Workshop Scope and Topics

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 it would require significant effort, and 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 (BMEcat, ebXML, RosettaNet, …)
2. Non-XML message format standards (UN/EDIFACT, X12, SWIFT, VDA, SEDAS, EANCOM, CIF, OASIS UBL, …)
3. Taxonomies and thesauri (eCl@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.

The goal of this workshop is to advance the state of the art in mechanized and semi-automated transformation of existing industrial standards into useful ontologies.

Call for Papers

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 but not limited to the following topics:

• 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
• Optimal degree of mechanization

Especially welcome will be papers covering successful examples, lessons learned, and best practices of such transformations, especially 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). Full papers should be 14 pages (maximum: 16), short papers should be 6-8 pages.

Accepted papers will be published as part of the ER2006 Workshop volume, accepted for publication by Springer in their LNCS series. The bibliographical data is as follows:

• John F. Roddick, Richard Benjamins, Samira Si-Said Cherfi, Roger Chiang, Christophe Claramunt, Ramez Elmasri, Fabio Grandi, Hyoil Han, Martin Hepp, Miltiadis Lytras, Vojislav B. Misic, Geert Poels, Il-Yeol Song, Juan Trujillo, Christelle Vangenot (Eds.)
• Advances in Conceptual Modeling - Theory and Practice
• LNCS Volume 4231, Springer, Berlin etc., 2006 (forthcoming)

Camera-ready versions must not be longer than 10 pages.

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

Download Call for Papers: Text Version

Important Dates

Submission System

Please submit an abstract of your paper by May 1 and the full paper by May 15 using the submission system available at http://www.easychair.org/OIS2006.

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

Accepted Papers and Agenda

The tentative agenda of the workshop is as follows:

Accepted Full Papers:

• Ivan Cantador, Pablo Castells, and Ruben Lara:
  XBRL Taxonomies and OWL Ontologies for Investment Funds.
  

  Extended Version of the Paper:

• Sari Hakkarainen, Lillian Hella, Darijus Strasunskas, and Stine Tuxen:
  A Semantic Transformation Approach for ISO 15926.
  
• Hyunja Lee, Junho Shim, Sue-kyung Lee, and San-goo Lee:
  Modeling Considerations for Operational Product Ontology.
  

  Extended Version of the Paper:

• Douglas Foxvog and Christoph Bussler:
  Ontologizing EDI Semantics.
  
• Jacek Kopecky:
  Learning From WSDL RDF Mapping: Developing Ontologies From Standardized Languages.
  

  Extended Version of the Paper:

Accepted Short Papers:

• Karthick Sankarachary:
  Ontologizing XML Using Mediation Patterns.
  

  Online Version of the Paper:

Workshop Co-Chairs and Administrative Contact