Conferences Web of Data

This is the place to discuss the current state-of-the-art regarding the handling of conference metadata and possible future developments.

Where We Are

Over the past couple of years a number of metadata chairs and SWT co-ordinators of Semantic Web conferences managed to build an impressive infrastructure. It it now possible to publish conference data such as publications, talks, etc. using stable vocabularies in a defined work flow (read more ...). At the recent ISWC2008 we have witnessed how powerful and engaging the addition of a dedicated social network for a conference can be; though still Web2.0ish and not available in RDF.

However, one may ask if this is just the beginning of more - more data, more functionality, more interaction?

Where We Could Go

In the following we take the idea further and discuss the Conferences in the Web of Data (CWoD) by applying the Linked data principles.

CWoD Manifest

What follows is the 'Conferences in the Web of Data' (CWoD) manifest, a number of requirements that enable a comprehensive realisation of representing and using conference (-related) data on the Web:

• EVERY participant has a URI (i.e. not only speaker, etc.)
  • Even if it's just their Twitter or LinkedIn page
• EVERY event has a URI (not only 'official' events such as a keynote, etc.)
• Where possible, ALL events, people, etc. are interlinked with other resources on the Web (e.g. flickr photos, video captures of talks, etc.)
• It should be straight-forward possible to integrate people's OpenIDs for ack the access of certain resources (blogs, Wikis, etc.)
• It should be straight-forward possible to gather blogs, microblogs (identi.ca, twitter, etc.), homepages of participants
  • and/ or OPML files of their RSS feeds.

Exemplary Setup

Imagine an upcoming conference xSWC that uses http://data.semanticweb.org as a base to publish data about papers and people. We envision the following to implement CWoD:

• using a true RDF-enabled social media platform such as http://paggr.com/ for hosting social stuff
  • the FOAF profile of the participants is used as the starting point (knows, interests, etc.)
  • new contacts and topics are added as participants move around the conference
  • talks, meetings, etc. are automatically proposed and updated in the participant's PIM
  • room locations are taken into account
• integrating post-conference resources such as flickr photos, video captures of talks by interlinking them with exiting conference data (such as talks, etc.)
• enabling sponsors to talk to interested parties and people
• adding social events, venue information etc.
• integrating discussions pre/post via SIOC
• lifestream wall with real-time tweets about the current sessions (as with MBC09)
• microformats on related web pages, so that, say, events can be downloaded to calendars, contacts to address books, locations to mapping tools.
• shared (and widely publicised, in advance where possible) tags for the whole event, and each session or topic, to be used across sites like Flickr, Twitter etc.

Interested People

• Michael Hausenblas, Semantic Web Technologies Co-ordinator of the ESWC2009
• Benjamin Nowack
• Dan Brickley, FOAF project and W3C Semantic Web Interest Group chair
• Harith Alani, Semantic Web Technologies Co-ordinator of the ESWC2009
• Tom Heath, former Dogfood Tsar of ESWC2006 and ISWC2007+ASWC2007, so will be tracking this out of interest but probably can't actively contribute much right now. Update: hoping to produce a personalisation service for the conference programme; more info to follow.
• Muhammad Aftab Iqbal
• Ciro Cattuto, SocioPatterns project, and general co-chair of ACM Hypertext 2009. Interested in mashing up real-world data from RFID badges with background and on-line information.
• Lora Aroyo, ESWC 2009 Program Co-Chair
• Drew Perttula, interested in collecting and publishing people's notes during conferences
• Knud Möller, Metadata Co-chair/Dogfood Tsar at ISWC+ASWC2007, 2008 and 2009, member of the team behind http://data.semanticweb.org
• Philipp Kärger, Organizer of the SPOT workshop at ESWC2009, interested in trust and privacy issues on the social/semantic web. Likes the idea of mapping real-life trust relationships to social platforms like "you can access my profile if we met at ESWC2009".
• Andy Mabbett - interested in making the above work with low-cost-of-entry tools, such as microformats and social media sites.

PLEASE ADD YOURSELF HERE

Resources

• http://data.semanticweb.org/
• http://linkeddata.org/
• http://esw.w3.org/topic/WebID
• http://paggr.com/about
• http://sioc-project.org/
• http://sti.innoraise.com/
• http://kasei.us/2007/06/tshirt.rdf -- draft t-shirt preference ontology, born out of frustration with over/under-sized conference t-shirts in horrible colours.
• http://www.sociopatterns.org/ -- real-time mining of social contacts with active RFID.

Related Reading & Inspiration

• Möller, Heath, Handschuh and Domingue (2007) Recipes for Semantic Web Dog Food - The ESWC and ISWC Metadata Projects. 6th International and 2nd Asian Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2007+ASWC2007), Busan, Korea. -- details much of the thinking behind previous dogfood efforts at ESWC/ISWC.

• Heath, Domingue and Shabajee (2006) User Interaction and Uptake Challenges to Successfully Deploying Semantic Web Technologies, Workshop on Semantic Web User Interaction (SWUI2006), 3rd International Semantic Web Conference, Athens, Georgia, USA.

• Custom PeopleBrowsr for SXSW2009 (RWW post)