Vocabularies, Schemas, Ontologies

Important Dates

Ontologies, schemas, and vocabularies play a central role in the Semantic Web. They ensure reusability of (linked) data and knowledge, and enable the design and implementation of robust and intelligent applications. A key object of study is the effective construction of ontologies. They can be learned from linked data or text, extracted from legacy datasets, be re-implementations of existing data models, or developed from scratch. Ontology engineering emphasises a knowledge acquisition perspective, and studies the way in which ontologies can be designed in collaboration with domain experts and end users. This gives rise to ontology engineering methodologies, best practices and design patterns. A third strain of research develops theories, methods and algorithms for ontology matching and alignment, versioning, evolution and modularisation.
This track aims to address innovative research on ontologies, vocabularies and schemas for the Semantic Web, Linked Data and semantic technologies in general. We welcome both theoretical and more practical research papers.

 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following

  • Knowledge patterns
  • Ontology design patterns and anti-patterns
  • Ontology matching, alignment, and merging
  • Evolution of vocabularies, schemas, and ontologies
  • Pattern mining and extraction from (linked) data
  • Knowledge acquisition (extraction, learning)
  • Ontology management, maintenance, and reuse
  • Languages, tools, programming paradigms and methodologies for (collaborative) ontology engineering
  • Ontology repositories and ontology search
  • Evaluation of ontology and schema quality
  • Ontology-driven applications
  • Ontology- and schema-based data integration and curation
  • Ontology/schema/vocabulary-based information retrieval
  • Semantic Web (e.g., schema-centric) programming
  • The role of ontologies in cyber-infrastructure
  • Ontologies, schemas, and vocabularies in a specific domain (publishing, law, bio-informatics, medicine, geosciences, cultural heritage, digital humanities, food and agriculture, Internet of things, media and entertainment, and other commercial and industrial sectors)

We welcome papers describing ontologies. In particular, the ontology described must be available for reviewing and the paper must comply with at least one of the following types

  1. Systematic and clear description of the ontology, including its construction process, describing a particular complex and challenging domain (e.g. formalising 150 pages of a particular standard). Focus: how the ontology has been developed, which new techniques have been adopted to deal with the complexity of the domain, how inconsistencies (if any) have been solved, etc.
  2. Introduction of an (even simple) ontology in the context of its applications worldwide. Focus: in which applications it has been used, what are the advantages of adopting such ontology, outcomes of a comparative evaluation of adopting such an ontology for addressing particular tasks (which should at least be compared with a run of the same tasks without the use of such an ontology), etc.

 

 

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