On December 12, the 2020 ASIS&T Asia-Pacific Regional Conference was held in our university. 184 experts and scholars from the United States, Britain, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other countries jointly discussed Information Behavior and Human-Computer Interaction.

People delivered speeches respectively were as followings:

Feicheng Ma, ASIS&T AP 2020 Conference Chair, Dean of the Big Data Institute of Wuhan University, Senior Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Wuhan University.

Clara M.Chu, Former President of the ASIS&T, Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Michael Olsson, ASIS&T Chapter Assembly Director, Senior Lecturer and Graduate Course Adviser at University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Tina Du, ASIS&T Asian Pacific Chapter Chair, ASIS&T AP 2020 Conference Chair, Associate Professor at University of South Australia, Australia.

Wei Lu, Dean and Professor at School of Information Management, Wuhan University.

Dan Wu, ASIS&T AP 2020 Conference Chair, Professor at School of Information Management, Wuhan University, presided over the opening ceremony.

The theme of the conference was Information Behavior and Human-Computer Interaction, it included discussing the interaction modes between users and information and technology in various environments, covering hot topics in multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, such as human-computer interaction, virtual reality and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and intelligent medicine, aiming to promote the interdisciplinary and development of the research in the field of information behavior and human-computer interaction. The conference adopted the forms of paper report, keynote speech, group discussion and poster demonstration, providing a platform for the exchange and collision of ideas for the participants in the field of information research and practitioners.

At the meeting, Professor Gary Machionini, Dean of the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, delivered a keynote speech entitled HCI and AI: Keeping the Human in Control. Jim Jansen, Professor at Qatar Computing Research Institute, The College of Science and Engineering, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar, and College of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, USA, and editor in chief of Information Processing & Management, a top journal in information science delivered a keynote speech entitled Science Wants Numbers About People: The Numbers are Probably Wrong. Professor Sanda Erdelez at the School of Library and Information Science, Simmons University, USA, delivered a keynote speech entitled Human Information Behavior Research: From Ivory Tower to Main Street. Bin Wang, Director and Chief Scientist of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd, China delivered a keynote speech entitled Challenges and Opportunities in Real NLP Applications.

During the two-day conference, there were five long paper reports, two short paper reports, two panels and one poster demonstration. Experts and scholars from more than 20 research institutions in the Asia Pacific region shared more than 30 research papers. The topics of the two panels were The Use of Social Media in Information Research and INFODEMIC: Standpoints and Solutions from Information Scientists. Experts and scholars from Nanyang Polytechnic University of Singapore, Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, Wuhan University, Nanjing University, Renmin University of China, University of Hong Kong, University of Macau and other well-known universities participated in the relevant discussions.

In the best paper selection, How Users’ Gaze Behavior is Related to Their Quality Evaluation of a Health Website Based on HONcode Principles? by scholars from Nanjing University and University of South Australia won the Best Long Paper Award. Examination of Effects of Time Constraint and Task Type on Users’ Query Typing Behaviors by scholars from Peking University and Carnegie Mellon University won the Best Short Paper Award. Paper by researchers from the University of Hong Kong and Simmons University won the Best Paper Honorable Mention.

The conference was hosted by Data and Information Management, an English journal managed by Wuhan University, and supported by ASIS&T Asia Pacific Division, School of Information Management, Center for Studies of Information Resources, Big Data Institute, and Human-Computer Interaction and User Behavior Research Center of our university.

Data and Information Management is one of the earliest English journals in the field of Library and Information Science in China. The relevant person in charge said that the successful holding of the conference was an important manifestation of Wuhan University's active participation in international academic exchanges and cooperation, as well as the recognition of China's academic status and level in the field of international information science.