Special Track on Metadata & Semantics for Open Repositories, Research Information Systems & Data Infrastructures 

11th International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research

November 28th – December 1st 2017

Tallinn University, Estonia

Aim and Scope

The sharing and re-use of research information is becoming an increasingly important aspect of scientific activity. Text publications are traditionally the main way of publishing research output and challenges still exist for their optimal recording and dissemination. Scientific communities increasingly recognise the immense significance of storing, discovering, processing, preserving and re-using data sets as well as other types of research objects like workflows and software. Furthermore, Public Sector Information, potentially valuable for research purposes, is provided openly by governments although not always in forms that enable re-use.

Metadata is a critical factor in this area, actually providing the means to promote black-box digital files to discoverable and re-usable objects. Rich metadata about research output needs to be recorded and disseminated, including contextual and provenance information (for example, relationships of publications and data sets with people, organisations, funding information, facilities and equipment). For certain use cases, metadata needs to be uniformly accessed across research domains, to foster collaboration and re-use of data sets among different disciplines and vertical communities. However, the recording and utilisation of domain-specific information is also significant in many circumstances. A range of open research and technical issues have to be addressed towards these goals, while it is also recognised that international harmonisation on standards and technologies is of critical importance.

The aim of this Special Track is to serve as a forum for experts to present recent results and experiences, establish liaisons with other groups and reflect on the state-of-the-art of metadata and semantic aspects of open repositories, research information systems and data infrastructures.

Topics

Topics include but are not limited to contributions dealing with the following issues:

• Metadata, knowledge representation and relevant standards in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Semantic interoperability and information integration in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Application of semantic web technologies in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Data infrastructures (e.g. scientific data, public sector information)
• Contextual and provenance metadata in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Metadata interoperability for data infrastructures across disciplines
• Metadata quality in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Mechanisms, tools and infrastructures for shared services in open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures
• Digital preservation workflows and mechanisms and impact on metadata
• Value-added services based on open access repositories, research information systems and research infrastructures

Important Dates

• 15th June 2017: Submission deadline for papers .New Paper submission deadline: July 10th, 2017
• 15th July 2017 July 31 st , 2017: Notification of acceptance
• 20th August 2017 August 27 th , 2017: Camera-ready papers due
• November 28th –December 1st , 2017: Conference in Tallinn University, Tallinn (Estonia)

Paper Submissions

Interested authors can submit to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mtsr2017

 The following types of presentation are invited:

• Full papers (12 pages) reporting complete research
• Short papers (6 pages) presenting ongoing or preliminary research
• Posters (4 pages)

Papers should be original and not previously submitted to other Conferences or Journals. All submissions will be reviewed on the basis of relevance, originality, importance and clarity following a double-blind peer review process. Submissions associated by any MTSR member (e.g. Chairs and PC members of MTSR or any of its Tracks) will follow a double-blind peer review process by an independent review committee.

Submitted papers have to follow the LNCS proceedings formatting style and guidelines. Authors of accepted papers will be asked to register to the Conference and present their work in the form of either oral presentation or poster presentation. The Conference welcomes Workshops and Tutorial on any issues concerning the main themes of MTSR such as metadata, ontologies, semantic Web, knowledge management, software engineering and digital libraries.

Conference Proceedings

Proceedings will be published by Springer in Vol.755 of the Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) book series. CCIS is abstracted/indexed in Scopus, SCImago, EI-Compendex, Mathematical Reviews, DBLP, Google Scholar. CCIS volumes are also submitted for the inclusion in ISI Proceedings.

Other Publication Opportunities

Selected papers might be considered for a revised and extended version to be published in a range of international journals, including the International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies (Inderscience)  and Program (Emerald).

Awards

There are two types of awards: the Best paper award and the Best student paper award, both sponsored by euroCRIS.

• Best paper award: This award will be presented to the authors of the best full research paper submitted and presented to the conference.
• Best student paper award: MTSR sponsors a paper competition to recognize excellence in a conference paper contribution whose primary author is a student (normally at a PhD or MRes level). The student is required to present the paper at the MTSR 2017 conference. Submissions are evaluated on their originality, scientific merits, structure, and clarity of composition.

Special Track Chairs

• Miguel-Ángel Sicilia, University of Alcalá (Spain)
• Armando Stellato, University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy)

Honorary Track Chairs

• Imma Subirats, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Italy)
• Nikos Houssos, RedLink (Greece)

Program Committee

• Sophie Aubin, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, France
• Thomas Baker, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
• Hugo Besemer, Wageningen UR Library, The Netherlands
• Gordon Dunshire, University of Strathclyde, UK
• Jan Dvorak, Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic
• Jane Greenberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
• Siddeswara Guru, University of Queensland, Australia
• Keith Jeffery, Keith G Jeffery Consultants, UK
• Nikolaos Konstantinou, University of Manchester, UK
• Rebecca Koskela, University of New Mexico, USA
• Jessica Lindholm, Malmö University, Sweden
• Paolo Manghi, Institute of Information Science and Technologies-Italian National Research Council (ISTI-CNR), Italy
• Brian Matthews, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK
• Eva Mendez Rodriguez, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
• Joachim Schöpfel, University of Lille, France
• Kathleen Shearer, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Germany
• Jochen Schirrwagen, University of Bielefeld, Germany
• Birgit Schmidt, University of Göttingen, Germany
• Chrisa Tsinaraki, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
• Yannis Tzitzikas, University of Crete and ICS-FORTH, Greece
• Zhong Wang, Sun-Yat-Sen University, China
• Marcia Zeng, Kent State University, USA