Classification & Ontology - another successful International UDC Seminar

Classification & Ontology: Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge

The International UDC Seminar 2011 took place on 19-20 September in The Hague and was attended by 141 delegates from 30 countries from Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia.

The keynote address by Patrick Hayes kick-started a two-day programme consisting of 21 talks and two poster presentations.

Following the opening talk, speakers from different domains expanded on their particular view of what ontologies and knowledge structures may mean in their specialised areas of work and what aspects of ontological analysis or formal ontology modelling are relevant in the world of knowledge classifications. A number of talks stressed the urgency for knowledge classification schemes to be published as linked data and the limitations of the existing web ontology standards, SKOS specifically, were revisited a number of times. Presentations about particular schemes illustrated that classifications may indeed require more thought with regards to modelling.

* Slides and audio recordings can be accessed from the conference programme page.

* Proceedings, published by Ergon, can be purchased online on the conference website.

Classification & Ontology was the third biennial conference in a series of UDC Seminars organized by the UDC Consortium and hosted by Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands).

Classification & Ontology conference proceedings

Proceedings of the International UDC Seminar 2011 are published by Ergon Verlag.

Classification and ontology: formal approaches and access to knowledge: proceedings of the International UDC Seminar, 19-20 September 2011, The Hague, The Netherlands. Edited by Aida Slavic and Edgardo Civallero. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2011. 328 pages. ISBN: 978-3-89913-865-8.

The book will be distributed in delegate packs at the conference in September and will be available for purchase following the event.

CLASSIFICATION AND ONTOLOGY:
Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge
19-20 September, The Hague
Venue: Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Fee: 200 EUR (secure your place at this event)

Ontology-like representations of classifications are recognized as potentially important facilitators in creating a web of linked data.

The conference keynote speaker is Professor Patrick Hayes, one of the key players in the Semantic Web initiative and the development of RDF, OWL and SPARQL. His talk entitled "On being the same" will remind us of some oddities and internal inconsistencies in data found on the Web, as the Semantic web starts to take shape with the rise of linked data.

Following the keynote address we will hear a selection of speakers from the domains of web technology, ontology, knowledge organization and bibliographic classification, including Dan Brickley, Guus Schreiber, Thomas Baker, Dagobert Soergel, Roberto Poli, Ingetraut Dahlberg, Barbara Kwasnik, Rebecca Green, Michael Panzer, Marcia Zeng, Daniel Kless, Joan Mitchell, Richard Smiraglia, Vanda Broughton, Devika Madalli, Claudio Gnoli and more...

The International UDC Seminar 2011 is followed by DC-2011 - 11th International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications "Metadata Harmonization: Bridging Languages and Description", 21-23 September.

Programme announcement - Classification & Ontology Conference

CLASSIFICATION AND ONTOLOGY: FORMAL APPROACHES AND ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE

International UDC Seminar 2011
The Hague, 19-20 September

We are pleased to announce that the "Classification and Ontology" programme is available on the conference website.

The conference focuses on knowledge classification systems and their role in the development of the Semantic Web, bringing together stakeholders from the web ontology and knowledge organization fields.

The conference opens with a keynote address by Prof. Patrick Hayes, who participated in the W3C Working Groups responsible for the RDF, OWL and SPARQL standards and has been a key player in the Semantic Web initiative.

The programme that follows has an outstanding selection of speakers from the domains of web technology, ontology, knowledge organization and bibliographic classification: Dan Brickley, Guus Schreiber, Thomas Baker, Dagobert Soergel, Roberto Poli, Ingetraut Dahlberg, Barbara Kwasnik, Rebecca Green, etc.

The two-day conference will take place in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. The programme includes 21 talks organized into seven sessions:

• The role of classification and ontology in accessing and processing data on the Web
• Classifications and ontologies on their own terms
• Classification meets the Web
• Classification and ontology in specific subjects
• Categories and relations: key elements of ontologies
• Modelling concepts and structures in analytico-synthetic classifications
• Transforming and extending classification systems

See the full programme, accompanied by abstracts and speakers biographies.

We look forward to seeing you in September.

Announcement: Classification & Ontology: International UDC Seminar 2011

Classification & Ontology:
Formal Approaches and Access to Knowledge
The Hague, 19-20 September 2011

Following the success of the 2009 conference we are very pleased to announce the next in the series of biennial conferences devoted to the advancement of bibliographic classification research, organized by the UDC Consortium and hosted by Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

The difference between bibliographic knowledge classification schemes and ontologies resides in their particular purpose and levels of formality. However, they are both based on observation and reasoning and share some structural principles and elements: categories, concepts, properties, class relationships, roles.

The objective of this conference is to promote collaboration and exchange of expertise between different fields dealing with knowledge classifications: bibliographic, web and AI. We hope to learn more about methods in ontology modelling and whether these may be used to improve and formalise data models of bibliographic classifications and enhance their value in information discovery.

Papers are now invited covering the following topics:

1. Modelling and representation of knowledge classifications
2. Standards and solutions for innovative and high-quality classification data processing
3. Applications and implementations of classification structures as ontologies
4. Theoretical considerations of the role of knowledge classifications

The proposals should be of interest to academic and research communities dealing with conceptual modelling, information systems design, knowledge organization, knowledge engineering, semantic interoperability & information integration, and natural-language processing.

To read more about the invited topics and to submit contribution go to the conference website.

Paper proposal submission deadline: 30 January 2011.