMaking Recommender Systems Available for On-Line Research One exciting opportunity for a community resource is the maintenance of live recommender systems that can be used by researchers to conduct on-line experiments. If a set of well-trafficked recommender systems were available, researchers could "borrow" a set of users and divert them to an experimental version of the system. The nature of the borrowing (e.g., specific volunteering, general volunteering, etc.) and the form of borrowing (e.g., user impressions vs. user for time period, etc.) would need to be determined based on the integrity of the system and the needs of the research. To make user-borrowing a possibility, the community would need a set of recommender systems, mechanisms for diverting certain users to experimental systems, standards of data collection, and mechanisms to ensure the safety of human subjects and the long-term integrity of the site. While this experimental model needs refinement, it presents an exciting opportunity that is enabled by the Internet and the web. While the GroupLens Research group does not yet have infrastructure for diverting users to experimental sites, we are developing this infrastructure to facilitate our MovieLens research. We can envision maintaining a collection of well-used recommender systems (not necessarily all housed centrally) on which researchers could experiment. A steering committee could set guidelines for research usage (including institutional review) and could manage the integrity of the site. Other Resources Other recommender systems resources currently exist. We do not propose replacing these, rather we propose to link to these resources or to host them, depending on the preference of the maintainer. Among other resources of interest are: lists of recommender systems, recommender systems bibliographies, directories of researchers, calls for papers, and e-mail lists. Steps Forward We see this workshop as the first step in a process. Our first goal is to obtain feedback from and brainstorm ideas with the recommender systems research community. Depending on the feedback we receive, we anticipate the following steps: Short Term. Identify existing resources, continue development of our resources, identify interested researchers (possible steering committee), develop more detailed proposal/plan. Medium Term. Seek funding to develop/maintain resource (government and/or industry), form steering committee, develop web site with resource collection. Long Term. Document and maintain collection, hold periodic training sessions and workshops, facilitate low-overhead research (students should be able to experiment with RS analysis in course projects), grow the RS field