[DL] CfP: 1st International Workshop on Ontologizing Industrial Standards - OIS 2006 @ ER 2006

[Martin Hepp (DERI extern)]

[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this message]

++ Proceedings as Springer LNCS ++ Abstracts May 1 ++ Submissions May 15 ++

Call for Papers
---------------

First International Workshop on Ontologizing Industrial Standards - OIS 2006

        
http://events.deri.at/ois2006/

in conjunction with the 

25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER2006)

November 6-9, 2006, Tucson, Arizona, USA

============================================================================
Important Dates:
----------------
Abstracts: 		May 1, 2006
Full papers: 	May 15, 2006
Notification: 	June 14, 2006
Camera-ready:	July 5, 2006
Workshop:		Nov 6, 2006 (to be confirmed)
============================================================================

Theme and Objectives:
----------------------------------
A major bottleneck towards business applications of Semantic Web technology 
and machine reasoning is the lack of industry-strength ontologies that go 
beyond academic prototypes. The design of such ontologies from scratch in a
textbook-style ontology engineering process is in many cases unattractive, 
for (1) it would require significant effort, and (2) because the resulting 
ontologies could not build on top of existing community commitment. Also, 
real-world problems of data and systems interoperability can only be 
overcome using Semantic Web technology if ontologies exist that represent 
the very standards currently in use in systems and databases.

There exist at least four major categories of such standards:

   1. XML schema definitions for message exchange (OAGIS, BMEcat, ebXML, 
      RosettaNet, OASIS UBL, .)
   2. Non-XML message format standards (UN/EDIFACT, X12, SWIFT, VDA, SEDAS, 
      EANCOM, CIF,.)
   3. Taxonomies and thesauri (eCl at ss, UNSPSC, RosettaNet technical 
      dictionary, .)
   4. Numbering schemes and other shallow vocabularies (EAN, UPC, DUNS, ILN,
      ISO 639,.)

These specifications, though mostly informal in nature, are likely the most 
valuable asset on the way to real business ontologies that can help solve 
real business interoperability problems, since they reflect some degree of
community consensus and contain, readily available, a wealth of concept 
definitions. However, the transformation of such standards into useful 
ontologies is not as straightforward as it appears, because of the 
following reasons:

1. The specifications come in a variety of formats, e.g. XML, CSV, 
   Microsoft Access, PDF, or plain text, and mostly lack a formal
meta-model.
2. The specification and the documentation can be very voluminous, rendering
   manual translation unfeasible.
3. The same standard can be used in different ways with incompatible 
   semantics in different contexts.

In this workshop we want to advance the state of the art in mechanized and 
semi-automated transformation of existing industrial standards into useful 
ontologies. 

Possible topics include, but are not limited to

- Conceptual approaches and algorithms for deriving ontologies from thesauri
  and inconsistent taxonomies and XML Schema definitions
- Axiomatization of resulting ontologies using Human-Language Technologies 
  on textual descriptions and other HL elements
- Work-arounds and modeling patterns in RDF-S and OWL and other popular 
  ontology languages 
- Semi-automated and fully mechanized extraction of standards from human-
  readable specifications (e.g. PDF)
- Correct interpretation and representation of the original semantics of 
  existing standards
- Ontology Grounding and Upper Ontologies
- Standards alignment (e.g. mapping, matching, merging, mediation, and 
  reconciliation)
- Intellectual Property Rights issues
- Optimal degree of mechanization

Submissions:
------------------
We invite submissions of short or full papers reflecting both research in 
progress and validated results that address any relevant dimension of the 
problem. 
Especially welcome will be papers covering successful examples, lessons 
learned, and best practices of such transformations, e.g. in the Web 
Services domain so that existing Web Services specifications can be used for
Semantic Web services frameworks like WSMO and OWL-S.

All papers will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the Program 
Committee. Papers should be formatted in Springer LNCS format 
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) and submitted as PDF 
documents. Full papers should be 14 pages (maximum: 16), short papers should
be up to 8 pages.

Accepted papers will be published as part of the ER2006 Workshop volume, 
planned for publication by Springer in their LNCS series. Camera-ready 
versions must not be longer than 14 pages.

The submission system for the workshop will be available by April 15 at

http://events.deri.at/ois2006/

If you have any questions, please contact Martin Hepp at 
mhepp(AT)computer(DOT)org.

For accepted submissions, at least one author must register for the workshop
in order for the paper to appear in the proceedings and to be scheduled in 
the workshop program. 

More information on the venue, registration, hotels, and related events will
be available at http://adrg.eller.arizona.edu/ER2006/

In addition, we will provide more detailed information on the workshop Web
site http://events.deri.at/ois2006/.

Organizing Committee:
---------------------
Martin Hepp
Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), University of Innsbruck
E-Mail: mhepp[AT]computer[DOT]org
Web site: http://www.heppnetz.de / http://www.deri.at

Miltiadis Lystras
Athens University of Economics & Business, Athens, Greece
E-Mail: mdl[AT]aueb[DOT]gr
Web site: http://www.eltrun.aueb.gr/content/members/m_mdl.html

Richard Benjamins
iSOCO - Intelligent Software for the networked economy, Madrid, Spain
E-Mail: rbenjamins[AT]isoco[DOT]com
Web site: http://www.isoco.com/

Program Committee:
------------------
Chris Bizer, Free University of Berlin 
Chris Bussler, Cisco 
Jorge Cardoso, University of Madeira 
Oscar Corcho, University of Manchester 
Jos de Bruijn, DERI Innsbruck 
Doug Foxvog, DERI Galway 
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento 
Karthik Gomadam, LSDIS Lab, University of Georgia 
Michel Klein, Free University of Amsterdam 
York Sure, University of Karlsruhe 

Administrative Contact:
-----------------------
Martin Hepp
Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) Innsbruck
University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 21a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Phone: +43 512 507 6465, Fax: +43 512 507 9872
E-mail: mhepp[AT]deri[DOT]org
http://www.heppnetz.de

http://events.deri.at/ois2006/ 
 

---------------------------
martin.hepp[AT]deri[DOT]org, phone: +43 512 507 6465
http://www.heppnetz.de  / http://www.deri.org