Open Data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. Open Data recently, gaining popularity with the rise of the W3C Semantic Web prospective vision.

The LinkedData network, promoted by the W3C, is the most visible part of what an open Web of data, as a complement of a Web of document could be. Vast repositories of normalized data like those from DBPedia, PubMed, GeneID, DrugBank, OECD or UNESCO are now stimulating an intensive new field of research related to the possible uses of those data in IA and knowledge management applications. Major companies involved in data exploration and information retrieval invest in this new field and study new interfaces and algorithms to bring the gap between data and users like Google and the Public Data Explorer.

Governments are increasingly recognizing the benefits of making their data open and reusable. The launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov in USA or various initiatives in Europe like the Open Data Challenge, or data.gov.uk is a strong encouragement to the development of the open data movement.

The wide availability of Public Sector Information can be a key driver to develop content markets in North America, which can generate new businesses and jobs and provide more information to consumers and citizens. In Canada, the Open Data Pilot is part of the Government commitment to open government, which is being pursued along three streams: open data, open information and open dialogue, and aims to drive innovation and economic opportunities for all Canadians.

We would like to invite researchers and actors of the open data movement to present their work to the workshop. This workshop would like to bring together data providers, initiative groups, technology providers, and researchers to facilitate the dissemination of ideas, methods and promote new research perspectives related to the Open Data and the Semantic Web applications.

Topics

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

1.Open Data sets and catalogs (including Semantic Web, LinkedData, public data sets)
2.Open Data pilot initiatives (including governmental, non-profit, academic)
3.Relation between Open Data and Natural Language Processing
4.Architectures and systems using Open Data
5.Tools and resources related to Open Data
6.Open Data construction tools
7.Format of Open Data (including RDF, OWL)
8.Application of Open Data in maps, encyclopedic knowledge, genomics, chemical compounds, mathematical and scientific formulae, medical data and practice, bioscience and biodiversity.
9.Evaluation and metrics related to Open Data sets quality, processing and software performances
10.Open Data and translation
11.Open Data visualization

Demos and papers related to working application or systems under development will be encouraged. We hope to cover three main perspectives: government and administrations (e.g., open ), industry (e.g., marketing, software applications and services), and academic (e.g., theoretical research related to Open Data production and uses).

Format and submissions:

Two formats are proposed :

1.Full paper (up to 8 pages)
2.Demo paper (up to 4 pages)

Submission of commercial applications and research related papers are strongly encouraged when they are strictly related to real open data (e.g., innovative commercial software tool using public data-sets)

Authors are invited to submit electronically on the website of the workshop by February 22th, 2012, full papers in PDF, Postscript or MS-Word RTF. All papers must be written in English.