CFP: IR4U2@SIGIR 2025 - Workshop on Information Retrieval for Understudied Users

**** PLEASE, EXCUSE MULTIPLE POSTINGS ****

Call For Papers

CFP for the 2nd Workshop on Information Retrieval for Understudied Users
(IR4U2) - Bridging User-centered AI with IR: Making Information Retrieval
Accessible for All

Please join us at IR4U2, co-located with the 48th International ACM SIGIR
Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, which will
take place 13th-18th July 2025 in Padua, Italy

Information Retrieval (IR) remains an active, fast-paced area of research.
Nevertheless, most advancements in this domain have primarily favored what
we might term 'conventional' users, such as adults from the global north.

We envision IR4U2 as a forum to spotlight research and industry efforts
that, while sparse, consider diverse, and often understudied, user groups.

Among these groups, we find, for example, older adults, young children and
adolescents, individuals afflicted by mental health disorders, users with
autism spectrum disorder (ASD), individuals with intellectual disabilities,
or those with specific learning needs.

In this second iteration of IR4U2, we will focus more specifically on a
**user-centred AI perspective**, which we believe is vital for informing
the design, development, and assessment of IR systems that thoughtfully
address the diverse needs of understudied populations, ensuring genuine
accessibility and inclusivity.

We aim to

=E2=80=A2 Build, extend and maintain a community involving multi-disciplina=
ry Ph.D.
students, academics, and industry practitioners aiming to advance
understanding of core (AI for) IR technology and its impact on a broad
range of understudied users.

=E2=80=A2 Take inventory of the different kinds of use cases, research work=
,
ongoing efforts, and existing resources while reflecting on the progress
made since the last IR4U2 iteration.

=E2=80=A2 Define guidelines to promote user-centric design of IR systems.

=E2=80=A2 Outline a general approach to facilitate research endeavors drive=
n by and
at the service of specific user groups

IR4U2 will be a highly participatory, full-day, in-person workshop. This
will involve informal interactions, facilitated group work, and brief
presentations of accepted contributions. These contributions will help
construct a snapshot of the current works in this area.

Topics of interest include:

   -

   User-centered design of IR algorithms for understudied users
   -

   User-centric design of user interfaces for IR for understudied users
   -

   The use of AI for enhancing IR systems for understudied users
   -

   The positive and negative impact of AI on IR for understudied users
   -

   User modeling to enable IR and recommendation technologies tailored to
   understudied populations
   -

   Data collection and benchmark development of IR catering to understudied
   populations.
   -

   IR applications targeting understudied populations
   -

   IR techniques in the era of LLM and generative models with and for
   understudied populations


This is not an exhaustive list, as we are also interested in contributions
discussing challenges inherent to designing IR technology at the service of
understudied user groups=E2=80=93from the need for multidisciplinary,
multi-stakeholder collaborations to how to build datasets.

Submissions:

Peer reviewed contributions. These include research papers presenting
empirical explorations, user studies, and/or new algorithms related to the
open problems listed in topics of interest, as well as position/vision
contributions discussing uses cases, challenges, and future research
directions. These contributions should be submitted on EasyChair (
https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=3Dir4u20) at least 4 pages, but up t=
o
12 (excluding references) formatted in CEURART=E2=80=99s single-column temp=
late (
https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/one-column-layout-template-for-sub=
missions-to-ceur-workshop-proceedings-ceur-ws-dot-org/kwvphtkwrgsk).
Accepted contributions will be presented at the workshop and published in
workshop proceedings.

Editorially-reviewed contributions. To enable potential attendees to
articulate their views on the topics of the workshop, share
already-published works, bring awareness to ongoing European projects in
this area, etc., we ask the submission of a short extended abstract. This
type of informal submission (via this form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeoz0WWHx_0EXcPc9AZOTw6zx07gSolQ61=
Ko22Cw_iDbQBKfw/viewform
)
will be editorially

reviewed by workshop organizers to gauge fit as well as themes of interest
for group discussions. Accepted contributions will be presented at the
workshop, but not published in the proceedings.

Important dates

All the deadlines are set at 11:59 PM AoE.

   -

   Submission: April 23, 2025
   -

   Author notification: May 21, 2025
   -

   Camera-ready: June 1, 2025
   -

   Workshop day: July 17, 2025

At least one author of each accepted paper must register and attend the
workshop. Please feel free to reach out to the [email protected] wit=
h
questions. For further information, see
https://ir4u2workshop.wixsite.com/ir4u2-2.

Organizers:

Noemi Mauro, University of Turin, Italy

Angelo Geninatti Cossatin, University of Turin, Italy

Sole Pera, TU Delft, The Netherlands

Federica Cena, University of Turin, Italy

Theo Huibers, University of Twente,  The Netherlands

Monica Landoni, Universit=C3=A0 della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland

Emiliana Murgia, Universit=C3=A0 di Genova, Italy

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