CFP CIKM'14 Workshop on Exploiting Semantic Annotations: Deadline July 30

Seventh Workshop on
Exploiting Semantic Annotations for Information Retrieval (ESAIR'14)

CIKM 2014, November 7, Shanghai
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~kamps/esair14/

Submissions due: July 30

* Call for Papers

There is an increasing amount of structure on the Web as a result of 
modern Web languages, micro-formats and linked data, user tagging and 
annotation, and emerging robust NLP tools. These meaningful, semantic, 
annotations hold the promise to significantly enhance information 
access, by increasing the depth of analysis of today's systems. 
Currently, we have only started exploring the possibilities and only 
begin to understand how these valuable semantic cues can be put to 
fruitful use. To complicate matters, standard text search excels at 
shallow information needs expressed by short keyword queries, and here 
semantic annotation contributes very little, if anything.

The main remaining challenge is on the user's side, and a more dynamic 
approach is emerging by exploiting new forms of query autosuggest.  The 
potential of rich document annotations can only be realized if matched 
by more articulate queries exploiting these powerful retrieval cues. How 
can the query suggestion paradigm be used to encourage searcher to 
articulate longer queries, with concepts and relations linking their 
statement of request to existing semantic models?   How do entity 
results and social network data  in “graph search” change the classic 
division between searchers and information and lead to extreme 
personalization -- are you the query?  How to leverage transaction logs 
and recommendation, and how adaptive should we make the system?   What 
are the privacy ramifications and the UX aspects -- how to avoid 
creeping out users?

* Many Open Questions

The Workshop will bring together researchers working with semantic 
annotations, its use cases, its sources (authoring to NLP tools), its 
users, and its use in DB, IR, KM, or Web research, and work together on 
a range of open questions:

- Application/Use Case: What are use cases that make obvious the need 
for semantic annotation of information? What tasks cannot be solved by 
document retrieval using the traditional bag-of-words? What is keeping 
searchers from exploring these powerful search request? What impact has 
the web of data with more and more information in preprocessed form?

- Annotations: What types of annotation are available? Are there crucial 
differences between author-, software-, user-, and machine-generated 
annotations? Do we annotate types/classes/categories ("person") or 
instances ("Albert Einstein")? How similar or different are linked data 
and annotated text? What are the limitations of the current annotations 
schemes, and how to overcome them?

- Rich Context: Do we annotate text? Or also search requests and 
interactions, and their broader context? Besides personalization and 
geo-positional information, mobiles have a wide and growing range of 
locational, mechanical and even biometrical sensor data available to 
them. Can kick-start the query by inferring task and situational context 
in the mobile use case?

- (Un)certainty: How should we interpret the annotations? Can we 
reliably link textual annotations to known entity catalogs? Can expect a 
messy world to be captured in a clean set of meaningful categories? Or 
is all information fundamentally uncertain and only partly known? How 
can we fruitfully combine information retrieval and semantic web approaches?

These and other related questions will be discussed at this open format 
workshop -- the aim is to provide paths for further research to change 
the way we understand information access today!

* We Need Your Help!

Help us shape the future of information access by increasing the depth 
of analysis of today's systems:

- Submit a short 2+1-page research or position paper explaining your key 
wishes or key points,

- and take actively part in the discussion at the Workshop.

What's a 2+1 page paper?  We like short and focused contributions 
highlighting your main point, claim, observation, finding, experiment, 
project, etc, (roughly 2 pages of mainly text) but we also like clear 
tables, graphs, and full citations (that's the "+1" page). So your 
submission can up three pages, as long as max. 2 of them are narrative text.

The deadline is Wednesday July 30, 2014, further submission details are 
on http://staff.science.uva.nl/~kamps/esair14/

We are looking forward to a productive, stimulating and fruitful 
workshop day in the tradition of previous ESAIR workshops -- come join 
the discussion!

Omar Alonso, Microsoft
Jaap Kamps, University of Amsterdam
Jussi Karlgren, Gavagai & KTH Stockholm

Received on Monday, 26 May 2014 11:07:55 UTC