ESAIR 2010

=Call for Papers=

There is an increasing amount of structure on the Web as a result of modern Web languages, user tagging and annotation, and emerging robust NLP tools. These meaningful, semantic, annotations hold the promise to significantly enhance information access, by enhancing the depth of analysis of today's systems. Currently, we have only started exploring the possibilities and only begin to understand how these valuable semantic cues can be put to fruitful use.

Unleashing the potential of semantic annotations requires us to transcend earlier technologies, by combining the insights of natural language processing (NLP) to go beyond bags of words, the insights of databases (DB) to use structure efficiently even when aggregating over millions of records, the insights of information retrieval (IR) in effective goal-directed search and evaluation, and the insights of knowledge management (KM) to get grips on the greater whole.

The Workshop will bring together researchers from these different disciplines and identify the natural use cases, the barriers to success, and work on ways of addressing them:

Use Cases: Are we looking at the right applications?
 * What are use cases that make obvious the need for semantic annotation of information?
 * What tasks cannot be solved by document retrieval using the traditional bag-of-words?
 * What are the prerequisites of successful application?

Annotations: Are we using the right types of data and annotation?
 * Are there crucial differences between author, software, user, and machine generated annotations?
 * Named entities, temporal expressions on the one hand and sentiment and hedging on the other are examples of analyses beyond topic that have moved to profitable application.
 * Are there other types of annotations that are within our grasp?

Searcher/Queries: Are we considering the right search requests?
 * With shallow 2.4 word navigational queries, how much benefit is in semantic annotations?
 * What expressive power is hidden in the semantic annotation?
 * What is keeping searchers from exploring these powerful search request?

Result Aggregation: Are we using the right types of results?
 * Whereas IR focuses almost exclusively at finding individual chunks of information, DB naturally focuses on results that combine information and produce aggregated results (think of OLAP queries), and KM naturally deal with the whole information space.
 * How can we fruitfully combine these strengths?

Grand Challenge: Is there a grand challenge for the application of semantic annotation?

Help us shape the future of information access by increasing the depth of analysis of today's systems:
 * Submit a short 2-page poster or position paper explaining your key wishes or key points,
 * and take actively part in the discussion at the Workshop.

Important Dates

 * Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2010
 * Notification: July 30, 2010
 * Camera-ready version: August 15, 2010

Organizers

 * has general chair::Jaap Kamps, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
 * has general chair::Jussi Karlgren, SICS, Sweden
 * has general chair::Ralf Schenkel, Saarland University and Max-Planck-Institut Informatik, Saarbruecken, Germany