Asbjørn Følstad (editor) - Chatbot Research and Design: 4th International Workshop, CONVERSATIONS 2020, Virtual Event, November 23–24, 2020, Revised Selected Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12604)

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Introduction

Chatbots see continued uptake in a range of application areas. Spurred by interest from industry and service providers, chatbot research is a rapidly growing field with an exponential increase in scientific publications in the last few years. Research areas span from the examination of evolving patterns of use and user experience (UX) to conversational design and studies about the technologies underpinning chatbots such as natural language processing and machine learning. Research also increasingly addresses specific application areas and use cases. For example, research on social and relational chatbots is receiving growing attention; so are chatbots in areas such as customer service, education, health, and commerce. Research is also addressing the potential social implications of chatbots, exploring how chatbots impact individuals patterns of technology use, how chatbots can provide information and support in challenging situations such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and how to facilitate compliance with ethical norms or avoid ethical and normative pitfalls in chatbot development and applications.

In consequence of the increased interest in chatbot research, and the potential social and industrial impact of conversational technology, there is a need to establish arenas for chatbot researchers and practitioners to share, discuss, and collaborate. This is particularly important given the interdisciplinary nature of this field of research, spanning disciplines within the humanities, social sciences, human-computer interaction, technology research, design, and management.

Motivated by this need, we established an international workshop series for chatbot researchers to share work and experiences with fellow researchers, students, and practitioners. CONVERSATIONS 2020 ( https://conversations2020.wordpress.com/ ) was the fourth event in this series, held on November 23-24, 2020. The University of Amsterdam hosted the workshop, in collaboration with SINTEF, CERTH, University of Leicester, University of Edinburgh, University of Agder, and University of Oslo. This year the workshop was organized as a fully virtual online event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In total 150 participants from 31 countries registered for the online workshop.

Paper Invitation, Review, and Revision

We distributed the workshop call for papers to researchers in the field of chatbot research, and to relevant general mailing lists within fields such as human-computer interaction and information systems research. In the call for papers, three submission categories were outlined: Full papers, position papers, and demos. In total, 36 submissions were made to the workshop: 26 full papers, eight position papers, and two demos. A rigorous double-blind review process was conducted with three independent reviewers from the program committee providing detailed feedback on each submission. In addition, each paper was appointed a review lead from the group of workshop organizers coordinating the review process for the paper, proposing a decision recommendation, and providing meta-reviews for accepted papers. Acceptance decisions were made in a dedicated workshop organizers meeting.