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Terra Cognita 2008 Deadline extended
   Deadline extended to July 28
   Short abstract requested by July 21
   Workshop date is Sunday, Oct. 26
   Selected Papers To Be Published in Transactions in GIS (about 6,000 words)
   EasyChair link updated

Terra Cognita 2008 Workshop on Sunday, Oct. 26
http://asio.bbn.com/terracognita2008/
In Conjunction with the 7th International Semantic Web Conference,
 (ISWC 2008), http://iswc2008.semanticweb.org/, Karlsruhe, Germany

Workshop Overview
The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in a growing field of Semantic Web research:the intersection between Semantic Web data and geospatial data and applications. This workshop followsthe Terra Cognita 2006 Workshop at ISWC 2006. Increased interactions between the geospatial and SemanticWeb communities are likely to contribute to solving some important spatial data problems within theSemantic Web and to providing indispensable formalizations for upper-level and domain ontologies.

Adding a geospatial component will enhance the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web community is in need ofboth better ways of representing and processing geospatial data and a better understanding of the uniqueproblems geospatial data present. A large proportion of the data available on the Web has an inherentspatial context. This context currently goes largely unexploited. While many Semantic Web applicationsmay use a map for viewing data, processing spatial relationships at a deeper level of understanding isneeded to exploit the range of data.

The geospatial community requires input from the Semantic Web community as well, because a number ofimportant spatial data problems have potential solutions within the Semantic Web. Building geospatialontologies is a first step for alleviating the restrictiveness of XML-based and relationaldatabase-based schemas. Service interoperability also stands to make significant gains by incorporatingSemantic Web technologies.

Input is needed from both the geospatial and Semantic Web communities. It is expected that this workshopwill draw Semantic Web researchers interested in working in the geospatial area as well as geospatialresearchers wanting to pursue Semantic Web technologies. The workshop will include research areas inaddition to novel applications. The workshop is a full day and includes one interactive session in whichaudience members can talk or present a slide for a couple of minutes on a relevant topic. (Although the terms spatial and geospatial are sometimes used interchangeably, we include the termgeospatial to cover more broadly issues and data having a spatial component.)

Paper Topics
• Geospatial ontologies
• Semantic Web research regarding geospatial data
• Novel applications of Semantic Web technology to spatial data
• Novel applications of spatial data to Semantic Web applications
• Techniques for processing spatial data within the Semantic Web
• Semantic issues in geospatial standards
• Domain-oriented GIS applications that leverage Semantic Web technology

Paper Submission
Selected papers will be published in a special issue of Transactions in GIS, with a preferred length of about 6,000 words. Submissions will be handled using EasyChair (http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=terracognita2008). Workshop papers must be formatted in the style of the Springer Publications format for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) (Information for LNCS Authors, http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0#anchor1). Formatted workshop papers must represent new work and be approximately 10 pages, no longer than 13. All submissions will be reviewed by three members of the program committee. At least one author must register to present an accepted paper.

Dates
Submissions: 21 July abstract requested; 28 July full paper
Acceptances: 29 August
Camera Ready: 26 September

Organizing Committee
Terra Cognita 2008 is organized by members of the Spatial Ontology Community of Practice (SOCoP,(Ontology_Community_of_Practice" target="_blank">http://semanticommunity.wik.is/Spatial_Ontology_Community_of_Practice). SOCoP is a geospatial semanticsinterest group currently with members from U.S. federal agencies, academia, and companies. The group isopen to anyone, and international collaborations are welcome. SOCoP’s goal is to foster collaborationamong users, technologists, and researchers of spatial knowledge representations and reasoning towardsthe development of a set of core, common geospatial ontologies for use by all in the Semantic Web.

Workshop Chairs
Nancy Wiegand, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA, wiegand@cs.wisc.edu
Dave Kolas, BBN Technologies, USA, dkolas@bbn.com
Gary Berg-Cross, Engineering Management & Integration, USA,

Program Committee Members
Dan Adams, Scitor Corp, USA
Harry Chen, ImageMatters, USA
Isabel Cruz, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Mike Dean, BBN Technologies, USA
Cathy Dolbear, Ordnance Survey, UK
Beth Driver, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, USA
Max Egenhofer, University of Maine, USA
Kathleen Hornsby, University of Iowa, USA
Werner Kuhn, University of Munster, Germany
Josh Lieberman, Traverse Technologies, USA
Michael Lutz, European Commission-DG Joint Research Center, Italy
Jim Ressler, Northrop Grumman, USA
Angela Schwering, University of Osnabrueck, Germany