FOIS 2023: 2nd Call for Papers

*** Apologies for cross-posting ***

FOIS 2023: 2nd Call for Papers
==============================

13th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2023), July 17-20, 2023 (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada) and Sept 18-20, 2023 (Online)

http://fois2023.griis.ca 

We are happy to announce three exciting keynote speakers for FOIS 2023:
- Deborah McGuinness, Tetherless World Senior Constellation Chair and Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
- John Heil, Professor of Philosophy, Washington University, USA and Durham University, UK
- Michael Gruninger, Professor of Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada
More information about our keynotes speakers: https://fois2023.griis.ca/keynote-speakers/

Definition and scope
====================
The FOIS conference is a meeting point for all researchers with an interest in formal ontology. Formal ontology is the systematic study of the types of entities and relations making up the domains of interest represented in modern information systems. The conference encourages submission of high quality, not previously published results on both theoretical issues and practical advancements. FOIS 2023 will have distinct tracks for foundational issues, ontology applications and methods, and domain ontologies.

FOIS aims to be a nexus of interdisciplinary research and communication for researchers from many domains engaging with formal ontology. Common application areas include conceptual modeling, database design, knowledge engineering and management, software engineering, organizational modeling, artificial intelligence, robotics, computational linguistics, the life sciences, bioinformatics and scientific research in general, geographic information science, information retrieval, library and information science, as well as the Semantic Web.

FOIS is the flagship conference of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA: http://iaoa.org/), which is a non-profit organization promoting interdisciplinary research and international collaboration in formal ontology.

Important dates
===============
- Paper submission deadline: 31 January 2023
- Author rebuttal period: March 24-31, 2023 (tentative)
- Notifications: April 10, 2023 (tentative)
- Camera-ready papers: May 1, 2023
- Onsite conference: July 17-20, 2023
- Virtual conference: September 18-20, 2023

The submission deadline for workshops will be after the notifications to allow authors to submit a revised version of rejected papers to any of the conference workshops if the paper topics are appropriate for this workshop.

Location
========
FOIS 2023 will consist of a physical meeting and a virtual meeting: 

An in-person only meeting in Sherbrooke, Quebec from July 17 to 20, 2023 that will be very much like a traditional conference with keynotes, regular talks, workshops and tutorials and plenty of social and networking opportunities. This part will not have a remote participation option, but we plan on recording selected talks (e.g. keynotes). The main conference will be from July 17 to 19 and workshops and tutorials will be held mostly on July 20. 

This will be followed by an online part to be held from September 18 to 20, 2023 that offers an opportunity for presentation and discussion of additional papers that were not presented at the physical meeting in Sherbrooke. 

To plan for this two-part event, authors must at the time of submission indicate their preference and constraints for presenting either on site in Sherbrooke or virtually.  Acceptance will be either  for in-person presentation or for online presentation, at which time authors can no longer change the modality. Since the numbers of in-person and online presentations are limited, we encourage authors to be as flexible as possible to maximize your chance of paper acceptance.  More details are provided in the Submission Instructions. 

Submissions
===========
FOIS 2023 seeks three types of full-length (14 pages) high-quality papers on a wide range of topics:
Foundational papers address content-related ontological issues, their formal representation, and their relevance to some aspect of information systems.

Application and Methods papers address novel systems, methods, and tools related to building, evaluating, or using ontologies, emphasizing the impact of ontology contents.

Domain ontology papers describe a novel ontology for a specific realm of interest, clarifying ontological choices against requirements and foundational theory, and showing ontology use.
Please refer to the submission instructions for more details. As usual, the FOIS proceedings will be published by IOS Press.

The conference will also offer workshops and tutorials related to formal ontologies. See the separate call for workshops and tutorials for more information. 

Topics of interest
==================
Areas of particular interest to FOIS include the following:
- Foundational Issues
- Kinds of entities: particulars/universals, continuants/occurrents, abstracta/concreta, dependent entities/independent entities, natural objects/artifacts, events/processes
- Formal relations: parthood, identity, connection, dependence, constitution, causality, subsumption, instantiation
- Vagueness and granularity
- Space, time, and change
- Methodological issues
- Top-level vs. domain-specific ontologies
- Role of reference ontologies
- Ontology similarity, integration, alignment, matching and entity reconciliation
- Ontology modularity, patterns, and contextuality
- Ontology evaluation, quality, reuse, adaptation, and evolution
- Ontology compliance with FAIR principles
- Formal comparison among ontologies
- Relationship between conceptual modeling and ontologies
- Relationship with cognition, language, semantics, and context
- Connections between knowledge graphs and ontologies
- Methodological issues in the applications of ontologies
- Social issues, such as trust or bias, with respect to ontologies 
- Applications
- Technical applications of ontologies, such as
- Semantic Web
- Other areas of AI (Machine Learning, Explainable AI, Rules)
- Qualitative modeling
- Systems applications of ontologies, such as
- Ontology-driven information systems design
- Ontology-based data access
- Knowledge management
- Information retrieval
- Computational linguistics
- Metadata management
- Domain applications of ontologies, such as
- Ontologies for business modeling
- Ontologies for particular scientific disciplines (biology, chemistry, geography, physics, geoscience, cognitive sciences, linguistics, etc.)
- Ontologies for engineering: shape, form and function, artifacts, manufacturing, design, architecture, etc.
- Ontologies for the humanities: arts, cultural studies, history, literature, philosophy, etc.
- Ontologies for the social sciences: economics, law, political science, anthropology, archeology, etc.
- Ontologies for Open Science and dataset sharing
- Domain-specific ontologies
- Ontology of physical reality (matter, space, time, motion, etc.)
- Ontology of biological reality (organisms, genes, proteins, cells, etc.)
- Ontology of mental reality and agency (beliefs, intentions, emotions, perceptions, cognition, etc.)
- Ontology of artifacts, functions, capacities and roles
- Ontology of social reality (institutions, organizations, norms, social relationships, artistic expressions, etc.)

Conference Organization
=======================
General Chair: 
- Antony Galton, University of Exeter, UK

PC Chairs: 
- Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles, IRIT-CNRS Toulouse, France
- Torsten Hahmann, University of Maine, USA

Local Organization Chair: 
- Jean-François Ethier, University of Sherbrooke, Canada 

Online Chair: 
- Cassia Trojahn, IRIT Université Toulouse 2, France

Workshop and Tutorial Chairs: 
- Megan Katsumi, University of Toronto, Canada
- Emilio Sanfilippo, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy

Early Career Chairs: 
- Antoine Zimmermann, École des Mines de Saint-Étienne (EMSE), France
- Guendalina Righetti, Free University Bozen/Bolzano, Italy

Demo & Showcase Chairs: 
- Sergio de Cesare, University of Westminster, UK
- Tiago Prince Sales, University of Twente, Netherlands

Publicity Chairs: 
- Lucia Gomez Alvarez, TU Dresden, Germany
- Selja Seppälä, University College Cork, Ireland

Proceedings Chair: 
- Maria Hedblom, Jönköping University, Sweden

Program committee: https://fois2023.griis.ca/conference-organization/