As models grow more complex and societal demands for transparency increase with emerging regulations, explainability has become an even more important research area. However, despite its recognized relevance, explainability research in IR has seen slower progress than in related fields. This full day workshop aims to advance research in explainable information retrieval by providing a more in-depth platform to reflect on recent developments and facilitate discussions to address new and persistent challenges. Our goal is to bring together a diverse group of researchers to build a shared understanding of key tasks and challenges that will lay the foundation for the future of explainable IR research.
Theme and Purpose
This workshop aims to address challenges of the field by providing a platform with specific interaction and engagement activities beyond what is possible in the dedicated main conference session. Our overall objective is to establish a shared understanding of explainability concepts, methods, and challenges specific to IR, and to outline a full research agenda to help guide future research. Thus, we have three primary goals:
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Community Building: Bring together researchers interested in XIR to foster discussions and identify key challenges in the field. This includes both established experts in the field as well as new researchers who are interested in working on XIR in the future.
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Showcase Recent Progress: Provide a platform for sharing and discussing XIR research, including work in progress and recently published studies, to increase exposure and encourage discussion on previously faced challenges in the field.
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Future of XIR: Consolidate notions and definitions, establish best practices, and identify challenges of explainability to outline a shared trajectory for future research.
Important Dates
- Submission Deadline: April 23, 2025
- Acceptance Notifications: (Tentative) May 21, 2025
- Workshop Date: July 17, 2025
All deadlines are 11:59 pm, Anywhere on Earth (AoE).
Contact
For any questions, you may contact the workshop organizers at sigir25xirworkshop@gmail.com or at m.c.heuss@uva.nl.