Final Reminder: CfP for ISKO-UK Biennial Conference – 13/14 July 2015. "Knowledge Organization - Making a difference"

Dear Colleagues in the SKOS community,
Please don't forget this great opportunity next July to show off the 
value of your work with KOSs, with all the convenience of a London 
venue. See more at http://www.iskouk.org/conf2015/index.htm. We need 
only a short abstract - 300-500 words - and the deadline for submissions 
has been extended from 29 November to 7 December.
Hoping to hear from you,
Stella Dextre Clarke
Chair, ISKO-UK and Vice-President, ISKO
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*CALL FOR PAPERS*

*Knowledge Organization **- Making a difference*

The impact of knowledge organization on society, scholarship and progress

**

*ISKO**-UK BIENNIAL CONFERENCE – 13/14 July 2015, London. *This will be 
the fourth biennial conference of the UK Chapter of ISKO (International 
Society for Knowledge Organization). The venue (as for our previous 
conferences) is University College London (UCL).

The systematic and structured organization of knowledge and information 
has far-reaching applications, best known in the search, browsing, 
navigation and exploration of collections and networks. But despite this 
capability, "“what use is classification nowadays?"” some people ask. 
“The era of the physical library is fading, and Google will find 
whatever we want.” This widely held view threatens our budgets as well 
as the reputation of our profession and our ability to attract thought 
leaders into the field. As well as forgetting the way organized 
collections of scientific and cultural literature have underpinned study 
and development throughout the last 2-3 millennia, it neglects our 
current and future reliance on knowledge organization (KO). For example, 
KO techniques are used behind the scenes in Google and other search 
engines, and much more explicitly in intranets, records management 
systems and other in-house applications where Google simply fails.

This conference is an opportunity for all of us to show what impact KO 
has had, is having and could have on economic and social development (at 
macro and/or micro levels). If academic courses are to attract students, 
if research bids are to attract funding, if KO techniques are to be 
applied on the internet and in corporate environments, and if trained KO 
professionals are to find plenty of good jobs, the subject should be 
widely respected as contributing to the general good.

This conference aims to explore, justify and proclaim the continuing 
demand for KO. It will be a showcase for R & D that offers benefits for 
cultural activities and economic development. Practitioners as well as 
theoreticians are invited to contribute, along with consultants, 
researchers, teachers and students. Knowledge Organization can be useful 
to systems designers as well as information managers, with applications 
in areas as diverse as web design, records management, digital asset 
management, network management, etc. So we hope for a wide spread of 
perspectives on the KO theme.

*Conference scope and topics*

Any aspect, application or subdiscipline of knowledge organization is in 
scope, provided the submission casts light on the potential benefit - 
past, present or future - for society, scholarship and progress. R&D 
reports that can be applied in today'’s mobile, networked environment 
are especially welcome. While forward-looking presentations are 
preferred, submissions demonstrating that KO offers no future benefit 
could also be within scope, and will be considered on their merits. 
Examples of relevant topics include:

  * The impact of historical KO developments e.g. launch of UDC,
    influence of Vannevar Bush, etc.
  * Prospects for future influential KO developments
  * Trends in current KO research and where they may lead
  * Costs and benefits of applying and exploiting techniques such as
    classification, social tagging, linked data, corporate taxonomies,
    metadata, etc.
  * Case studies/outcomes of applying KO within the enterprise
  * Prospects for integrating more KO techniques into applications such
    as email, records management, online sales outlets, social media

  * Evaluation/appraisal of social tagging
  * Linked open data initiatives and their impact
  * Use of metadata in coordinating or simplifying workflows
  * Ontologies to improve search results across networked resources
  * Semantic modelling applications
  * KO applied to “Big Data”
  * Development and impact of vocabulary crosswalks and registries
  * Tools, techniques, training and applications for KOS alignment
  * KO for improving access to images or audio collections

*Presentation format, submissions and acceptance criteria*

The conference will include a mix of brief (20-minute) and long 
(40-minute) presentations, as well as a display of posters. Speakers 
will be asked to provide a paper as well as presenting the material in 
person. Together with slides and audio recordings, all the papers 
submitted will be published electronically on the conference website. 
After peer review the four best papers will be selected for publication 
in ISKO'’s journal, Knowledge Organization.

Proposals should be submitted in English via 
<https://www.conftool.net/iskouk2015/> after 8 October and before 29 
November 2014 at latest. (To make the submission you will be asked to 
set up a user account with Conftool, our service provider.) The extent 
to which they demonstrate the benefits and/or impact of Knowledge 
Organization will be the first criterion for acceptance; other important 
factors include originality, clarity of expression and a sound basis on 
theory or current practice. Please provide an abstract of 300-500 words, 
and indicate whether you plan a Brief or Long presentation, or a Poster. 
You will be informed by the first week of February 2015 whether your 
proposal has been accepted. Full papers should be submitted by 1 May 
2015. Editorial guidelines will be available from February 2015, via the 
conference website. Presentation slides too should be submitted by 8 
July 2015. They will be pre-loaded on the conference PC, and released on 
the conference website immediately after the event.

*More background*

ISKO is a not-for-profit scientific/professional association with a 
mission to promote the theory and practice of organizing knowledge and 
information. The emphasis in our UK Chapter is to build bridges between 
the research and practitioner communities, for example at our regular 
and very popular afternoon meetings. You can see past and future events 
at <www.iskouk.org/events.htm>, most with MP3 recordings. The 
proceedings of our previous biennial conferences are available there 
too, in electronic media.


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Stella Dextre Clarke
Chair, ISKO-UK and Vice-President, ISKO
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
stella@lukehouse.org
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