Fairness and Bias in Recommender Systems

Alleviating the unfairness issue with knowledge-aware recommendation models

Bachelor Thesis (2025)
Author(s)

Y.Z. Popov (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Contributor(s)

Masoud Mansoury – Mentor (TU Delft - Multimedia Computing)

Masoud Mansoury – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Multimedia Computing)

Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
More Info
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Graduation Date
27-06-2025
Awarding Institution
Delft University of Technology
Project
['CSE3000 Research Project']
Programme
['Computer Science and Engineering']
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
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Abstract

This study investigates fairness in knowledge-aware recommender systems by evaluating their performance across both accuracy and fairness metrics. Using the MovieLens 1M dataset, we compare general, knowledge-aware, and fairness-optimized models through a custom RecBole-based pipeline. Results indicate knowledge-aware models offer some fairness benefits without major accuracy loss, though no model excels universally. Adjusting loss component weights reveals complex trade-offs and component importance, underscoring the need for nuanced fairness optimization.

Files

TUD-RP-FINAL-PAPER.pdf
(pdf | 0.378 Mb)
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