Decision Tasks and Basic Algorithms

Recommender systems are decision support systems helping users to identify one or more items (solutions) that fit their wishes and needs. The most frequent application of recommender systems nowadays is to propose items to individual users. However, there are many scenarios where a group of users should receive a recommendation. For example, think of a group decision regarding the next holiday destination or a group decision regarding a restaurant to visit for a joint dinner. The goal of this book is to provide an introduction to group recommender systems, i.e., recommender systems that determine recommendations for groups. In this chapter, we provide an introduction to basic types of recommendation algorithms for individual users and characterize related decision tasks. This introduction serves as a basis for the introduction of group recommendation algorithms in Chap. 2.