**5.1 The choice problem**

In our case, the decision makers are seafarers and employees of the shipping industry. These decision makers face different choice situations and have widely different tastes.

The recommender system acts as an automated training advisor. It facilitates a bundle of courses choice selection task by recommending courses that would satisfy employees' personal preferences and suit their abilities and interests.

The underlying hypothesis is that trainees perceive courses as a bundle of attributes. The utility of a course to a particular individual is a function of its attributes. Once those attributes are defined, discrete choice models can be used to calculate the utility of a set of courses, and the bundle of courses with the highest utilities would be selected.
