Semantic Web Challenge 2009

Call for Participation

7th Semantic Web Challenge - Open Track and Billion Triples Track

at the

8th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2009)

Chantilly, Virginia, USA
October 25-29, 2009

http://challenge.semanticweb.org/

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*****

We invite submissions to the seventh annual Semantic Web Challenge, the
premiere event for demonstrating practical progress towards achieving
the vision of the Semantic Web.

The central idea of the Semantic Web is to extend the current human-
readable Web by encoding some of the semantics of resources in a
machine-processable form. Moving beyond syntax opens the door to more
advanced applications and functionality on the Web. Computers will be
better able to search, process, integrate and present the content of
these resources in a meaningful, intelligent manner.

As the core technological building blocks are now in place, the next
challenge is to show off the benefits of semantic technologies by
developing integrated, easy to use applications that can provide new
levels of Web functionality for end users on the Web or within
enterprise settings. Applications submitted should demonstrate clear
practical value that goes above and beyond what is possible with
conventional web technologies alone.

The Semantic Web Challenge of 2009 will consist of two tracks: the Open
Track and the Billion Triples Track. The key difference between the two
tracks is that the Billion Triples Track requires the participants to
make use of the data set — a billion triples — that has been crawled
from the Web and is provided by the organizers. The Open Track has no
such restrictions.

As before, the Challenge is open to everyone from academia and
industry. The authors of the best applications will be awarded prizes
and featured prominently at special sessions during the conference.


GOALS
-----
The overall goal of this event is to advance our understanding of how
semantic technologies can be exploited to produce useful applications
for the Web. Semantic Web applications should integrate, combine, and
deduce information from various sources to assist users in performing
specific tasks.

The specific goal of the Billion Triples Track is to demonstrate the
scalability of applications as well as capability to deal with the
specifics of data that has been crawled from the public Web.

We stress that the goal of this is not to be a benchmarking effort
between triple stores, but rather to demonstrate applications that can
work on Web scale using realistic Web-quality data.


Minimal Requirements
--------------------
Submissions for the Semantic Web Challenge must meet the following
minimum requirements:

For the Open Track:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. The meaning of data has to play a central role.
* Meaning must be represented using formal descriptions.
* Data must be manipulated/processed in interesting ways to derive
useful information and
* this semantic information processing has to play a central role
in achieving things that alternative technologies cannot do as well, or
at all;
2. The information sources used
* should be under diverse ownership or control
* should be heterogeneous (syntactically, structurally, and
semantically), and
* should contain substantial quantities of real world data (i.e.
not toy examples).
3. The application has to be an end-user application, i.e. an
application that provides a practical value to domain experts.

Although we expect that most applications will use RDF, RDF Schema, or
OWL this is not a requirement. What is more important is that whatever
semantic technology is used, it plays a central role in achieving
interesting new levels of functionality or performance.

It is required that all applications assume an open world, i.e. that
the information is never complete.

Additional Desirable Features
-----------------------------
In addition to the above minimum requirements, we note other desirable
features that will be used as criteria to evaluate submissions.
- The application provides an attractive and functional Web interface
(for human users)
- The application should be scalable (in terms of the amount of data
used and in terms of distributed components working together).
Ideally, the application should use all data that is currently
published on the Semantic Web.
- Rigorous evaluations have taken place that demonstrate the benefits
of semantic technologies, or validate the results obtained.
- Novelty, in applying semantic technology to a domain or task that
have not been considered before
- Functionality is different from or goes beyond pure information
retrieval
- The application has clear commercial potential and/or large existing
user base
- Contextual information is used for ratings or rankings
- Multi-media documents are used in some way
- There is a use of dynamic data (e.g. workflows), perhaps in
combination with static information
- The results should be as accurate as possible (e.g. use a ranking of
results according to context)
- There is support for multiple languages and accessibility on a range
of devices

For the Billion Triples Track:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The primary goal of the Billion triple track is to demonstrate
applications that can work on Web scale using realistic Web-quality
data. The organizers therefore provide a billion triple large dataset
that has been crawled from the Web and has to be used by the
applications. The functionality of the applications can involved
anything from helping people figure out what is in the dataset via
browsing, visualization, profiling, etc; could include inferencing that
adds information not directly queriable in the original dataset; etc.

Submissions for the Billion Triples Track must meet the following
minimum requirements:

1. The tool or application has to make use of at least a significant
portion of the data provided by the organizers.
2. The tool or application is allowed to use other data that can be
linked to the target dataset, but there is still an expectation that
the primary focus will be on the data provided.
3. The tool or application does not have to be specifically an end-user
application, as defined for the Open Track Challenge, but usability is
a concern. The key goal is to demonstrate an interaction with the
large data-set driven by a user or an application. However, given the
scale of this challenge, solutions that can be justified as leading to
such applications, or as crucial to the success of future applications,
will be considered.

It is desired that all applications assume an open world, i.e. that the
information is never complete. However, applications that can show
useful ways to "close the world" for sections of the dataset will be
considered.

Additional Desirable Features
-----------------------------
In addition to the above minimum requirements, we note other desirable
features that will be used as criteria to evaluate submissions.
- The application should do more than simply store/retrieve large
numbers of triples
- The application or tool(s) should be scalable (in terms of the
amount of data used and in terms of distributed components working
together)
- The application or tool(s) should show the use of the very large,
mixed quality data set
- The application should either function in real-time or, if pre-
computation is needed, have a real-time realization (but we will take a
wide view of "real time" depending on the scale of what is done)

How to participate
------------------
Visit http://challenge.semanticweb.org in order to participate and
register for the Semantic Web Challenge by submitting the required
information as well as a link to the application on the online
registration form. The form will be open until October 1, 2009, 12am
CET.

The requirements of this entry are:

1) Abstract: no more than 200 words.
2) Description: The description will show details of the system
including why the system is innovative, which features or functions the
system provides, what design choices were made and what lessons were
learned. Papers should not exceed eight pages and must be formatted
according to the same guidelines as the papers in the Research Track
(see http://iswc2009.semanticweb.org/).
3) Web access: The application should be accessible via the web. If the
application is not publicly accessible, passwords should be provided.
We also ask to provide a (short) instruction on how to start and use
the application.

Descriptions will be published in the form of an online proceedings.

Prizes
------

A prize in money will be provided to the winners along with publicity
for their work:
1. Prize: 1.000 €
2. Prize: 500 €
3. Prize: 250 €

The winners will also be asked to give a live demonstration of their
application at the ISWC 2009 conference. The winners will also be asked
to give a live demonstration of their application at the ISWC 2009
conference. The best applications will also have a chance to appear as
full papers in the Journal of Web Semantics.

In the event that one of the tracks receive less than a minimal number
of submissions, the organizers reserve the right to merge the two
tracks of the competition.

IMPORTANT DATES
--------- -----
October 1, 2009: Submissions due
October 25-29, 2009: ISWC 2009 Technical Program

SWC Co-Chairs
-------------
Chris Bizer (Freie Universität Berlin)
Peter Mika (Yahoo! Research Barcelona)


Contact:
--------
Peter Mika
Yahoo! Research Barcelona
Avinguda Diagonal 177, 8th floor
Barcelona, 08018
Catalunya, Spain
(Phone) +34 93 183-8846
(Fax) + 34 93 183-8901
Email: pmika at yahoo-inc.com
Web: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~pmika/


Cheers,

Chris Bizer and Peter Mika

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2009 15:48:36 UTC