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

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

Submission procedure

The following types of submissions are invited:

Full papers (12 pages, CCIS format) reporting completed research
Short papers (6 pages, CCIS format) presenting ongoing or preliminary research
Presentations and Posters (3-4 pages)
Proposals for Tutorials, Workshops. Demos and Panels (1-3 pages providing a description)

Submissions should be original and not previously submitted, published and under review 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. Submitted papers have to follow the LNCS proceedings formatting style and guidelines (https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines). Authors of accepted submissions will be asked to register to the Conference and present their work in the form of either oral presentation or poster presentation.

Interested authors can submit to EasyChair.

Conference Proceedings

Proceedings will be published by Springer in CCIS (Communications in Computer and Information Science) book series (https://www.springer.com/series/7899). 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) (https://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=ijmso) and Data Technologies and Applications (Emerald) (http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=dta), previously published as Program (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/loi/prog).

Awards

There are two types of awards: the Best Paper award and the Best Student Paper award, both sponsored by euroCRIS (http://www.eurocris.org/).

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 2020 conference. Submissions are evaluated on their originality, scientific merits, structure, and clarity of composition.

The author of an awarded paper, and co-authors if any, will be entitled to:

Receive a signed and stamped official award certificate by the conference organizers
Promote their achievement on MTSR conference webpage, and MTSR Social Media
Get invited to submit an extended and revised version of the awarded paper for publication in the International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies (Inderscience) (http://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=ijmso);
- Each award comes with the price of a free access/registration to next year’s MTSR. Including all conference materials, together with the printed/digital conference proceedings.
- This voucher, in case of many co-authors, is valid only for one author of the awarded paper, and only for the MTSR conference that follows the year after receiving the award.

Special Track Chairs

Nikos Houssos, RedLink, Greece

Armando Stellato, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy

Honorary Track Chair

Imma Subirats, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy

Program Committee (TBC)

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, Drexel University, 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

Contact: Armando Stellato (stellato@uniroma2.it) and mtsr.conference@gmail.com

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