Doctoral Symposium

Goal

The 1st International Semantic Web Doctoral Symposium will take place at 4th International Semantic Web Conference 2005. The Doctoral Symposium is a forum for doctoral students to present their work and obtain guidance from mentors as well as to provide contact to other students at a similar stage in their careers. The mentors are senior university or industry researchers, e.g., current or former members of the ISWC program committee. The goal of the symposium is to expose students to helpful criticism before their thesis defence, and to foster discussions related to future career perspectives. Mentors provide constructive criticism on the current work, and give advice for possible future direction and focus. A similar series of doctoral symposia is held in connection with the OOPSLA, ECOOP, ICSE, and Middleware conferences.

• Proceedings
• Event Photos

Symposium Organization

A group of 6 to 8 selected students present their research to one another and to a mock thesis committee of 4 to 5 mentors.

Students

• Alessio Gugliotta, University of Udine, Italy
  Knowledge Modeling for Integrating Semantic Web Services in E-Government Applications
• Carlos Lamsfus, Visual Interaction and Communications Centre, Spain
  Re-use and alignment of ontologies: the art-E-fact ontology as an extension of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM)
• Giorgos Flouris, Institute of Computer Science, Greece
  Applying Belief Change to Ontology Evolution
• Santtu Toivonen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
  Semantic Web as a Platform for Distributing Cognition
• Owen Gilson, University of Wales Swansea, UK
  Reducing the Complexity of Semantic Data Translation
• Brian Shields, National University of Ireland, Galway
  Semantically Enriching Access Control Rules for Web Services
• Lee Lacy, University of Central Florida, USA
  Representing Discrete-Event Simulation Models with the Web Ontology Language - OWL

Mock Thesis Committee

• Lora Aroyo, University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Zohra Bellahsene, Universite Montpellier II, France
• Mike Dean, BBN Technologies, USA
• Jeff Heflin, Lehigh University, USA
• Diana Maynard, University of Sheffield, UK
• Norman M. Sadeh, CMU, USA
• Derek Sleeman, University of Aberdeen, UK

Student Feedback

"The quality of the panel was a lot higher than expected, and the mixture of academia and industry driven research was important. The feedback and interaction between the panel and participants was very helpful, both during my allotted slot and during others. The feedback I received from the committee, both during the symposium and after, has been invaluable to my research direction and focus. The opportunity to present ideas to a committee of such high caliber is not available to many PhD students. I would like to thank each one of the members for taking the time out of an already hectic week to offer advice and guidance to us."
- Brian Shields, National University of Ireland, Galway.

"I definitely enjoyed myself. The atmosphere was very friendly, which is very important in such an event. The mentors were hard on us, but not harsh, which is how they should be, in my opinion. I must say that I gained a lot from this symposium, especially in terms of experience and interaction with other PhDs. ... This is definitely a good asset for future SW conferences and could help new researchers in a critical stage of their careers."
- Giorgos Flouris, Institute of Computer Science, Greece.

"Sincere thanks for everyone involved in organizing the ISWDS 2005. The contribution of the mentors was truly invaluable, and I believe that all students got food for thought with regard to their remaining PhD work. My personal mentor was Prof. Derek Sleeman, and his wise comments and suggestions helped me in the consideration of how to focus my research in order to create genuine contribution to the field."
- Santtu Toivonen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

"I really appreciated the committee's investment of their time and energies into this important event. Recognized experts in the field provided invaluable guidance and mentoring to the next generation of researchers."
- Lacy Lee, University of Central Florida, USA.

"You put together a very knowledgeable panel who were also enthusiastic and encouraging. The Q&A session and open forum at the end was a good way to round off the day. Great feedback, both on specific aspects of our work and also on the general trials and tribulations of being a PhD researcher. Thanks!"
- Owen Gilson, University of Wales Swansea, UK.

"I am very happy that I could attend and with its result. I had some very positive feedback, that I now have to organize somehow and keep going with my research work."
- Carlos Lamsfus, Visual Interaction and Communications Centre, Spain.

"As a student observer I had found it to be very informative. The comments of the mock committee and the technical discussions gave me a good idea as to what is considered a good Semantic Web research. The presentation on communication style was very informative. However, the best aspect of this symposium to me was the open forum at the end. Working towards a Ph.D. is one of the most enduring intellectual activities one undertakes in her life. It is a lonely journey. It was great to hear the panel discuss their experiences, the challenges they faced and how they have overcome them. I thank them for their candor."
- Abir Qasem, Lehigh University, USA. (Student Observer)