EXTENDED DEADLINE: Identity and Reference on the Semantic Web (IRSW2008) at ESWC2008

Due to many requests , we are extending the deadline for Papers and
Extended Abstracts
to ****  March 13 ***** .


Thanks for your interest!

** our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this message **

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                        CALL FOR PAPERS

                       ESWC 2008 Workshop

       Identity and Reference on the Semantic Web (IRSW2008)
        --------------------------------------------
        Entity-centric Approaches to Information and
               Knowledge Management on the Web

                 Tenerife, Spain - June 1 2008

                http://www.okkam.org/IRSW2008

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 The recent developments of the Semantic Web - and the fast rise of Web
 2.0 applications - make more and more evident that the problem of
 identity and reference through URIs is perhaps the single most
 important issue for fostering the Semantic Web on a global scale. In a
 nutshell: the effective use of the Semantic Web on a global scale
 requires the systematic reuse of stable and global URIs. This in turn
 requires that there exist decentralized agreement on how URIs can be
 used to identify and refer to the same object. So far, uniqueness of
 URIs and reference have often been taken for granted. Initiatives like
 Linked Data, OntoWorld and the large number of proposals aiming at
 using popular identifiers (e.g. Wikipedia's) as "canonical" URIs
 (especially for "real world" objects that aren't accessible on the
 Web) show that a solution to this issue is both urgent and relevant.

 Solving this issue would enable and foster the decentralized and open
 publication of data on the Semantic Web, would allow better and faster
 semantic search engines, would be the basis for a new generation of
 Semantic Web browsers, would start the development of smarter
 applications on the Web. Other vertical (and often commercial)
 initiatives (like XRIs, LSID, DOI, etc.) prove that there is also a
 practical and business potential in a standard solution.

 So far, there is little agreement on how this problem should be
 addressed and solved. On the one hand we need to address technical
 issues:

    *      How do we make sure that people and applications can find
 and reuse pre-existing URIs for different types of entity?
    *      Is HTTP the most appropriate addressing scheme for these URIs?
    *      Should URIs for commonly identified entities, like people,
 organizations or countries, be managed by a central service? If so,
 under what conditions?
    *      Are centralized registries of URIs for different types of
 entities necessary? Can such a registries be built in a decentralized
 manner while still linking data?

 There are also issues of trust and security:

    * What if the same URI is used to make contradictory or undesired
 statements about an entity?
    * Do people or groups really want that a single URIs is
 consistently used to represent knowledge about them on the Web, one
 that could be used to effectively gather data about them?
    * What is an acceptable level of security for any kind of URI registry?
    * Where is the boundary between describing entities and violating
 their privacy?

 Despite the high level of awareness in the community, the potential
 for the integration of information currently published on the Semantic
 Web is still mostly unexploited. FOAF profiles do not have canonical
 and reusable URIs for pointing to people one knows (only ad hoc
 solutions are available, like the email hashcode); the most popular
 ontology editors mint new URIs for any newly started OWL project;
 social networks are not easily portable.

 Starting from such a situation, this workshop aims at collecting
 contributions which can roughly be grouped as follows:

    * Foundations: formal and conceptual theories of identity and
 reference for the Semantic Web
    * Vision papers: visionary solutions to the problems of identity
 and reference
    * Project papers: descriptions of research & development projects
 in this area
    * Experiences: contributions from research and industry that
 illustrate case studies or approaches to deal with the issues of
 identity and reference
    * Critical viewpoints: discussions of advantages and disadvantages
 of previously proposed approaches.

 We especially encourage contributions from groups or organizations
 which are working on identification schemes for large semantic data
 collections,  in order to compare the different practical solutions
 that have been developed to integrate Semantic Web data..

 Workshop's anticipated outcome:

 The anticipated outcome of the workshop is to assess the state of the
 art in the area, as well as to discuss the approach and critically
 evaluate the next steps in pursuing this topic. There is the potential
 for creating the core of a consortium for future R&D projects on the
 topic for both
 academia and industry.

 Submission Details
 ------------------

 All submissions will undergo a thorough peer-review process by
 an international program committee, made up of leading members of
 different communities from "Web 2.0", Semantic Web and Information
 Retrieval researchers and companies.

 Accepted contributions will be included on the ESWC2008
 Conference CD as well as made available as CEUR Online Proceedings

 We invite submissions of two types:

   1. full papers (up to 15 pages in LNCS format)
   2. extended abstracts (up to 4 pages in LNCS format).

 The authors of accepted abstracts will be requested to produce a full
 paper by the time the camera-ready version is due. Accepted
 contributions will be presented at the workshop. Additionally, some
 submissions may be accepted as posters.

 Submissions should be formatted in Springer LNCS format
 (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) and submitted in PDF
 format.
 The submission site can be reached through the webpage
 http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=irsw2008

 Please note that at least one author of an accepted paper must
 register for the ESWC 2008 conference
 Important Dates

    * Paper/abstract submission: March 13, 2008 (EXTENDED DEADLINE!)
    * Notification of acceptance: April 4, 2008
    * Camera ready Paper submission: April 18, 2008
    * Workshop: June 1, 2008


 Organization
 ------------
 Chair
  Paolo Bouquet, University of Trento
 Program Co-Chairs
  Heiko Stoermer, University of Trento
  Giovanni Tummarello, DERI Galway
  Harry Halpin, University of Edinburgh


 Program Committee:

 Karl Aberer             EPFL
 Chris Bizer             Freie Universität Berlin
 David Booth             HP
 Werner Ceusters         University of Buffalo
 Richard Cyganiak        DERI Galway
 Anita De Waard          Elsevier
 Stefan Decker           DERI Galway
 Hugh Glaser             University of Southampton
 Andreas Harth           DERI Galway
 Tom Heath               Talis Information Ltd
 Pierre Levy             University of Ottawa
 Alexander Löser         SAP Research
 Antonio Mana            University of Malaga
 Christian Morbidoni     Universita' Politecnica delle Marche
 Claudia Niederée        L3S Research Center
 Alan Ruttenberg Science Commons US
 Matthias Samwald        DERI Galway
 Leo Sauermann           DFKI
 Henry Thompson          University of Edinburgh UK
 Marco Varone            ExpertSystem    IT
 Bernard Vatant          Mondeca FR

Received on Friday, 7 March 2008 15:42:36 UTC