ANNOUNCEMENT: WWW7 Workshop on Internet Middleware and Data Modeling

Call for Participation
_________________


WWW7 Workshop on Internet Middleware and Data Modeling
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1. Overview

The main objective of this workshop is to bring together
researchers and developers working on designing extensible
object frameworks for the World-Wide Web and those
interested in utilizing these frameworks to apply a
data-modeling approach to Web site construction. This
workshop is meant to be a follow-up to the WWW6 Workshop
on Object-Oriented Web Servers and Data Modeling
that was organized in Santa Clara, CA in the spring of 1997
("http://www.pww.pencom.com/metamagic/workshop97/").
The desired result of the new workshop is to encourage and
enhance cooperation between researchers and developers
in the area.

With the expansion of the World-Wide Web, there has been
a tremendous growth in the redundancy of data.  It is very
often the case that a new Web site is created by copying,
rearranging and reformatting information from other sites in
order to satisfy some specialized search and presentation
requirements.  The result is a large waste of human resources
and Internet bandwidth, as well as a maintenance nightmare.
Some of the most promising solutions to this problem have
involved applying a data-modeling approach to designing and
building Web sites.  In such an approach, the Web site does
not necessarily contain the data <em>per se</em>, but instead
contains metadata entities that facilitate access to the
desired data. The World Wide Web Consortium has undertaken
an important step in this direction by starting the
Resource Description Framework (RDF) standadization effort.

In parallel with this work, the proliferation of Java has
served as a catalyst for a number of efforts toward designing
and implementing new object-oriented extensions to HTTP
servers, the most promising to date being the Servlet mechanism
from JavaSoft. CORBA and IIOP are also playing a role in bringing
an object-oriented perspective to Web applications.

We see in these trends -- the data-modeling approach and the
emergence of object-oriented application frameworks -- the
potential for a great deal of synergy.  This synergy was clearly
indicated by the high level of interest in last year's workshop
and the resulting fruitful exchange of information between
workshop participants.


2. Workshop Committee

Leon Shklar           (shklar@cs.rutgers.edu)
Dave Makower    (davemak@pencom.com)
Sveta Gurevich     (sveta@pencom.com)


3. Participation

We are looking for participation by any and all of the following
categories of individuals and groups:

1. those involved in data-modeling approaches to Web site construction,
2. those involved in building Internet middleware solutions,
3. those involved in creating object-oriented frameworks for extending
    existing HTTP servers,
4. anyone involved in integrating the above activities.

Please submit position papers (1-5 pages, in HTML) via email to
Leon Shklar at  shklar@cs.rutgers.edu, no later than Friday, March 6,
1998. Emailed submissions may consist of either a complete
position paper or a URL where a complete position paper may be accessed.

Notification of acceptance will be given byFriday, March 13, 1998.
For more information and guidelines for workshop submissions, please see

our workshop site at "http://www.pww.pencom.com/metamagic/workshop98/"
and the WWW7 workshop site at "http://www7.conf.au/workshop.html".


4. Workshop Venue

This workshop will be conducted on April 14, 1998, in conjunction with
the
WWW7 Conference in Brisbane Australia.


+-------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+
|   Dave Makower    |   davemak@pencom.com  |  Internet Technologist  |
+-------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+
|     Co-author of "Java Programming Basics" (Henry Holt/MIS:Press)   |
|                 http://www.pencom.com/javabasics/                   |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+
|   Pencom Web Works               |   (212) 513-7777   voice         |
|   40 Fulton St.                  |   (212) 513-1014   fax           |
|   New York, NY  10038            |   http://www.pencom.com/         |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+

Received on Monday, 9 February 1998 18:03:42 UTC