Towards a Comprehensive Call Ontology for Research 2.0Vladimir Tomberg, David Lamas, Mart Laanpere, Tallinn University;

Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn;

Jelena Jovanovic, University of Belgrade

ICWL 2011, Graz, Austria

Researcher and CfP

Researchers spend a lot of time deleting dozens of useless CfPs from their email inboxes;

They spend even more time looking for relevant CfPs on the Web;

It is the very common situation when a researcher receives a word about an appropriate CfP a day after the submission deadline;

The Challenge: Semantically enhanced CfP

Can we target two opposite sides of the CfP publication process:

1. Solutions for semantic search, filtering and recommendation of CfPs should be designed for researchers;

2. Semantically rich tools and workflows for the dissemination of CfPs targeted at CfP providers;

State of the Art: Where CfPs are now?

Mailing Lists and Blogs;

Web Based Services;

Adding Semantics to HTML;

Parsing Plain CfP Data;

CfP Related Representation Frameworks

Mailing Lists and Blogs

Mailing lists’ examples:

dbworld

AISWorld

Not very efficient solution in terms of filtering data or semantic search;

Ability of blogs to provide the semantic meaning for posts is limited by the RSS vocabulary

Web Based Services

Try to implement a semantic approach to processing the CfP data:

WikiCFP;

eventseer.net;

Conference Alerts;

PapersInvited;

AllConferences.Com;

etc;

Use HTML with no semantic markup;

Limited, not compatible vocabularies

Adding Semantics to HTML

Technologies that support applying semantics to HTML:

Microformats – has very limited vocabulary;

RDFa – not a clear prospect after end of XHTML2;

Microdata – a new player, almost isn’t used at all, no web browser supports microdata at the moment

Parsing Plain CfP Data

The first attempts were conducted in 1989;

Limitations:

Absence of unified CfP vocabulary;

Complex, multi-level structures of CfPs;

Continuously extended types of data used in CfPs do not allow for overall data extraction

CfP Related Representation Frameworks

CfP vocabulary;

LODE – Linking Open Descriptions of Events;

ESWC2006 Conference Ontology;

AKT Portal;

SWRC – Semantic Web for Research Communities;

SWPortal – Semantic Web Portal;

SwetoDblp;

SEDE – Scholarly Event Description Ontology

Findings in Analysis of Existing CfP Practices

Difference between the original CfPs and their analogues in WikiCFP – based on vocabulary web-form scaffolds event organizers to provide information in more standardised manner;

We found that all used concepts can be categorised into six groups: Events, Places, Submissions, Publications, Dates, and People

DESIGNING THE CALL ONTOLOGY

Call ontology: concepts for Events

Call ontology: concepts for Submissions

Call ontology: concepts for Dates

Call ontology: concepts for Publications

Call ontology: concepts for People and Organizations

Two Usage Scenarios for Call Ontology

1. Timeliner – a tool for supporting collaborative scientific writing;

2. Novel conference management system ginkgo

Timeliner

Timeliner – concept of a mash-up tool supporting the orchestration of collaborative writing process;

Timeliner aggregates CfP-related data into a joint multi-level timeline inspired by Gantt chart

If CfP is accepted by user, all related deadlines (submission, acceptance, registration etc) and links to resources are placed on the timeline.

Layered Timeliner architecture

Ginkgo – Modern Conference Management System

ginkgo supports Research 2.0 practices with all the phases and roles involved in the organization of events;

ginkgo could apply the Call ontology presented here together with an easy-to-use editor;

ginkgo would provide a SPARQL endpoint where crawler could access all available CfPs of events managed with the system

Future Challenges

The existing conference management systems should be examined for the purpose of services integration;

Design of a service capable of aggregating and making use of semantic-rich CfP data generated by conference management systems. This service should:

1. Consume advertised CfPs;

2. Provide a structured and personalized access to such data for researchers

Thanks for your attention!