Abstract
The 1st Workshop on SociAL Semantic Analysis will bring together researchers, practitioners and students to discuss the dual relationship between the social and the semantic aspects of the Web. This is a rich, timely field, covering a wide range of aspects, particularly: (i) how semantic data and technologies can be exploited to better analyse, process and understand the social aspects of the web and, (ii) how the social web can be used to better shape, transform and create the semantic processes, data and technologies of Web. Discussions are at the core of this workshop, where we aim to bring an interdisciplinary audience to brainstorm and debate about the current and future directions of the field.
Motivation
The World Wide Web has become the largest human information and communication system in history, impacting the lives of billions of people around the world. Documents, data and individuals are connected within the Web, creating the most powerful network of information and communication ever seen. The Web is not only a technical but also a social phenomenon that is transforming the world in ways that were never imagined, shaping how we do business, elect governments or manage our social lives.
The rise in uptake of social platforms and the ubiquity of social functionalities across the Web has meant that the machine-readability of social data from disparate Web platforms has become increasingly important. Semantic Web research offers important technologies for making sense of and dealing with the large amount of user generated content that is inherently varied, dynamic, heterogeneous and contextual, and can greatly benefit from an increased understanding of social dynamics on the web.
Therefore research on the Semantic Web and the Social Web has important synergies and intersections. Particularly, this workshop invites contributions that explore synergies between the Semantic Web and its technologies on the one hand, and social and ubiquitous Web phenomena on the other hand.