Proposers:

Philipp Mayr (primary contact)
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
Unter Sachsenhausen 6-8, 50667 Cologne, Germany
E-mail: philipp.mayr@gesis.org
Homepage: http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~mayr/

Douglas Tudhope
Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science, University of South Wales,
Pontypridd, Wales CF37 1DL, UK
E-mail: douglas.tudhope@southwales.ac.uk
URL: http://staff.southwales.ac.uk/users/293-dstudhope/
Duration: 1 day
Expected number of participants: 40

Extended abstract

We propose a full-day workshop of research projects and development related to next-generation Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services (NKOS) in digital libraries. This proposal builds on the well-attended NKOS workshops at ECDL 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. We would expect approximately 40 attendees at this workshop. The proposal is supported by the international NKOS network, its website and discussion list. Presentations are made available on the workshop website.

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), such as classification systems, thesauri, lexical databases, ontologies, and taxonomies, play an increasingly important role in digital information management and systems. Carrying semantics in a well-controlled and documented way, Knowledge Organisation Systems serve a variety of functions: tool for representation and indexing of information and documents, knowledge-based support to information searchers, semantic road maps to domains and disciplines, communication tool by providing conceptual framework, and conceptual basis for knowledge based systems, e.g. automated classification systems.

Brief description of the workshop

The 12th European NKOS workshop at TPDL explores the potential of Knowledge Organization Systems, such as classification systems, taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies, and lexical databases. These tools attempt to model the underlying semantic structure of a domain for purposes of information retrieval, knowledge discovery, language engineering, and the semantic web. The workshop provides an opportunity to report and discuss projects, research, and development related to Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services in next-generation digital libraries. A further objective is to systematically engage in discussions in common areas of interest with selected related communities and to investigate potential co-operation.

TPDL (succeeding ECDL) is the traditional venue for reporting on European NKOS activities, complementing the US series of workshops. The workshop allows major projects to report results, newcomers to interact with established people in the field and discussion of topical issues, requiring consensus or coordination, including standards efforts, to take place. Thus previous workshops have seen focused discussion on early drafts of BSI and ISO KOS standards, the W3C SKOS standard, the interface between traditional Library Science vocabularies and Semantic Web efforts, KOS linked data, social tagging and its relation to established vocabularies, KOS metadata and the different types of KOS. The TPDL venue affords participation by KOS researchers and developers from different perspectives (reflecting the different conference threads), such as KOS design and construction, API and service developers, user oriented issues, management of KOS in registries.

The continuity provided by the long series of NKOS workshops and its US partner events is the basis for reconnecting with important project and research endeavours at regular intervals, receiving updates on new directions, results and evaluations and, thus, is crucial for improving on and consolidating the common domain knowledge. People sharing our field of interest in the realm of private enterprise have also been involved, especially through the call for demonstrations. Typically a call for presentations is complemented by select invited presentations on key topics.

Workshop topics

  1. Meaningful Concept Display and Meaningful Visualization of KOS. Visualization has been an important application domain for KOS and often a driver for KOS use in Digital Libraries. Reports of innovative demonstrators, implementation issues and evaluation studies with real users are particularly welcome.
  2. KOS-based recommender systems. We are seeing the utilization of KOS-based search term recommender systems as a semantic hub in DL. The suggestion of the right meaningful concepts is a mission critical phase for searchers in modern DL. We want to discuss both perspectives: the consumptive side of the user and the technical side of DL operators. Reports of practical experience, implementation issues and evaluation studies are particularly welcome.

    We aim to make these two topics, the main focus of the NKOS workshop 2013, together with topical presentations arising from the call for presentations. The workshop will also report on the ongoing activities of the ISO thesaurus standards group (ISO25964) and other relevant standards efforts.

    Further timely presentations/demonstrations could be selected from the following topics in the CfP:

  3. Management and integration of multiple vocabulary types, such as classification systems, thesauri, terminologies, synonym rings, ontologies etc. Typologies and spectra of KOS. KOS Registries.
  4. SKOS extensions. What extensions to SKOS would be needed to cover advanced mapping and vocabulary integration, additional KOS types and other actual requirements?

    5. KOS applications are a regular and important part of NKOS workshops. Example topics include:

  5. KOS in e-Research metadata contexts. The intersection between research data, KOS and Semantic web.
  6. Social tagging. What is the role of social tagging and informal knowledge structures versus established KOS? (How) can tagging be guided and informed by KOS? The possible contribution of social tagging and informal knowledge structures to constructing / augmenting established KOS. Implications for social search.
  7. Users interaction with KOS in the online environment.
  8. Quality issues in web-based KOS. How to identify and detect shortcomings in data quality and what to do to improve KOS on the web? Issues concerning large metadata sets. Version management.
  9. KOS and learning. What is required to use KOS effectively to convey meaning, to assist users to express their information needs to assist in sensemaking and learning?
  10. Multilingual and Interdisciplinary KOS applications and tools.
  11. Specific domains, such as environmental, medical, new application contexts, etc.

Workshop structure

An open call for papers and demonstrations (April 29, submission deadline June 18, notification July 17) will be combined with selected invitations from major projects. The workshop is planned to consist of an introduction, technical presentations, demonstrations, and a concluding directed discussion. The program committee will assist the review process as first-tier reviewers. The organisers will coordinate the process.

The organisers and program committee will promote the workshop through the workshop website, their various contacts and discussion lists, including the NKOS list and digital library lists.

Indicative agenda structure, covering approximately 8 hours, including lunch and breaks:


Supporting material for the workshop would, following standard NKOS practice, be available via the NKOS website. This would include abstracts of presentations, information on participants, list of resources, projects and plans for the workshop before the conference. After the workshop, copies of presentations will be made available on the website and via the main NKOS network website.

Previous NKOS workshops have resulted in journal special issues (see References). Authors presenting significant results at the workshop will be encouraged to submit papers for consideration in future issues of the International Journal on Digital Libraries and the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (Tudhope is Editor) depending on the candidate papers.

Program committee (to be confirmed)

Technical requirements

The usual PC and projector, 2-3 side tables for demonstrations if possible, Internet connections.

Expected participants

Previous NKOS Workshops

See http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/nkos/ and https://nkos.dublincore.org/ for previous NKOS workshops and information about NKOS generally.

Workshop organisers (short CVs)

Philipp Mayr is a postdoctoral researcher and team leader at the GESIS department Knowledge Technologies for the Social Sciences. Since October 2009 he serves as a visiting professor for knowledge representation at University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Department of Information Science & Engineering. Philipp Mayr is a graduate of the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University Berlin where he finished his doctoral research in 2009. He studied LIS, computer science and sociology. Since November 2004 he has been working in the internationally recognized projects "Competence Center Modelling and Treatment of Heterogeneity" (KoMoHe) and "Value-Added Services for Information Retrieval" (IRM) as a researcher and PI. Philipp has presented at several NKOS workshops and is a member of the European NKOS network. Philipp published widely in the areas Informetrics, Information Retrieval and Digital Libraries. He is member of the editorial board of the journals Scientometrics and Information Wissenschaft & Praxis. His research interests are non-textual ranking in digital libraries, bibliometric methods, evaluation of information systems and KOS, applied informetrics. http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~mayr/

Douglas Tudhope is Professor in the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science, University of South Wales (formerly known as University of Glamorgan) and leads the Hypermedia Research Unit. His main current research interests are the intersecting areas of information science, digital libraries and hypermedia and the semantic web. He was PI on the AHRC funded STAR and STELLAR projects (Semantic Tools for Archaeological Resources), in collaboration with English Heritage and the preceding EPSRC funded FACET project, in collaboration with the Science Museum, investigating thesaurus-based query expansion. Since 1977, he has been Editor of the journal, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia. He serves as a reviewer for various journals and international programme committees. He is a member of the Networked Knowledge Organisation Systems/Services (NKOS) network and has organised or co-organised all 10 NKOS workshops at ECDL. He co-edited the 2004 NKOS JoDI issue with Traugott Koch and co-edited the 2006 KOS NRHM issue with Marianne Lykke. He co-authored the 2006 JISC State of the Art Review on Terminology Services and Technology and The JISC Terminology Registry Scoping Study. http://staff.southwales.ac.uk/users/293-dstudhope/