Mar 18: Jennifer Golbeck @ Haverford

Computing with Social Trust: Web Algorithms, Social Networks, and Recommendations

Jennifer Golbeck
University of Maryland, College Park

Wednesday March 18
4:30 pm (tea at 4:00 pm)

Koshland INSC, Hilles 109
Haverford College
Directions to Campus
Campus Map (park in 45 or 53; talk in 5b)

Abstract
Web-based social networks provide a wealth of publicly accessible information about people and their relationships. The trust between people in these is particularly interesting because it can be used to improve the way users access and interact with information especially user-generated content on the web. In this talk, I will present research on the two most important problems in this space. First, I will discuss methods for computing trust between people online, relying on graph algorithms and statistical analysis of user behavior and interaction. Then, I will show how these results can be used in applications where users interact with web-based information. In particular, we will look at recommender systems and see when and how trust can improve the quality of the results.