Decentralizing the Semantic Web (DeSemWeb2019)

ISWC2019 Proposal for an Established Workshop

Abstract

The Semantic Web is increasingly becoming a centralized story: we rely on large-scale server-side infrastructures to perform intense reasoning, data mining, and query execution. This kind of centralization leads to a number of problems, including lock-in effects, lack of users' control of their data, limited incentives for interoperability and openness, and the resulting detrimental effects on privacy and innovation. Therefore, we urgently need research and engineering to bring back the “Web” to the Semantic Web, aiming for intelligent clients—instead of intelligent servers—as sketched in the original Semantic Web vision. Following the success of the workshop at ISWC2017 and ISWC2018, DeSemWeb2019 focuses on decentralized and client-side applications. While we recognize the value in all subfields of the Semantic Web, we see an urgent need to revalue the role of clients. This proposal details the topics of the workshop, as well as the organisational aspects. We believe this proposal will help put different topics on the Semantic Web community’s research agenda, which should lead to new inspiration and initiatives to build future Semantic Web and Linked Data applications.

Topics

The workshop focuses on the following topics and related subjects:

Continuation

The 2017 and 2018 editions of the workshop proved there is a strong interest in decentralization. We reached a peek attendance of 70 people at both occasions, with contributions from academia as well as industry. Nonetheless, decentralization remains a relatively new topic at ISWC, so a focused workshop is the best venue to gather people with similar interests. The topic has also gained significant media attention in the past couple of months, and will likely continue to be an object of discussion in the years to come.

Despite this widespread attention, many important challenges still remain unsolved. In particular, new decentralized applications need to emerge, which is why we will organize a focused track specifically on applications. At the same time, underlying technologies need to be refined and analyzed, including (but not limited to) security, querying, reasoning, trust, visualization, and privacy. On the infrastructural level, we need to think about the relationship between decentralization and replication, and find the right role for Linked Data Notifications in this.

Past editions

The workshop at ISWC2017 attracted 14 submissions, 13 of which were incorporated into the program. The workshop had a peak attendance of around 70 people from both academia and industry, and an average attendance of 30-40 during the day. The second workshop attracted 10 submissions, 6 of which were accepted for presentation. Attendance was similar.

Length

Like last year, we propose a full-day workshop.

Format

The morning will start with a thought-provoking keynote on the current state of the (Semantic) Web, and why decentralization is crucial for the future. After discussion with the speaker, we continue with talks by members of the community. These can be lightning talks, article presentations, demonstrations, and other forms of contributions.

In the afternoon, depending on the number of submissions, we might first have another slot of talks, where we will emphasize industry-focused contributions. We will end the day with a special session on applications, where participants are challenged to build on top of the Solid platform.

Chairs

Ruben Verborgh

Ghent University – imec, Belgium

https://ruben.verborgh.org/

[Ruben Verborgh]

Ruben Verborgh is a professor of Semantic Web technology at Ghent University – imec and a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. He explores the connection between Semantic Web technologies and the Web’s architectural properties, with the ultimate goal of building more intelligent clients. Along the way, he became fascinated by Linked Data, REST/hypermedia, Web APIs, and related technologies.

Tobias Kuhn

VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

http://www.tkuhn.org/

[Tobias Kuhn]

Tobias Kuhn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at VU University Amsterdam. He is interested in socio-technical systems, in particular the Web and the system of scientific communication and collaboration, and he investigates how software tools can help us to better organize human knowledge.

Tim Berners-Lee

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

[Tim Berners-Lee]

Tim Berners-Lee is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards organization founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He is a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation which was launched in 2009 to coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

Program Committee

The following people could be potential PC members.