CALL FOR PAPERS-FINAL CALL: Deadline extended to July 28
Short abstract requested by July 21
Selected Papers to be Published in Transactions in GIS

Terra Cognita 2008 Workshop on Sunday, Oct. 26

http://asio.bbn.com/terracognita2008/

In Conjunction with the 7th International Semantic Web Conference,

(ISWC 2008), http://iswc2008.semanticweb.org/, Karlsruhe, Germany

 

Workshop Overview

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in a growing field of Semantic Web research: the intersection between Semantic Web data and geospatial data and applications. This workshop follows the Terra Cognita 2006 Workshop at ISWC 2006. Increased interactions between the geospatial and Semantic Web communities are likely to contribute to solving some important spatial data problems within the Semantic Web and to providing indispensable formalizations for upper-level and domain ontologies.

 

Adding a geospatial component will enhance the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web community is in need of both better ways of representing and processing geospatial data and a better understanding of the unique problems geospatial data present. A large proportion of the data available on the Web has an inherent spatial context. This context currently goes largely unexploited. While many Semantic Web applications may use a map for viewing data, processing spatial relationships at a deeper level of understanding is needed to exploit the range of data.

 

The geospatial community requires input from the Semantic Web community as well, because a number of important spatial data problems have potential solutions within the Semantic Web. Building geospatial ontologies is a first step for alleviating the restrictiveness of XML-based and relational database-based schemas. Service interoperability also stands to make significant gains by incorporating Semantic Web technologies.

 

Input is needed from both the geospatial and Semantic Web communities. It is expected that this workshop will draw Semantic Web researchers interested in working in the geospatial area as well as geospatial researchers wanting to pursue Semantic Web technologies. The workshop will include research areas in addition to novel applications. The workshop is a full day and includes one interactive session in which audience members can talk or present a slide for a couple of minutes on a relevant topic. (Although the terms spatial and geospatial are sometimes used interchangeably, we include the term geospatial to cover more broadly issues and data having a spatial component.)

 

Paper Topics

  • Geospatial ontologies
  • Semantic Web research regarding geospatial data
  • Novel applications of Semantic Web technology to spatial data
  • Novel applications of spatial data to Semantic Web applications
  • Techniques for processing spatial data within the Semantic Web
  • Semantic issues in geospatial standards
  • Domain-oriented GIS applications that leverage Semantic Web technology

 

Paper Submission

Submissions will be handled using the EasyChair system (http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=terracognita2008). Papers must be formatted in the style of the Springer Publications format for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) (Information for LNCS Authors, http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0#anchor1) Formatted papers must be approximately 10 pages (no longer than 13) and must represent new work. All submissions will be reviewed by three members of the program committee. At least one author must register to present an accepted paper.

 

Dates

Abstracts: 21 July

Submissions: 28 July

Acceptances: 5 September

Camera Ready: 26 September

 

Organizing Committee

Terra Cognita 2008 is organized by members of the Spatial Ontology Community of Practice (SOCoP, http://semanticommunity.wik.is/Spatial_Ontology_Community_of_Practice). SOCoP is a geospatial semantics interest group currently with members from U.S. federal agencies, academia, and companies. The group is open to anyone, and international collaborations are welcome. SOCoP's goal is to foster collaboration among users, technologists, and researchers of spatial knowledge representations and reasoning towards the development of a set of core, common geospatial ontologies for use by all in the Semantic Web.

 

Workshop Chairs

Nancy Wiegand, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA, wiegand at cs.wisc.edu

Dave Kolas, BBN Technologies, USA, dkolas at bbn.com

Gary Berg-Cross, Engineering Management & Integration, USA,

 

Program Committee Members

Dan Adams, Scitor Corp, USA
Harry Chen, ImageMatters, USA

Isabel Cruz, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Mike Dean, BBN Technologies, USA
Cathy Dolbear, Ordnance Survey, UK
Beth Driver, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, USA
Max Egenhofer, University of Maine, USA
Kathleen Hornsby, University of Iowa, USA
Werner Kuhn, University of Muenster, Germany
Michael Lutz, European Commission-DG Joint Research Center, Italy
Josh Lieberman, Traverse Technologies, USA
Jim Ressler, Northrop Grumman, USA
Angela Schwering, University of Osnabrueck, Germany

 

Schedule and other information available here soon!