When knowledge-based systems are partners in interactive socio-technical processes\, with incomplete and changing problem descriptions\, \;effective communication between human and software system is vital. \;Explanations exchanged between human agents and software agents may \;play a key role in such mixed-initiative problem solving. For \;example\, explanations may increase the confidence of the user in \;specific results or in the system as a whole\, by providing evidence of \;how the results were derived. AI research has also focused on \;how computer systems can themselves use explanations\, for example to \;guide learning.
Explanation-awareness in computing system development aims at making \;systems able to interact more effectively or naturally with their \;users\, or better able to understand and exploit knowledge about their \;own processing. Systems intended to exhibit explanation-awareness must \;be more than simple reactive systems. When the word 'awareness' is \;used in conjunction with the word 'explanation' it implies some \;consciousness about explanation and reasoning about explanations at \;the knowledge level.
Thinking of the Web not only as a collection of web pages\, but as \;providing a Web of experiences exchanged by people on many platforms\, \;gives rise to new challenges and opportunities to leverage experiential \;knowledge in explanation. For example\, records of experiences on the \;Web and interrelationships between experiences may provide provenance
and meta-data for explanations and can provide examples to help instil \;confidence in computing systems. The interplay of provenance information \;with areas such as trust and reputation\, reasoning and meta-reasoning\, \;and explanation are known\, but not yet well exploited.
Outside of artificial intelligence\, disciplines such as cognitive \;science\, linguistics\, philosophy of science\, psychology\, and education \;have investigated explanation as well. They consider varying aspects\, \;making it clear that there are many different views of the nature of \;explanation and facets of explanation to explore. Two relevant examples \;of these are open learner models in education\, and dialogue management \;and planning in natural language generation.
The ExaCt workshop series aims to draw on the multiple perspectives on \;explanation\, to examine how explanation can be applied to further the \;development of robust and dependable systems\, and increase transparency\, \;user sense of control\, trust\, acceptance\, and decision support.
Goals and audience
The main goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers\, \;scientists from both industry and academia\, and representatives from \;different communities and areas such as those mentioned above\, to study\, \;understand\, and explore explanation in AI applications. In addition to \;presentations and discussions of invited contributions and invited talks\, \;this workshop will offer organised and open spaces for targeted \;discussions and creating an interdisciplinary community. Demonstration \;sessions will provide the opportunity to showcase explanation-enabled/-aware applications.
Submission deadline: May 28\, 2012
\nTopics of interest
Suggested topics for contributions (not restricted to IT views):
\nSubmissions on additional topics are very welcome.
Submissions and style
Workshop submissions will be electronic\, in pdf format only\, using \;the EasyChair submission system linked from the workshop website.
Papers must be written in English and not exceed 5 pages in the \;ECAI format. At least one author of each accepted paper must register \;for the workshop and the ECAI conference and present the contribution \;in order to be published in the workshop proceedings. The organising
committee is considering editing a special issue of an appropriate \;international journal depending on the number and quality of the \;submissions.
Those wishing to participate without a paper submission should \;submit a brief synopsis of their relevant work or a brief statement \;of interest.
The workshop proceedings will be published online on the ECAI website \;and as CEUR workshop proceedings (http://ceur-ws.org).
Important dates
Submission deadline: May 28\, 2012
Notification of acceptance: June 28\, 2012
Camera-ready versions of papers: July 13\, 2012
ExaCt Workshop: August 27/28\, 2012
Workshop schedule
The schedule will be made available on the workshop website. See the \;workshop website for an agenda overview and links to past workshops.
Chairs
Thomas Roth-Berghofer\, School of Computing and Technology\,
University of West London\, United Kingdom
thomas.roth-berghofer (at) uwl ac uk
David B. Leake\, School of Informatics and Computing\,
Indiana University\, USA
leake (at) cs indiana edu
Jö\;rg Cassens\, Institute for Multimedia and Interactive
Systems (IMIS)\, University of Lü\;beck\, Germany
cassens (at) imis uni-luebeck de
Programme committee
Agnar Aamodt\, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
David W. Aha\, Navy Center for Applied Research in AI\, Washington DC\, USA
Martin Atzmü\;ller\, University of Kassel\, Germany
Ivan Bratko\, University of Ljubljana\, Slovenia
Patrick Bré\;zillon\, LIP6\, France
Ashok Goel\, Georgia Tech University\, Atlanta\, GA\, USA
Pierre Grenon\, KMI\, The Open University\, UK
Anders Kofod-Petersen\, SINTEF\, Norway
Hector Muñ\;oz-Avila\, Lehigh University\, USA
Miltos Petridis\, University of Brighton\, UK
Enric Plaza\, IIIA-CSIC\, Spain
Christophe Roche\, University of Savoie\, France
Olga Santos\, Spanish National University for Distance Education
Gheorghe Tecuci\, George Mason University\, Fairfax\, VA\, USA
Douglas Walton\, University of Windsor\, Canada