[agents] CFP JECR: Special Issue on Comparison-Shopping and Related Recommender Intelligent Agents

[Fasli, Maria]

Journal of Electronic Commerce Research 

Co-Editor in Chief
Professor Melody Y. Kiang               Professor Robert T. Chi
mkiang at csulb.edu                        rchi at csulb.edu


CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue on Comparison-Shopping and Related Recommender Intelligent Agents 

Submissions due: January 1, 2010
Scheduled Publication date: August 2010

Special Issue Editors: Yun Wan and Maria Fasli

Overview 

The immense growth of the Internet has had a profound impact on the way organizations and individuals conduct business and have led to the emergence of niche markets and new types of services being offered in particular in B2C commerce.  Comparison-shopping agents is a research topic which encompasses multiple fields. It is a highly successful Internet technology in electronic commerce that is being used by millions of online shoppers on a daily basis. In the past 14 years, comparison-shopping agents and e-commerce recommender systems have evolved from mere price comparison engines to comprehensive online shopping portals. Similar products could be compared and reviewed, the service quality of vendors could be evaluated, and insightful information from expert shoppers about their familiar product categories could be shared and used by others via comparison-shopping and recommender agents. 

Comparison-shopping is now the third most popular online shopping option behind eBay and Amazon, yet, there is one distinctive characteristic that differentiates it from the latter two options: Instead of being dominated by one big player, the comparison-shopping and e-commerce recommender systems market has been shared by a dozen popular comparison-shopping sites. What's more, innovative comparison-shopping services often make their appearance on the Web. They spawned more innovative intelligent shopping agent designs. The large number of players makes the mutual learning and innovation faster and edger, and this field has become even more fascinating to study. 

Despite the amazing developments in this field, the research reported is relatively scant, probably due to its complexity and fast changing speed. The aim of this special issue is to showcase and disseminate the most up-to-date research in this exciting area.


Call for Papers 

2010 is the 15th anniversary for the debut of the first demonstration project of comparison-shopping agent, BargainFinder. BargainFinder was launched in 1995 by then Andersen Consulting. Comparison-shopping agents is a technology innovation that involves data retrieval, data feeding, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, human computer interaction, and many other computing fields. It is also a topic being studied by marketing and economics researchers on their impact to the business environment. 

In recent years, mobile, social networking comparison-shopping, and recommendation technologies are also being incorporated into the design of comparison-shopping agents. To celebrate this successful Internet technology and one of the most important ecommerce applications since 1995, we invite both researchers and industry professionals involved in this field to consider contributing to this special issue. 

This special issue of JECR seeks original articles describing the existing and emerging comparison-shopping technology as well as innovative designs that address inadequacies of existing services. We are also interested in studies on related intelligent shopping recommender agents. The following is a suggested but not exclusive list of possible topics: 

*	The overall architecture of comparison-shopping services
*	The state of the art data retrieval technologies being used in comparison-shopping 
*	The interface design of comparison-shopping agents and their interaction with users
*	The data mining technology used in comparison-shopping services; 
*	The recommendation technologies used in comparison shopping agents and services
*	Comparison-Shopping in the travelling industry
*	Comparison-shopping in insurance and personal finance industry; 
*	Comparison-shopping in health services
*	Innovative design of comparison-shopping agents like bundled comparison and mobile comparison
*	Web 2.0 enhanced comparison-shopping and other intelligent shopping technologies;
*	The impact of comparison-shopping on electronic markets
*	The business model of comparison-shopping services
*	Historical review of comparison-shopping technology

Interested potential contributors are encouraged to contact the special issue editors Yun Wan (wany at uhv.edu) and Maria Fasli (mfasli at essex.ac.uk) so that the appropriateness of potential contributions to the special issue can be assessed at an early stage.

Submission of Manuscripts 
JECR publishes original empirical research, theoretical and methodological articles, evaluative and integrative reviews, field research, business surveys, and application papers of interest to a general readership. A submission based on a paper appearing elsewhere (such as conference proceedings or newsletters) must have major value added extensions to the earlier version. For conference papers, it should have at least 30% new material. The submitted manuscripts should follow the format as suggested in the Submission Guideline found in the journal website:
http://www.csulb.edu/journals/jecr/s_guide.htm. Of particular note is that the manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word format. The names, affiliations, and contact information (i.e., phone, fax, email addresses) of all authors should be provided only on the cover page. Reviews of the submitted manuscripts will proceed in accordance with JECR's editorial policy. Submissions should be sent to: wany at uhv.edu and mfasli at essex.ac.uk.

Important Dates
Deadline for Submission: 			January 1, 2010
Preliminary Decision: 				February 1, 2010
Revised paper submission: 			April 15, 2010
Final acceptance following revisions: 	May 15, 2010
Final versions due: 				July 15, 2010
Publication Date: 				August 2010