Context-Aware Recommender Systems

Adomavicius, Gediminas (University of Minnesota) | Mobasher, Bamshad (DePaul University) | Ricci, Francesco (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano) | Tuzhilin, Alexander (New York University)

AI Magazine 

Context-aware recommender systems (CARS) generate more relevant recommendations by adapting them to the specific contextual situation of the user. This article explores how contextual information can be used to create more intelligent and useful recommender systems. It provides an overview of the multifaceted notion of context, discusses several approaches for incorporating contextual information in recommendation process, and illustrates the usage of such approaches in several application areas where different types of contexts are exploited. The article concludes by discussing the challenges and future research directions for context-aware recommender systems.