CALL FOR PAPERS: [HIJ] Health Informatics Journal Special Issue CfP

*** CALL FOR PAPERS ***

SUBMISSION DUE DATE: November 14, 2008

SPECIAL ISSUE ON SEMANTIC DESCRIPTIONS OF MEDICAL WEB RESOURCES: TECHNOLOGIES TO SUPPORT THEIR CREATION, MAINTENANCE AND ACCESS, HEALTH INFORMATICS JOURNAL (http://jhi.sagepub.com)

Guest Editors: V. Karkaletsis, P. Karampiperis, M.A. Mayer


Description
===========
The increasing amount of freely available health-related web content generates, on the one hand, excellent conditions for self-education of patients as well as physicians, but on the other hand entails substantial risks if such information is trusted irrespective of low competence or even bad intentions of its authors.

Patients continue to find new ways of reaching health information on the web and more than four out of ten health information seekers say the material they find affects their decisions about their health. However, it is difficult for health information consumers, such as the patients and the general public, to assess by themselves the quality of the information because they are not always familiar with the medical domains and vocabularies.

This is why medical web resources accreditation by renowned authorities is of high importance. However, various health web content surveys show that the proportion of accredited web resources is insufficient because of the difficulty labeling authorities face in coping with the amount and dynamics of the medical web. The content of medical web resources is very variable and difficult to assess.

The development of tools to support the process of describing the content of medical web resources with meta-data that facilitate their retrieval, and with content labels by certified labeling authorities, is crucial for the delivery of content of better quality to health information consumers. Moreover, end-users  description of health-related web resources with opinions and comments has the potential to provide a useful additional source of information to both end-users and labeling authorities.

To this end, the scope of this special issue is to assess the current status and technologies, as well as to outline the major challenges and future perspectives, related to the description of medical web resources.

This special issue continues the 1st International Workshop on Describing Medical Web Resources - DRMed 2008 (www.medieq.org/drmed2008), held in conjunction with the 21st International Congress of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (MIE 2008), May 27, 2008, Goteborg, Sweden.


Subject Coverage
================
Topics for the special issue include, but are not limited to:

 * Knowledge representation and management technologies (e.g. OWL, RDF,
   annotation schemas, etc.) that enable the creation of
   machine-processable descriptions of medical web resources, either
   by experts or simple users.

 * Challenges related to content collection and information extraction
   techniques that allow the retrieval of unclassified/unlabeled web
   resources or the continuous monitoring of already classified/
   labeled ones.

 * Applications of medical Web content certification, utilizing Semantic
   Web technologies/tools.

 * Tools/technologies facilitating end-users  description of
   health-related web resources in social networks.


Notes for Authors
=================
Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of SAGE Publications: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsProdManSub.nav?prodId=Journal201654.


Important Dates
===============
 * Manuscript submission: November 31, 2008

 * Notification of acceptance: January 30, 2009

 * Final manuscript due: March 20, 2009

 * Tentative publication date: Autumn, 2009


Editors and Notes
=================
Papers must be prepared in MS Word format and be submitted by e-mail to the e-mail addresses of the guest editors of this special issue:

Vangelis Karkaletsis and Pythagoras Karampiperis
Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications (IIT)
National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR)  Demokritos 
P. Grigoriou & Neapoleos, Agia Paraskevi, Athens GR-15310, GREECE
E-mail: vangelis[at]iit[dot]demokritos[dot]gr
        pythk[at]iit[dot]demokritos[dot]gr

Miquel Angel Mayer
Web Medica Acreditada,
Medical Association of Barcelona (COMB)
Passeig Bonanova 47, 08017 Barcelona, SPAIN
E-mail: mmayer[dot]wma[at]comb[dot]es


*** Please include in your submission the title of the Special Issue,
    and the title of the Journal. *** 


------------------------------------------
Miquel A. Mayer MD PhD MPH MSc
Director de Web Mèdica Acreditada 
http://wma.comb.es 
Col·legi Oficial de Metges de Barcelona 
Passeig Bonanova 47
08017 Barcelona 
e-mail: mmayer.wma@comb.es 
Tel. +34 93 567 88 35 
Fax +34 93 567 88 36

Received on Thursday, 3 July 2008 09:13:42 UTC