Sem Web at CAA
Leif Isaksen
just thought I'd plug the session Tom and are I chairing at CAA,
Williamsburg. It would be great to see some of you there and if you're
interested in submitting an abstract please remember that the deadline
is the 19th! (which is the same deadline for travel bursaries if
you're a student).
Best
Leif
The Semantic Web: 2nd Generation Applications
Chairs: Leif Isaksen, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, and
Tom Elliott, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York
University, USA
Abstract:
Semantic Web technologies are increasingly touted as a potential
solution to the data integration and silo problems which are ever more
prevalent in digital archaeology. On other hand, there is still much
work to be done establishing best practices and useful tools. Now that
a number of projects have been undertaken by interdisciplinary
partnerships with Computer Science departments, it is time to start
drawing together the lessons learned from them in order to begin
creating second generation applications. These are likely to move away
from (or at least complement) the monolithic and large-scale
'semanticization' projects more appropriate to the museums community.
In their place we will need light-weight and adaptable methodologies
more suited to the time and cash-poor realities of contemporary
archaeology.
This session will be a forum in which to present current work,
appraise previous projects, identify best practices and look for
collaborative opportunities. Papers are invited which explore the use
of any Semantic technologies in archaeology – especially those
recommended by the W3C: RDF(S), OWL and SKOS. Subject matter may be
either abstract or with reference to a particular project but in
either case should seek to engage with the unique technical challenges
in this area. The target audience will have at least some previous
experience in this field so a reasonably high level of technical
discussion is expected. Specific areas of interest include (but are
not restricted to):
* The role of the CIDOC-CRM as a domain ontology in archaeology
* Integrating live legacy databases
* Ontology mapping and alignment
* Spatial and temporal semantics
* Barriers to uptake amongst non-IT professionals
* Top-down (e.g. ontology-based) vs. bottom up (e.g. RDF/a-based) approaches
* CoolURIs and stable web dissemination
* Coreferencing
* Triple- and quad-stores
* Trust, authentication and reification
* Semi-antics: integration with RSS/Atom and Web 2.0 technologies
* Visualization and interfaces
Technical demonstrations are also welcomed. The session will conclude
with time for general discussion and debate.
Topics: CIDOC and other digital standards, databases, data management
systems and other field applications, Other
Keywords: Semantic Web, RDF, OWL, CIDOC CRM, data
Ian Johnson
If I may plug another session at CAA, it would be good to have some
robust discussion at:
Why did it take so long? spatio-temporal modeling and GIS
We're aiming for some concrete outcomes and follow-through rather than
just an intersting set of papers - we're organising this as part of an
active research project into the modeling of historical events and
visualisation using coordinated views.
Chairs:
Ian Johnson, University of Sydney, Australia;
Ruth Mostern, University of California Merced;
Cathy Campbell, University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract:
One might expect archaeologists and historians to be early adopters - or
indeed demanders - of spatio-temporal GIS, dealing as we do with objects
and events situated in space and time. Yet GIS and 3D reconstruction has
remained largely atemporal - where time is addressed at all, it is
generally in the form of layers or alternative views at different periods
(snapshots), more rarely in the form of objects with time stamps allowing
filtering of extant material for different dates. Little serious attempt
has been made to address issues such as the representation of temporal
uncertainty.
The reasons, we believe, are to do with the often imprecise nature of
historical and archaeological dating - we deal with periods, with terminus
post and ante quem dates, with indirect observations, with observations
made during an extended period rather than dating the beginning or end,
with statistical dating errors, with dating by association and so forth.
The resolution of our observations often varies within a single corpus
depending on the circumstances of discovery or the nature of the
phenomenon recorded (site, shard, settlement, battle etc.).
For these reasons, most research in the area of spatio-temporal systems
deals with contemporary phenomena where the data is more easily defined
and collected. Archaeologists and historians therefore have particular
needs which are less likely to be addressed by mainstream spatio-temporal
research.
However, over the last couple of years, papers on temporal modeling and
temporal GIS have started to appear in the CAA program. It therefore seems
timely to bring these papers together into a special session to review the
current status of spatio-temporal work and its application in our domain,
to share ideas, to define how our needs differ from work on contemporary
material, and perhaps to stimulate new collaboration.
We invite papers which review attempts to integrate spatial and temporal
information, papers which provide theoretical or methodological insight
into the issues of spatio-temporal modeling and analysis in the history
and archaeology, and papers which provide practical examples of
spatio-temporal GIS or visualization in action. Papers proposing original
approaches and new directions are also invited.
To provide a concrete outcome for the session, we plan to produce a short
annotated bibliography of spatio-temporal applications in archaeology and
history, which will be published on the web using Heurist
(HeuristScholar.org), allowing ongoing addition and discussion around the
topic. We will ask participants to provide key bibliographic references
and/or web sites prior to the session for inclusion in the bibliography
and to kick off discussion - we plan to conclude the session with a
roundtable discussion, with the aim of developing a 'manifesto'
identifying the current status and particular needs of this domain.
========================================================================
Ian Johnson
[joh...@acl.arts.usyd.edu.au]
Director, Archaeological Computing Laboratory
Deputy Director, Digital Innovation Unit
Senior Research Fellow, Archaeology
Australia:
Archaeological Computing Laboratory
http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/
Digital Innovation Unit in the Humanities and Social Sciences
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/digitalinnovation
Room 310 - 314, F09 Madsen Building, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
+61 (0)2 9351 2552 (direct) ..3142, ..8981 (msg) 3644 (fax)
+61 (0)402 389 190 mobile
France:
Esparoutis, St Cybranet 24250
+33 (0)5 53 28 39 24 fixed
+33 (0)6 37 18 93 42 mobile
Email: joh...@acl.arts.usyd.edu.au
Project URLS:
Rethinking Timelines: http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/timelines
TimeMap: http://www.TimeMap.net
Associate of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative http://www.ecai.org
Chris
speak for quite a lot of the Brits out there when I say I simply can't
afford to go to CAA in the USA this year. The collapse of the pound
(from $2 for £1 to parity) means that the total costs of such a trip
(not just the air fare, but everything) have effectively doubled in
the past six months. I'd have been struggling to afford to go in any
event, but travel to the US just isn't economic right now, sadly.
Chris Green