Discerning relevant model features in a content-based collaborative recommender system

Abstract

Recommender systems suggest users information items they may be interested in. User profiles or usage data are compared with some reference characteristics, which may belong to the items (content-based approach), or to other users in the same context (collaborative filtering approach). These items are usually presented as a ranking, where the more relevant an item is predicted to be for a user, the higher it appears in the ranking. In this scenario, a preferential order has to be inferred, and therefore, preference learning methods can be naturally helpful. The relevant recommendation model features for the learning-based enhancements explored in this work comprise parameters of the recommendation algorithms, and user-related attributes. In the researched approach, machine learning techniques are used to discover which model features are relevant in providing accurate recommendations. The assessment of relevant model features, which is the focus of this paper, is envisioned as the first step in a learning cycle in which improved recommendation models are produced and executed after the discovery step, based on the findings that result from it. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.