20.3907, FYI: Conversational Agents - Call for book chapters

Sat Nov 14 17:36:08 UTC 2009

LINGUIST List: Vol-20-3907. Sat Nov 14 2009. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 20.3907, FYI: Conversational Agents - Call for book chapters

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1)
Date: 13-Nov-2009
From: Maria Ruiz < maria.ruiz at uam.es >
Subject: Conversational Agents - Call for book chapters

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:33:23
From: Maria Ruiz [maria.ruiz at uam.es]
Subject: Conversational Agents - Call for book chapters

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=20-3907.html&submissionid=2227335&topicid=6&msgnumber=1

Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and
Effective Practices
A book edited by Dr. Diana Perez-Marin and Dr. Ismael Pascual-Nieto
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain

We cordially invite you to submit a chapter for the forthcoming
'Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and
Effective Practices' book to be published by IGI Global
(http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=754). We hope you will
be able to accept our invitation and work on this project with us.

As the book covers several subtopics, we will leave it to your to select an
area for your contribution. The final article is basically 8,000~10,000 w.
 In your submission, we would appreciate if you could categorize your
article in the category (even sub-category) that most appropriately
reflects your work. 

We would be grateful if you could let us know if you are able to accept our
invitation. If so, please send us a chapter proposal before December 16,
2009. The full chapter is due on April 16, 2010. Earlier submissions will
be most useful and appreciated.

Please do not hesitate to contact any of us if you have further queries. We
look forward to hearing from you soon. We also appreciate if you could
alert your colleagues to this project and invite them to submit proposals
for consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Diana Perez-Marin (diana.perez at urjc.es)
Dr. Ismael Pascual-Nieto (ismael.pascual at uam.es)

==================================================
Proposal Submission Deadline: December 16, 2009
Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and
Effective Practices
A book edited by Dr. Diana Perez-Marin and Dr. Ismael Pascual-Nieto
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
To be published by IGI Global: http://www.igiglobal.
com/requests/details.asp?ID=754

Introduction
Human-Computer Interaction can be understood as two potent information
processors (a human and a computer) trying to communicate with each other
using a highly restricted interface. Natural Language (NL) Interaction,
that is, to let the users express in natural language could be the solution
to improve the communication between human and computers.
Conversational agents exploit NL technologies to engage users in text-based
information-seeking and task-oriented dialogs for a broad range of
applications such as e-commerce, help desk, Web site navigation,
personalized service, and education. The benefits of agent expressiveness
have been highlighted both for verbal expressiveness and for non-verbal
expressiveness. On the other hand, there are also studies indicating that
when using conversational agents mixed results can appear. These studies
reveal the need to review the research in a field with a promising future
and a great impact in the area of Human-Computer Interaction.

Objective of the Book
The main objective of the book is to identify the most effective practices
when using conversational agents for different applications. Some secondary
objectives to fulfill the main goal are:
- To gather a comprehensive number of experiences in which conversational
agents have been used for different applications
- To review the current techniques which are being used to design
conversational agents
- To encourage authors to publish not only successful results, but also
non-successful results and a discussion of the reasons that may have caused
them

Target Audience
The proposed book is intended to serve as a reference guide for researchers
who want to start their research in the promising field of conversational
agents. It will not be necessary that readers have previous knowledge on
the topic. Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Fundamental concepts
- Definition and taxonomy of conversational agents
- Motivation, benefits, and issues of their use
- Underlying psychological and social theories
2. Design of conversational agents
- Techniques
- Frameworks
- Methods
3. Practices
- Experiences of use of conversational agents in:
- E-commerce
- Help desk
- Website navigation
- Personalized service
- Training or education
- Results achieved
- Discussion of the reasons of their success of failure
4. Future trends
- Issues that should be solved in the future
- Expectations for the future

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December
16, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and
concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will
be notified by January 16, 2010 about the status of their proposals and
sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters (8,000-10,000 words) are expected to
be submitted by April 16, 2010. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on
a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as
reviewers for this project.

Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group
Inc.), publisher of the "Information Science Reference" (formerly Idea
Group Reference), "Medical Information Science Reference," "Business
Science Reference," and "Engineering Science Reference" imprints. For
additional information regarding the publisher, please visit
www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2011.

Important Dates
December 16, 2009: Proposal Submission Deadline
January 16, 2010: Notification of Acceptance
April 16, 2010: Full Chapter Submission
June 30, 2010: Review Results Returned
July 30, 2010: Final Chapter Submission
September 30, 2010: Final Deadline

Editorial Advisory Board Members
Dr. Rafael Calvo, University of Sydney, Australia
Dr. Diane Inkpen, University of Ottawa, Canada
Dr. Pamela Jordan, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
Dr. Ramón López Cózar, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Dr. Max Louwerse, University of Memphis, U.S.A.
Dr. José Antonio Macías, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Dr. Mick O'Donnell, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Dr. George Veletsianos, University of Manchester, U.K.
Incompleted list, full list to be announced on November, 16

Inquiries and submissions
Please send all inquiries and submissions (preferably through e-mail) to:
Dr. Diana Perez-Marin, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Email: diana.perez at urjc.es
and
Dr. Ismael Pascual Nieto, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Email: ismael.pascual at uam.es 

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics

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