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Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open Access via Drexel Libraries Read and Publish Program 2025 Open CC BY-SA V4.0
Journal article
Recommending With, Not For: Co-Designing Recommender Systems for Social Good
ACM transactions on recommender systems, v 5(1), pp 1-24
06 Aug 2025
Featured in Collection : Research Supported by Drexel Libraries' OA Programs
Abstract
Recommender systems are usually designed by engineers, researchers, designers, and other members of development teams. These systems are then evaluated based on goals set by the aforementioned teams and other business units of the platforms operating the recommender systems. This design approach emphasizes the designers’ vision for how the system can best serve the interests of users, providers, businesses, and other stakeholders. Although designers may be well-informed about user needs through user experience and market research, they are still the arbiters of the system’s design and evaluation, with other stakeholders’ interests less emphasized in user-centered design and evaluation. When extended to recommender systems for social good, this approach results in systems that reflect the social objectives as envisioned by the designers and evaluated as the designers understand them. Instead, social goals and operationalizations should be developed through participatory and democratic processes that are accountable to their stakeholders. We argue that recommender systems aimed at improving social good should be designed by and with, not just for, the people who will experience their benefits and harms. That is, they should be designed in collaboration with their users, creators, and other stakeholders as full co-designers, not only as user study participants.
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Details
- Title
- Recommending With, Not For: Co-Designing Recommender Systems for Social Good
- Creators
- Michael D. Ekstrand (Corresponding Author) - Drexel University, Information ScienceAfsaneh Razi - Drexel University, Information ScienceAleksandra Sarcevic - Drexel University, Information ScienceMaria Soledad Pera - Delft University of TechnologyRobin Burke - University of Colorado BoulderKatherine Landau Wright - University of Oregon
- Publication Details
- ACM transactions on recommender systems, v 5(1), pp 1-24
- Publisher
- Association for Computing Machinery
- Number of pages
- 24
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Other Identifier
- 991022122860404721