Interactive evaluation of recommender systems with SNIPER: an episode mining approach

Abstract

Recommender systems are typically evaluated using either offline methods, online methods, or through user studies. In this paper we take an episode mining approach to analysing recommender system data and we demonstrate how we can use SNIPER, a tool for interactive pattern mining, to analyse and understand the behaviour of recommender systems. We describe the required data format, and present a useful scenario of how a user can interact with the system to answer questions about the quality of recommendations.