IAOA

International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA)

This is the home page of an open community wiki for the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA). You can use this wiki for adding ontology related information that you think is relevant for the broader ontology community, even without being a member of the association. There is also a member's only wiki available from the member's area of the association website. Here you can add, for example, events potentially of interests to ontologists, questions, answers, and so on.

For specific IAOA events, see the IAOA website and to join IAOA, click here!

What's New

• Sep-2013 - IAOA_ExecutiveCouncil_Election_2013

• 2013-04-26 - The IAOA Ordinary Assembly (April 2013) is called to examine and approve the 2012 financial statement and the 2013 previsional budget - see:

IAOA_Assembly_2013_04

• 2012_07_25 - during FOIS 2012, there will be a 2-Hour IAOA Technical Committees and Special Interest Groups (SIG's) meeting, and a 2-Hour General Assembly session on Wed 2012.07.25.
• 2012_07_24 to 27 - FOIS 2012, the flagship event of IAOA, is to be held this year, co-located with "ICBO-2012" in Graz, Austria. - see: http://kr-med.org/icbofois2012/fois.htm

• 2012_07_16 to 20 - the First Interdisciplinary IAOA Summer School on Ontological Analysis - to be held in Trento Italy - see: http://iaoa.org/isc2012/index.php

• 2012_06_19 - Nicola Guarino announced the time-table for the upcoming IAOA General Assembly and related activities. These include the nomination, campaigning and election of a new Executive Council (which will take office beginning 2013), adoption of the IAOA ByLaws, and a face-to-face Assembly (25-Jul-2012 5:00~8:00pm CEST) during FOIS-2012 (in Graz, Austria). Remote participation will be supported. All members are urged to participate!

• 2012_05_25 - Updates to the IAOA statute were adopted by an Extraordinary Assembly on 25-May-2012, during which the 2012 Financial Report for the Association was also formally adopted.

• 2011_07_17 to 23 - The first IAOA Summer Institute on Process Ontology was held, in cooperation with the Vespucci Initiative, in Florence (Firenze), Italy, between . See: http://vespucci.org/programme

• 2011_05_26 - Thursday: IAOA virtual panel session at the Ontolog Forum: "Update on IAOA: From a community of practice to an international association - the specific role of the IAOA and its accomplishments so far" - Co-chairs: Leo Obrst & Michael Grüninger - ConferenceCall_2011_05_26

• The IAOA Ordinary Assembly (April 2011) called to examine and approve the 2010 financial report and the 2011 budget - see: IAOA_Assembly_2011_04

• IAOA is co-organizing the 2011 Ontology Summit, along with NCO_NITRD, NCBO, NCOR, NIST and Ontolog. The theme for this Summit is "Making the Case for Ontology". This is a series of virtual events spanning over three months (20-Jan through 19-Apr-2011) which culminates in a 2-day Symposium at the NIST (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA). See: Ontology Summit 2011 and the OntologySummit2011_Communique

• At the face-to-face segment of the IAOA First General Assembly on 13-May-2010 (co-located with FOIS-2010 in Toronto, Canada) an updated report on IAOA was presented by Dr. Nicola Guarino (President) and other members of the newly elected Executive Council.

• Over a virtual segment of the IAOA First General Assembly, an elected IAOA Executive Council came into being. See details of the process and the results at: IAOA_ExecutiveCouncil_Election_2010

• The Introduction of IAOA at the Ontolog Forum - ConferenceCall_2009_06_18

About IAOA

The International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA) is a non-profit organization the purpose of which is to promote interdisciplinary research and international collaboration at the intersection of philosophical ontology, linguistics, logic, cognitive science, and computer science, as well as in the applications of ontological analysis to conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering, knowledge management, information-systems development, library and information science, scientific research, and semantic technologies in general.

The Association was formally established in Trento, Italy on April 29th 2009.

The official IAOA website is at: http://iaoa.org

Current Members of the IAOA Executive Council (EC)

This Executive Council was elected by the General Assembly in the July IAOA_ExecutiveCouncil_Election_2012, took office on 1-Jan-2013, with the term of office continuing until 31-Dec-2013.

• Michael Gruninger, University of Toronto, Canada (President)
• John Bateman, University of Bremen, Germany (Vice President)
• Frank Loebe, University of Leipzig, Germany (Secretary)
• Laure Vieu, IRIT-CNRS, France, and ISTC-CNR, Italy (Treasurer)
• Stefano Borgo, ISTC-CNR, Italy
• Giancarlo Guizzardi, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil
• Oliver Kutz, University of Bremen, Germany
• Fabian Neuhaus, NIST, US
• Leo Obrst, MITRE, US

Current Members of the IAOA Advisory Board (AB)

• Anthony Cohn (University of Leeds)
• Antony Galton (University of Exeter, UK)
• Nicola Guarino (ISTC-CNR, Italy) - Past-President
• Pat Hayes (IHMC, USA)
• Ian Horrocks (University of Oxford, UK)
• Christopher Menzel (Texas A&M University, USA)
• Riichiro Mizoguchi (Osaka University, Japan)
• Mark Musen (Stanford University, USA)
• John Mylopoulos (University of Trento, Italy)
• Barry Smith (University at Buffalo, USA)
• John F. Sowa (VivoMind Intelligence, USA)
• Chris Welty (IBM Research, USA)
• Peter P. Yim (Ontolog; CIM3, USA)

IAOA Standing Committees

• Visibility and Public Relations Committee -
  • Co-chairs: Nicola Guarino, John Bateman, Ali Hashemi
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Nicola Guarino and John Bateman
  • Mailing List Archives: IaoaPublicity
  • Wiki-space: IAOA Publicity

• International Promotion Committee -
  • Co-chairs: Riichiro Mizoguchi and Giancarlo Guizzardi (temporary)
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Riichiro Mizoguchi and Giancarlo Guizzardi
  • Wiki-space: IAOA International

• Infrastructure -
  • Co-chairs: Oliver Kutz and Valter Cavecchia
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Peter P. Yim, John Bateman and Laure Vieu
  • Wiki-space: IAOA Infrastructure (including work on the IAOA website)

• Membership Committee -
  • Chair: Laure Vieu
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Laure Vieu, Stefano Borgo
  • Subcommittee -
    • Interface with members - Chair: Stefano Borgo
  • Wiki-space: IAOA Membership

• ByLaws Committee -
  • Co-chairs: Stefano Borgo and Peter P. Yim
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Stefano Borgo and Peter P. Yim
  • Wiki-space: IaoaByLaws

IAOA Technical Committees

... all members of IAOA are welcome and encouraged to participate in the following Committee activities. Please email the respective committee chairs and EC-liaisons to get started.

• Education Committee -
  • Co-chairs: Fabian Neuhaus (acting chair)
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Leo Obrst and Michael Grüninger
  • Wiki-space: IAOA Education
  • Subcommittees -
    • Summer School - Chair: WernerKuhn
      • Wiki-space: IaoaEducation_School
      • website: http://iaoa.org/isc2012/index.php
    • PhD consortium / Doctoral Colloquium / Student exchanges - Chair: Robert Hoehndorf
      • Wiki-space: IaoaEducation_DoctoralConsortium
  • Curricula, Certification & Accreditation - Chair: Fabian Neuhaus
    • • Wiki-space: IaoaEducation_Curricula
    • Textbook / Handbook - Chair: Antony Galton
      • Wiki-space: IaoaEducation_Textbook
  • Ontology Terminology - Co-chairs: Todd Schneider & Adam Goldstein
    • • Wiki-space: IaoaOntologyTerminology (previously: Lexicon ... content to be migrated)

• Standardisation Coordination Committee
  • Co-conveners: John Bateman and Michael Grüninger
  • Wiki-space: IaoaStandardsCoordination

• Ontology registry and repository -
  • Co-chairs: Michael Grüninger and John Bateman (temporary)
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Michael Grüninger and John Bateman
  • Wiki-space: IaoaOntologyRepository

IAOA Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

... all members are welcome and encouraged to participate in the following SIG activities. Please email the respective SIG co-conveners and EC-liaisons to get started.

• Ontologies and Conceptual Modeling SIG -
  • Status: Established.
  • Co-conveners: OscarPastor, Yair Wand, Giancarlo Guizzardi
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Giancarlo Guizzardi
• Wiki-space: IaoaOntologiesAndConceptualModelingSIG

• Design Semantics: Ontologies, Inference, and Standards for Spatial Design SIG
  • Status: established.
  • Design, e.g., for creative, visual, product, architecture, and engineering, involves conception and abstraction with high-level constructs and patterns. An abstract preliminary design is translated to specific structures at a quantitative or geometric level via the process of physical design and specification. Contemporary professional design tools, and the precise quantitative modelling paradigm that they are based on, are inherently incapable of exploiting the correspondence between high-level descriptions of spatial concepts and patterns with low-level geometric features. Computer aided design tools also lack the ability to exploit the expertise that a designer is equipped with, but is unable to communicate to the design tool explicitly in a manner that is consistent with its inherent human-centred conceptualisation, i.e., semantically and qualitatively. ... In this special interest group, we aim to establish working-groups, and standardisation and dissemination initiatives within the foundational framework of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA). The initial focus of the SIG will be on the domain of spatial design for architecture, and the role of design semantics in the context of computer-aided architecture design standards and interoperability initiatives such as the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and the Building Information Model (BIM). Subsequently, the scope will be extended to other engineering design domains involving other types of creative and engineering function-driven of computer-aided design activities.
  • Co-conveners: Mehul Bhatt and John Bateman
  • IAOA EC liaisons: John Bateman
  • Website: here
  • Wiki-space: IaoaDesignSemanticsSIG

• Geo-Semantics: Geospatial Ontologies and Standards SIG
  • Status: in process of formation
  • Goals: the possible role and form of a geospatial ontology and standards SIG within the association, augmenting and complementing other initiatives in this area, is currently being considered. If you are interested in pursuing this further, get in contact with WernerKuhn and JohnBateman.
  • Wiki-space: IaoaGeoSemanticsSIG

• Biomedical Ontology SIG
  • Status: the possible role and form of a biomedical ontology SIG within the association, augmenting and complementing other initiatives in this area, is currently being considered. If you are interested in pursuing this further, get in contact with Stefan Schulz (Graz) and RobertHoehndorf. A meeting on this topic will be held at the upcoming FOIS 2012.

• Semantic Web Applied Ontology (SWAO) SIG
  • Status: Being formed
    • ref.: inaugural meeting - see: IAOA_SWAO_ConferenceCall_2013_11_25; organizational meeting coming up on Tue 2014_02_03
  • Co-conveners: ... (tbd) ...
  • IAOA EC liaisons: Leo Obrst
  • Goals: ... (coming!)
  • Wiki-space: IAOA_SWAO_SIG

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