CALL FOR PAPERS 1st Workshop on
The Semantic Desktop

Next Generation Personal Information Management
and Collaboration Infrastructure

at the
International Semantic Web Conference
6 November 2005, Galway, Ireland

http://www.semanticdesktop.org
[Important Dates and Submission Details]

* Submissions due: August 1, 2005
* Notification for acceptance: September 1, 2005
* Camera ready due: October 7, 2005
* Workshop date: November 6, 2005

Please follow the style guides according the Springer LNCS format outlined at: http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-164-2-72376-0,00.html Technical papers should have max. 15 pages including references, position papers should not exceed 5 pages. Papers can be associated with a demo. Please submit documents as HTML, PDF, or Word to

semdesk2005@semanticdesktop.org.

Authors of the selected best papers from the workshop will be asked to revise their papers based on feedback from the workshop, to appear in a Special Issue of the Journal of Internet Computing.


[Topics and Content]

The Semantic Web holds promises for information organization and selective access, providing standards means for formulating and distributing metadata and Ontologies.
Still, we miss a wide use of Semantic Web technologies on personal computers. The use of ontologies, metadata annotations, and semantic web protocols on desktop computers will allow the integration of desktop applications and the web, enabling a much more focused and integrated personal information management as well as focused information distribution and collaboration on the Web beyond sending emails. The vision of the Semantic Desktop for personal information management and collaboration has been around for a long time: visionaries like Vanevar Bush and Doug Engelbart have formulated and partially realized these ideas. Recently the computer science community has developed the means to make this vision a reality:

* The Semantic Web effort (http://www.w3.org/sw)
provides standards and technologies for the definition
and exchange of metadata and ontologies.

* Open-source software (like OpenOffice) make it possible to reuse and
build on top of existing sophisticated systems

* Collaboration, acquisition and dissemination infrastructures
like Wikis and Blogs are providing the foundation for joint
collaborative knowledge creation

* Social Software maps the social connections between
different people into the technical infrastructure.

* P2P and Grid computing, especially in combination with the Semantic
Web field, develops technology to interconnect large communities

The application of the mentioned technologies, especially in combination with the Semantic Web, to the desktop computer in order to improve personal information management and collaboration is the main topic of this workshop. Several systems have been created already to explore this field, e.g., the Haystack system at MIT, the Gnowsis system at DFKI, or the Chandler system by the OSA foundation.


[Areas of Interest]


The main focus of this workshop is on providing an overview of existing approaches and elaborating the next steps necessary in order to bring the Semantic Web to the desktop computer. More specifically, workshop topics include:

* Architectures and frameworks for integrating the Semantic Web into a Desktop environment
* Personal Information Management tools (calendar, address books,
email, documents, ideas) that interoperate with the Semantic Web
* Enhance searching and information retrieval on desktop computers using ontologies and metadata.
* Means to extract metadata from desktop applications (e.g., OpenOffice etc.)
* Knowledge Acquisition and Visualization tools for desktop applications
* Integration and exploitation of semantic social networks into a semantic desktop environment
* P2P models for distributed architecture enabling collaboration with Semantic Desktop nodes
* Applications of the Semantic Desktop, for e.g, eScience and eGovernment.


[Chairs]

* Stefan Decker (DERI, National University of Ireland , Galway, Ireland)
* Jack Park (SRI International, Menlo Park, USA)
* Dennis Quan (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA)
* Leo Sauermann (DFKI, Kaiserslautern, Germany)


[Program Committee]

* Andreas Abecker (FZI, Karlsruhe, Germany)
* Dan Brickley (W3C, Sophia Antipolis, France)
* David O'Sullivan (DERI, NUIG, Ireland)
* David Schwartz (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
* Dirk-Willem van Gulik (Apache Foundation, Netherlands)
* Doug Engelbart (Bootstrap Institute, USA)
* Gerald Reif (TU Vienna, Austria)
* Giovanni Tummarello (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Italy)
* Gregoris Mentzas, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
* Jeen Broekstra (Aduna BV, Netherlands)
* Manfred Hauswirth (EPFL, Switzerland)
* Pat Croke (Hewlett Packard, Galway, Ireland)
* Peter Mika (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
* Stéphane Laurière (Mandriva, France)
* Wolfgang Nejdl (L3S, Hannover)
* Wolfgang Prinz (Fraunhofer and RWTH Aachen, Germany)