Enhancing content-based recommendation with the task model of classication

In this paper, we define reusable inference steps for content-based recommender systems based on semantically-enriched collections. We show an instantiation in the case of recommending artworks and concepts based on a museum domain ontology and a user profile consisting of rated artworks and rated concepts. The recommendation task is split into four inference steps: realization, classification by concepts, classification by instances, and retrieval. Our approach is evaluated on real user rating data. We compare the results with the standard content-based recommendation strategy in terms of accuracy and discuss the added values of providing serendipitous recommendations and supporting more complete explanations for recommended items. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.