Preface to the joint proceedings of the ComplexRec and ImpactRS workshops at ACM RecSys 2020

Abstract

Recommender systems are widely used in modern online applications, from e-commerce sites over media streaming services to social networks. In academic research, we however often abstract from the specifics of these applications and rely on simplified assumptions such as the availability of past rating data. Furthermore, we mostly focus on predicting to what extent a user will like a certain item, but do not explicitly consider the long-term effects of recommendations on the users' decision-making processes or the expected impact on orgnizations. The 14th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems hosted two workshops which aim to look beyond our often too simplifying assumptions, the Fourth Workshop on Recommendation in Complex Environments and the Second Workshop on the Impact of Recommender Systems. These proceedings describe the specific goals of the workshops and contain the papers that were presented during the online events.