13th European Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) Workshop
To be held during the DL2014 Conference in London
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Workshop Proposal | Call for Papers | Workshop Programme | DL2014 Conference | NKOS Workshops | NKOS Network

Proposers:

Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant and Chair, ISKO UK
Luke House,
West Hendred, Wantage
OX12 8RR, UK

Jane Greenberg
School of Information and Library Science
Director, Metadata Research Center
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
NC 27599-3360, USA

Xia Lin
College of Computing and Informatics
Drexel University,
Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

Philipp Mayr
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
Unter Sachsenhausen 6-8, 50667
Cologne, Germany
 philipp.mayr@gesis.org

Douglas Tudhope (primary contact)
Hypermedia Research Unit
Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science
University of South Wales,
Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, UK
 douglas.tudhope@southwales.ac.uk

Duration: (afternoon of Sept 11th and morning of 12th).
Expected number of participants: 30

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 previous ECDL, TPDL, JCDL conferences (see NKOS website for details). This is a joint proposal from US and European NKOS colleagues and would constitute the 11th US and 13th European NKOS workshop. We expect approximately 30 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.

The workshop will be planned to complement a UKeiG/ISKO-UK/BCS-IRSG event in London (the Tony Kent Strix Lecture, provisionally planned for the afternoon of 12th), with the workshop running on afternoon of Sept 11th and morning of 12th.

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), in the form of classification systems, thesauri, lexical databases, ontologies, and taxonomies, play a crucial role in digital information management and applications generally. Carrying semantics in a well-controlled and documented way, Knowledge Organisation Systems serve a variety of important functions: tools 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 and its aims

The proposed NKOS workshop at DL2014 will explore the potential of Knowledge Organization Systems, such as classification systems, taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies, and lexical databases in the context of current developments and possibilities. These tools help 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 discuss projects, research and development activities, evaluation approaches, lessons learned, and research findings. A further objective is to systematically engage in discussions in common areas of interest with selected related communities and to investigate potential co-operation.

The joint conference offers an opportunity for the US and European NKOS communities to share experiences and reflections (in later years there have been separate US/EU workshops with some overlap of participants). The continuity provided by the long recognized series of NKOS workshops provides a basis for reconnecting with important project and research endeavours at regular intervals and receiving updates on new directions.

The workshop will also allow 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 DL 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.

For details of the workshop themes, see the call for papers.

Workshop structure

An open call for papers and demonstrations (submission deadline 4th July, notification 21st July) will be combined with selected invitations from major projects and professional societies with an interest in this field. 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 and 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 (over two days)

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. 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

Technical requirements

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

Expected participants

References to previous NKOS Workshops

Workshop organisers (short CVs)

Stella Dextre Clarke is an independent consultant specializing in the design of thesauri and other types of Knowledge Organization System, with clients in the private and public sectors. On behalf of the UK Cabinet Office, for example, she worked on the e-Government Metadata Standard and associated controlled vocabularies. She is a member of the BSI committee responsible for standards on indexes, filing and thesauri, and Convenor of the Working Group that developed and published BS 8723 (Structured Vocabularies for Information Retrieval). She went on to lead ISO TC46/SC9/WG8, the Working Group responsible for ISO 25964, the international standard for thesauri. Her work on vocabulary standards was recognized in 2006 when she won the Tony Kent Strix Award for outstanding achievement in information retrieval. Stella is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Currently she chairs the UK Chapter of ISKO (International Society for Knowledge Organization).

Jane Greenberg is a professor at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the director of the SILS Metadata Research Center. She also holds posts as a senior scientist, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), Durham, North Carolina; a senior associate researcher in Information Organization, 2013-2015, School of Information Studies, University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and a 2014 data fellow at the National Consortium for Data Science. Her funded research has been supported by the NSF, IMLS, NIH, Microsoft Research, the Library of Congress, and OCLC. She is the principal investigator of the Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering (HIVE) initiative and a co-principal investigator on the Dryad data repository project. She is co-chair of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Metadata Standards Directory Working Group; founder and co-lead of the Dublin Core Science and Metadata (SAM) community, co-lead of the DataONE datanet metadata and preservation working group; and vice chair CODATA Data-at-Risk Working Group. She was the 2012-2013 Chair of the ASIS&T SIG/CR Classification Research Group. Her research and teaching focus in the areas of metadata, knowledge organization, data science, and linked data/semantic web; and she has published extensively in these areas.

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.

Xia Lin is Professor in the College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. His research areas include information visualization, knowledge mapping, information organization, digital libraries, information retrieval, and visual interface design. He has published more than 70 research papers in these areas and received significant research funding for research and doctoral education. His current funded research projects include "Digging into Metadata" and "Meaningful Concept Displays." His KOS visualization prototypes have been presented and demonstrated in many national and international conferences, and in both the European and U.S. NKOS workshops. He served on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Information Visualization from 2001-2011. Dr. Lin has a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Master of Librarianship from Emory University. Prior to joining Drexel, Dr. Lin was Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky.

Douglas Tudhope is Professor in the Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of South Wales 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, STELLAR and SENESCHAL projects, in collaboration with English Heritage and the preceding EPSRC funded FACET project, in collaboration with the UK Science Museum, investigating thesaurus-based query expansion. He leads the Linking Archaeological Data Work Package for the ARIADNE FP7 Infrastructures Project. 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 12 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 JISC State of the Art Review on Terminology Services and Technology and the JISC Terminology Registry Scoping Study. He was a member ISO TC46/SC9/SC8 (and NISO) working group developing a new thesaurus standard (ISO 25964).