Call for Participation: the Sixth Semantic Web Challenge: Open Track and Billion Triples Track

Call for the Sixth Semantic Web Challenge
Open Track and Billion Triples Track
at the International Semantic Web Conference ISWC 2008
Karlsruhe, Germany
November 11-15th, 2007

http://challenge.semanticweb.org/

****************************************************************************

We invite submissions to the sixth 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.

Unlike in previous years, the Semantic Web Challenge of 2008 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-- 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 to encourage the
development of applications that can deal with Web data.
We stress that the goal of this is not to be a benchmarking effort
between triple stores, but rather to demonstrate applications that
can scale to a 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)
- Rigorous evaluations have taken place that demonstrate the benefits
 of semantic technologies, or validate the results obtained.
- The application should be scalable (in terms of the amount of data
 used and in terms of distributed components working together)
- 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:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. The primary goal is to for submissions to show how they add value
  to the very large triple store.  This can involved anything from
  helping people figure out what is in the store via browsing,
  visualization, etc; could include inferencing that adds
  information not directly queriable in the original dataset;
  could involve showing how ontological information could be tied
  to part(s) or the whole of the dataset; etc.

2. The tool or application has to make use of at least a significant
  portion of the data provided by the organizers.

3. 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.

4. 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 very large 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, 2008, 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://iswc2008.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. The winners will also be asked to give a live demonstration of
their application at the ISWC 2008 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, 2008       Submissions due
 October 26-30, 2008   ISWC 2008 Technical Program


SWC Co-Chairs
-------------
Jim Hendler (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Peter Mika (Yahoo! Research Barcelona)


SWC Advisory Board
-------------------
Dean Allemang (TopQuadrant) Jürgen Angele (Ontoprise) Mike Dean
(BBN Technologies) Stefan Decker (DERI, Galway) Jérôme Euzenat
(INRIA Rhone-Alpes) Ian Horrocks (University of Manchester)
Atanas Kiryakov (OntoText) Michel Klein (Vrije Universiteit,
Amsterdam) Deborah McGuinness (Stanford University) Rob Shearer
(University of Manchester) Amit Sheth (Wright State University)
York Sure (University of Karlsruhe) Hideaki Takeda (National
Institute of Informatics, Tokyo) Ubbo Visser (University of
Bremen)


Contact:
--------
Peter Mika Yahoo! Research Barcelona Ocata 1 08001 Barcelona,
Spain Tel: +34 935 421 165 Fax: +34 935 421 150 Email: pmika at
yahoo-inc.com Web: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~pmika/

Received on Monday, 5 May 2008 23:52:02 UTC