Call For Workshops and Tutorials

ISWC is the premier venue for presenting innovative research, systems and application results related to the Semantic Web, Linked Data, and Knowledge Graphs, attracting a large number of high-quality submissions every year and participants from both industry and academia. ISWC brings together researchers from different areas, such as artificial intelligence, databases, natural language processing, machine learning, information systems, human-computer interaction, information retrieval, web science, etc., who investigate, develop and use novel methods and technologies for accessing, interpreting and using information on the Web in a more effective way. The Call for Workshops and the Call for Tutorials are below.

CALL FOR WORKSHOPS

Important Dates – All deadlines are 23:59 AoE (anywhere on Earth)

Besides the main technical program, ISWC will host several workshops on topics related to the general theme of the conference. The role of the workshops is to provide a setting for focused, intensive scientific exchange among researchers and practitioners interested in a specific topic. As such, workshops are the primary venues for the exploration of emerging ideas as well as for the discussion of novel aspects of established research topics.

We invite you to submit a proposal for workshops on a research topic of interest to ISWC attendees.

Review Criteria

The decision on acceptance or rejection of a workshop proposal will be made on the basis of the overall quality of the proposal and its appeal to a reasonable fraction of the Semantic Web and Knowledge Graph community. Other factors, such as overlap with other workshop proposals, or issues regarding logistics, will also be taken into account when making the final decision.

In particular, workshops should address research topics that satisfy each of the following criteria:

• the topic falls in the general scope of ISWC 2023
• there is a clear focus on a specific technology, problem, or application
• there is potential to attract a sufficiently broad community interested in the topic
• there is a concrete plan for a workshop format that is varied, interesting, and suitable for the workshop audience.

We look for two types of workshop proposals:

• Proposals for novel workshops on emerging topics that will become more important to the Semantic Web and Knowledge Graph Community in future years. Proposers will have to argue why the topic is of increasing importance for the community and why it will attract enough submissions and participants to support the development of the topic. Proposals of this type will mainly be evaluated on the potential for future impact. We recommend novel workshops to target a half-day format unless there is sufficient justification to a full-day workshop. 
• Established workshops on a specific aspect of Semantic Web research that have demonstrated the ability to attract a high number of submissions and participants as well as a noticeable effect on the scientific progress in that particular field. Such proposals should justify why the workshop series merits continuation and how it continues to maintain a focused scope. Corresponding proposals will be evaluated on past success and arguments for continuation.

Submission and Review Process

Proposal submissions should be done via EasyChair using this link. All submissions should be in English as a single PDF file no longer than 4 (four) pages, following the LNCS file format. For details on the LNCS style, please see Springer’s Author Instructions. The proposal should contain the following sections.

• Title and Acronym
• Workshop Type: established/emerging
• Abstract: 200 word summary of the workshop purpose
• Topics: What topics of interest will be covered by the workshop? (Bulleted list; no longer than half a page)
• Motivation (emerging only): Why is the topic timely and of particular interest to ISWC participants? (One to three paragraphs)
• Continuation (established only): Why is it worthwhile to continue the workshop in 2023? Discussion may include novel topics that are emerging, external developments that prompt new challenges, etc. Workshops should also argue why they continue to be relevant and maintain a focused identity versus the main conference. (No longer than half a page)
• Past Workshops (established only): describe the development of the workshop series over the past 3-5 years including quantitative information on submissions, accepted papers, and attendance. (No longer than a page)
• Workshop Format: The intended mix of events, such as paper presentations, invited talks, panels, demos, and general discussion (Either a tentative tabular schedule or a one paragraph summary).
• Review policy: if contributions will be peer-reviewed, whether e.g. open review, double blind review, or single blind review will be used.
• Publication policy: the plans for preserving the workshop’s outcome, e.g., publication of workshop papers in an online repository like CEUR, invitation of selected papers to a journal special issue, etc.
• Audience and community (emerging only): Who and how many people are likely to attend? Demonstrate that there is an existing community interested in the topic e.g., by providing references for recent papers related to the core topic of the workshop, and/or a discussion of why the workshop would attract submissions. (No longer than half a page)
• Chair(s): Name, affiliation, email address, homepage, and short (one paragraph) biography of each chair, explaining the chair’s expertise in the workshop topic and experience in organising relevant events.
• Program Committee: Names and affiliations of potential PC members (at least 50% of PC members should have been confirmed).
• Proposed Length: Half-day or full-day

We strongly advise having more than one chair, preferably from different institutions, bringing different perspectives to the workshop topic, ideally with a mix of both junior and senior researchers. We also strongly advise having a maximum of five workshop organisers. We strongly encourage the workshop organizers to strive for gender, location, and institution diversity in the organization and program committee, as well as efforts to broaden participation of underrepresented and underserved minority groups. We welcome workshops with an innovative structure and a diverse programme that attracts various types of contributions and ensures rich interactions. Proposed workshops should have a core theme that is much more selective than the broader scope of the main conference. We may reject or propose to merge workshops that overlap significantly with other workshops in terms of theme.

Accepted workshops will be required to prepare a workshop web page containing their call for papers and detailed information about the workshop organisation and timelines. While the ISWC workshop and local chairs will assist with the local organisation of the workshop, the workshop organisers will be responsible for conducting their own reviewing process, for publicity of their workshop, and for publishing proceedings (for example, electronically on CEUR), etc.

At least one workshop organizer must register for the conference and participate in the workshop. There will be one free registration for the conference per workshop. At the discretion of the workshop and tutorial track chairs, workshops may be cancelled if a workshop has received too few submissions or if the organizers have not registered in a timely manner, i.e., no organizer has registered for the conference before the early registration deadline. 

Workshop organisers may choose to offer a maximum deadline extension of one week. Please note that these are strict deadlines necessary to comply with the overall conference organization.

CALL FOR TUTORIALS

Important Dates – All deadlines are 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)

In addition to the regular research and workshop program, ISWC 2023 will feature a tutorial program addressing the diverse interests of its audience: Semantic Web practitioners that wish to learn about new technologies, novices to the Semantic Web interested in introductory tutorials to key Semantic Web, Knowledge Graphs and Linked Data topics, government and industry representatives focusing on the applicability of Semantic Web, Knowledge Graphs and Linked Data technologies in practical settings.

We hereby invite you to submit a tutorial proposal on a research topic relevant to the ISWC 2023 audience.

Review Criteria

The decision on acceptance or rejection of tutorial proposals will be made on the basis of the overall quality of the proposal and its appeal to a reasonable fraction of the Semantic Web and Knowledge Graph community.

In particular, tutorials should satisfy each of the following criteria:

• The research topic falls in the general scope of the conference.
• There is a clear focus on a specific technology, problem or application.
• There is an anticipation of a sufficiently large community interested in the topic.
• There is a concrete plan for the tutorial format including exercises or other types of hands-on work.

We expect proposals for the following types of tutorials:

• Tutorials providing an introduction to well established Semantic Web and Knowledge Graph aspects.
• Tutorials describing the cross-link between Semantic Web/Knowledge Graph technologies and other disciplines/application domains.
• Tutorials presenting specific Semantic Web and Knowledge Graph technologies/trends.

Additionally, we expect tutorials to have practical parts in terms of examples or preferably exercises / hands-on sessions to be carried out by the participants.

Instructions for Proposers

Proposal submissions should be done via EasyChair using this link. All submissions should be in English as a single PDF file no longer than 4 (four) pages, following the LNCS file format. For details on the LNCS style, please see Springer’s Author Instructions. The proposal should contain the following sections.

• Title and Acronym
• Abstract: 200 word summary of the tutorial purpose and content
• Level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced
• Motivation: Why is the topic timely and of particular interest to ISWC participants? What is the relation of this tutorial to other similar tutorials presented at other events? (One to three paragraphs)
• Detailed Description: Length (full day or half day), an overview of content and schedule, description of learning outcomes, presentation style, tutorial format, justification of length if full day (why a half-day tutorial would not suffice), prior knowledge required by the attendees (No longer than two pages). 
• Tutorial Material: Overview of the material used for the tutorial. In case of slides, handouts or other teaching material please specify when the material will be made available and how (e.g, under a CC license to anyone, only to the attendees, not at all, and so on) (One to three paragraphs).
• Audience: Who and how many people are likely to attend? (one paragraph).
• Presenters: Name, affiliation, email address, homepage and short (one paragraph) biography of each chair, their expertise in the tutorial topic as well as their experiences in teaching and in tutorial presentation. Please indicate which presenter is the primary contact. (one to two paragraphs per presenter)
• Related events (if the tutorial was presented before in a similar form): Link to previous event(s), including the ones organized at other conferences, and materials. The number of attendees of the previous event(s). Why is it relevant to continue the tutorial in 2023?
• Requirements: Audio-visual or technical requirements and any special room requirements (one to two paragraphs).

We may reject or propose to merge tutorials that overlap significantly with other tutorials in terms of theme.

Accepted tutorials will be required to prepare a tutorial web page containing detailed information about the tutorial content, schedule and organisation. Tutorial organisers are also responsible for the timely production and distribution of all material to be used for teaching the tutorial (slides, notes, technical papers, etc.). In the case of a hands-on tutorial requiring software, it is strongly recommended that tutors place any software prerequisites online for participants to download and install in advance of the start of the tutorial. Additionally, tutors should avoid, as much as possible, depending on live web-based services that could be hampered by unexpected technical issues.

All tutors who will be presenting at the tutorial must register at the conference to participate. There will be one free registration for the conference per tutorial. At the discretion of the workshop and tutorial track chairs, tutorials may be cancelled if tutors have not registered in a timely manner, i.e., no tutor has registered for the conference before the early registration deadline. 

Workshop and Tutorial Chairs

Heiko Paulheim
University of Mannheim, Germany

Bo Fu
California State University Long Beach, USA

Workshop Contact

iswc2023-workshop-proposal@easychair.org

Tutorial Contact

iswc2023-tutorial-proposal@easychair.org