2nd CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS: Submission deadline: March 31, 2008

Handbook of Research on Social Dimensions of Semantic Technologies and Web Services
A book edited by Maria Manuela Cunha, Eva Oliveira, António Tavares & Luís Ferreira
Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal
http://handbooksemanticweb.ipca.pt

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the "Handbook of Research on Social Dimensions of Semantic Technologies and Web Services" within your field of expertise related to the handbook topics.

Introduction:

"The web isn't about what you can do with computers. It's people and, yes, they are connected by computers. But computer science, as the study of what happens in a computer, doesn't tell you about what happens on the web". Tim Berners-Lee, NY Times, Nov 02, 2006.

The basic, underlying idea of the Semantic Web project is to create a universally recognized medium for exchanging information by giving meaning (semantics) to the contents of documents on the web in a way understandable by machines. The Semantic Web expands upon the WWW features through the introduction of standards, mark-up languages and the corresponding processing tools (e.g. inferential engines). The Semantic Web is now the most important influence on Web development.

A few years ago, it would have appeared impossible to develop a global web of semantically structured information to support inference. Now, semantic web is becoming a rapidly growing area in IT with emerging key developments, tools, and techniques that are engineering the web of the future, and
determining a new way of accessing, using, and exploring information and creating knowledge.

The impact of IT on society, organizations, and individuals is growing as the power of the web is harnessing collective intelligence and knowledge. Today, the impact of IT on people and society has become a key challenge to semantic web and should be solved for semantic web to be effective.

The mission and overall objectives of this Handbook of Research:

The mission of the proposed book is to discuss the main issues, challenges, opportunities and trends related to this new technology, semantic web, that can transform the way we use information and knowledge. The Handbook of Research on Social Dimensions of Semantic Technologies and Web Services will be a comprehensive publication which presents the social and technological dimensions of semantic technologies and web services, as well as the current developments, practical solutions, and applications in the field of semantic technologies and web services.

The overall objectives are:

• To discuss the importance of semantic web and emerging developments.
• To introduce the state-of-the-art technology supporting semantic web.
• To introduce and discuss the challenges and impact associated with semantic web, online communities, social web, etc. from the social perspective.
• To introduce recent technological developments and associated human / social implications.
• To introduce relevant and recent developments and solutions (academic and industrial) addressing the several dimensions and issues of this book.
• To discussion the impact of semantic technologies and web services on several domains (organizational, social and technological).
• To discuss challenges and opportunities in semantic technologies and web services.

The book is intended to support both an academic audience (teachers, researchers and students, mainly of post-graduated studies) and professionals (system developers and IT specialists).

Recommended topics:
The book intends to collect the most recent contributions of the social and technological dimensions of this largely multidisciplinary field called Web Science. Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following:

1. The technological dimension that enables and supports the following: data capturing, storing, access, and exploitation; data composing and integration; and aggregating value from data. The technological dimension includes:

• The semantic web philosophy, concepts, frameworks and enabling architectures.
• The semantic web components (for example, standards and tools of XML, OWL, RSS); ontology alignment; semantic publishing; semantic translation; semantic data web browsers and end-points; semantic content extraction; reasoning supporting adaptive semantic collaboration; collaborative,
• community-driven ontology construction, etc.
• Current development trends and relevant R&D projects.

2. The social and human dimension which explores motivations, benefits and emergent effects of semantic web, and includes, for example:

• analysis, visualization, and presentation of social networks; architectures of semantic participation; trust and privacy issues;
• quality analysis of socially generated semantic content;
• analysis of motivations and behaviour of social software users;
• knowledge acquisition and ontology management;
• the social semantic web (blogs, wikis, discussion lists); online communities.

3. The business and entrepreneurial perspective focusing on the added value of specific social semantic web applications

4. The impact, implications and challenges (social and technological) of
semantic web:

• on individuals and communities;
• on learning;
• on organizations and business;
• on scientific knowledge;
• on research.

5. The ongoing developments and applications to:

• e-Business;
• knowledge management;
• e-Science;
• e-Learning;
• e-Community;
• e-Health.

6. Integration with other disciplines

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before March 31, 2008, a 2 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by April 05 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organization guidelines. Full chapters (8,000 to 10,000 words) are expected to be submitted by June 20, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.

The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global, http://www.igi-global.com, publisher of the IGI Publishing (formerly Idea Group Publishing), Information Science Publishing, IRM Press, CyberTech Publishing Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference), and Medical Information Science Reference imprints in 2010.

*** Submissions should be forwarded electronically (Word document as attachment) to handbook.semantic.web [@ ]gmail.com. LaTex cannot be accepted.

*** For any questions, please contact us: handbook.semantic.web [@] gmail.com

Kind regards,

Maria Manuela Cunha (<>mcunha@ipca.pt)
Eva F. Oliveira (<>eoliveira@ipca.pt)
António J. Tavares (<>ajtavares@ipca.pt)
Luís G. Ferreira (<>lufer@ipca.pt)

Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave
Higher School of Technology
Urbanização Quinta da Formiga
4750 Barcelos
Portugal
Tel.: +351-253-802 260
Fax: +351-253-812 461