User Profiling Approaches, Modeling, and Personalization

The growth of the available information on the internet and the huge diversity of users give high priority to personalization. User profiling is the crucial issue for both information and service personalization. Building an automated user profile is the main challenge in developing an adaptive personalized application. Recent research works are involved in developing systems with personalizing user’s interaction. This paper examines what information is needed to be modeled for presenting various user models, how this information is collected, how the user model is represented and maintained, and finally how the user model is exploited to deliver personalized services. The paper investigates the current studies on user profiling and modeling so far. A novel classification schema is proposed for the study efforts in user profile building and usage. The proposed classification schema includes three main classes: data collection, profile representation and construction, and personalization. Finally, we debate the current research gaps found in this research area.