Special Issue on Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web, Journal of Web Semantics

---- Apologies for cross-posting ----

Call for Contributions:
Journal of Web Semantics

SPECIAL ISSUE ON

WEB 2.0 AND THE SEMANTIC WEB

Submission Deadline: 1 June 2007

Guest Editors:
Mark Greaves, Vulcan Inc.
Peter Mika, Yahoo! Research Barcelona

The cluster of technologies and design patterns known as Web 2.0 has now 
emerged as the leading contender for “the next evolution of the Web.” 
Researchers, developers, and venture capitalists are all flocking toward 
the banner of Web 2.0, based on its promise of massively increased 
sharing and participation among web users. At the same time, the 
technologies of the Semantic Web have been quietly maturing and 
spreading, and now provide a clear way to apply a basic level of formal 
semantics to a web infrastructure. In their own way, both of these 
technologies address the fundamental semantic concepts of shared meaning.

The Journal of Web Semantics solicits high quality papers on the impact 
of the Web 2.0 revolution and the technology, deployment, and vision of 
the Semantic Web. We are interested comparative papers that address both 
directions of the impact:

1. Semantic Web technologies were initially designed before the rise of 
the Web 2.0 methods for large-scale socially-contributed content. What 
lessons should Semantic Web technologies draw from the popularity of tag 
systems, social networks, mashups, and other Web 2.0 techniques? Does 
the success of the social, user-oriented contribution models of Web 2.0 
impact the way that Semantic Web data should be created, deployed, 
exploited, managed, and shared? In short, should particular aspects of 
the Semantic Web be reconsidered in the light of Web 2.0? For example:

• How can we exploit the wisdom of crowds to extend and maintain 
ontologies and instance information? Could social software provide the 
missing mechanisms for sharing ontologies and metadata? Are there 
implications for existing family of web ontology languages?
• Is the existing work on Semantic Web Services adequate to support the 
Web 2.0 world's practice of creating mashups?
• Are there particular extensions to the Semantic Web base architecture, 
such as privacy, trust, and provenance, that could provide elegant and 
economical solutions to Web 2.0 issues?

2. Web 2.0 applications always depend on some type of shared semantics 
-- for example, between the software components of a mashup, or within 
the user community that contributes to a particular tagging system. Can 
the relative precision and rigor of Semantic Web representations and 
inference add significant value to Web 2.0 applications?

• Are the various Semantic Web "bridge" technologies (like RDFa, GRDDL, 
and SPARQL) adequate to the semantic demands of Web 2.0 applications?
• Can Semantic Web techniques be used to substantially enhance perceived 
user value in Web 2.0 social networks, for example by linking across 
communities?
• How could we leverage commercial Web 2.0 applications and design 
patterns to increase the traction and uptake of the Semantic Web?

Topics of interest range from theoretical issues, methods, tools, system 
descriptions and applications. We are also interested in high-quality, 
carefully-argued discussion papers on the possibilities for convergence 
between these two technologies.

Important Dates:
Deadline for submission: 1 June 2007
Notification of acceptance: 20 July 2007
Final Papers due: 10 August 2007
Special issue's publication: December 2007

Submissions:
We are interested in shorter (~10 pages), highly-targeted papers, which 
may include concurrent publication (via the Journal of Web Semantics’ 
Preprint Server) of companion ontologies, folksonomies, open-source 
code, and the like. On-line paper submission is required, via Elsevier’s 
Author’s Portal for the Journal of Web Semantics. Elsevier has requested 
that we remind authors to select “Special Issue: Socio-Semantic Web” 
when they reach the “Article Type” step in the on-line submission process.

Key URLs and Contact Info:
Elsevier "Journal of Web Semantics" home page and Author Portal: 
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/671322/description#description

Journal of Web Semantics Preprint Server: 
http://www.websemanticsjournal.org/

For any questions, please contact the guest editors:

Mark Greaves
Vulcan Inc.
505 Fifth Ave S., Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104 USA
markg@vulcan.com
+1 (206) 342 2276

Peter Mika
Yahoo! Research Barcelona
Ocata 1, 1st floor
08003 Barcelona
Catalunya, Spain
pmika@yahoo-inc.com
+34 935 421 165

Received on Thursday, 15 March 2007 15:19:42 UTC