The number of applications using spatial or geographic data has been ever increasing over the last decades. National as well as local governments face the high complexity of long term decision making processes, where ad hoc issues are to be evaluated in the context of more general policies concerning land, population, resources and environment management, just to mention a few factors to be taken into account. The demand is high for such decision support applications based on factual geographical data.

The technical response from the computer science perspective, in terms of application support, is rapidly evolving. On the one hand, the new object-oriented paradigm materializes an approach that substantially improves understandability as well as system functionality and even performance. On the other hand, new small scale geographical information systems (GIS), often termed desktop GIS, are coming to the market to challenge traditional dinosaur GIS, i.e. huge software systems so complex that only specialists can really use them. It is therefore foreseeable that the GIS market will rapidly evolve to desktop GIS directly used by application-oriented people, e.g. geographers, economists, and managers. By the time these new GIS become available, people as well as application programs will be familiar with using the Web to access distant information. This should also be the case for GIS, as the geographical information of relevance to an application is normally spread over a number of different locations and into heterogeneous data stores. Using the Web as a communication channel is likely to be the easiest way to get data from the heterogeneous stores.

However, before this vision becomes reality, GIS technology still needs to achieve a substantial progress in terms of interaction modes between users and the system, which includes in particular the data modeling features interfaces are built on. Current user interfaces are mostly based on the form-filling paradigm. While this approach is very simple for users, it implies that only pre-planned interactions (data acquisition, queries, and updates) are possible. Such a fixed pattern for data usage is well suited for the development of applications, where these have to be planned in advance, designed, implemented, and tested. Rigidity, on the contrary, is not at all well suited for interactions with casual users, whose requests are abruptly determined and call for on the fly execution. All forms of exploratory data investigation, where users navigate through unplanned paths, also need maximum flexibility in their interface to the GIS.

Moreover, one of the major problems that the development of GIS applications is facing today is data acquisition. Not that data is not available: geographic data collection has been going on for centuries. Some of that are still stored on paper, including maps, some have been digitized and are stored in current GIS systems (at best) or in traditional files or databases. However, too often their reuse for new applications is a nightmare, due to poor documentation, obscure semantics of data, poorly updating, diversity of data sets (what information is stored, how it is represented and structured, what quality it has, which date it refers to, which scale is used, ...), heterogeneity of existing systems in terms of data modeling concepts, data encoding techniques, storage structures, access functionality, etc.

Intended audience

This workshop intends to present and discuss the latest technological trends or achievements that have or will have a substantial impact on the way users will be able to solve their application problems using a GIS or a DBMS with spatio-temporal functionality. The workshop will explicitly favor confrontation of approaches to achieve mutual knowledge transfer and enrichment. Relevant partners include:

users: managers who have to direct the development of applications that are naturally based on geo-data, such as urban planning, facilities managements, environmental monitoring, just to name a few. Designers of geodata applications,
software providers: from the major GIS companies, developing new products and new strategies for support of geodata applications, to smaller businesses offering focused products and services in specific application domains, and
academics that have invested in developing new ideas and new techniques to improve usability of geodata.

Representatives from these communities will be invited to present their vision of the future. All presentations will be given ample time to develop their contribution and lead to fruitful discussions. Separate consideration will be given to application-oriented contributions and scientific contributions, to form a workshop program that harmoniously supports complementary concerns. Demonstrations of innovative products and prototypes will be organized to provide hands-on facilities to explore new opportunities in spatio-temporal data management.

Topics of interest

The following list suggests topics where contributions are welcome. Contributions on topics not in the list are also welcome as long as they address issues that are relevant to the workshop objectives.

conceptual or logical models for spatial and/or temporal data
conceptual or logical models for spatio-temporal processes
languages for data or metadata manipulation
user interfaces
information visualization
models and languages for semantic interoperability
usability assessment, in particular through significant applications
domain specific models and languages
user communities support
use of object-oriented technologies for geo-based applications
extensible systems and architectures
innovative applications, experiments, and tools
web based GIS, intranet, extranet, on-line permitting
groupware for geoprocessing
mobile GIS

Residential accommodation and social events

The Conference venue, the Centro Stefano Franscini, also known as Monte Verità, has both conference and lodging facilities. Participants will be provided full board on site, at a very special rate, a perfect way to create the best opportunities for long and frequent informal discussions. Most rooms are shared double rooms. Nearby hotels have been selected to accommodate overflow participants. A tour to the surrounding beautiful area will also be organized for participants to relax, enjoy the scenery, and chat with each other.

About Ascona

Ascona is a renowned, beautiful village overlooking the Lago Maggiore (at the border between Italy and Switzerland). Itęs walking distance from Locarno, and only a few miles away from Lugano. Behind Ascona lie the famous Centovalli, a superb mountainous area that can be easily visited using a small train. The whole area is only one-hour drive from Milano, fashion capital of the world.
Touristic information on:
Ticino
Lago Maggiore Area

Travelling to Ascona

Detailed travel information is available at http://www.csf-mv.ethz.ch/Official/Additional/Additional.html.
The nearest airport is Lugano, from where train connections will take you to Locarno. Fron Locarno a bus will take you in a few minutes to Ascona. Lugano has air and train connections to Zurich and Geneva airports. You may also fly to Zurich or Geneva and reach Locarno by train. It may not take much longer. Alternatively, you may fly to Milano, Italy. The Malpensa airport is mid-way between Milano and Lugano, so, if you rent a car you are close by. Or you can go to Milano and take a train to Lugano.

Registration

Two registration methods are available:

You can go to the registration page, print it, fill it and fax it to us (no online registration is currently available);
or you can download a form in rtf format, fill it in and send it to Chiara.Donini@epfl.ch

Please note that for a limited number of registrations we will provide full board (hotel + meals) starting on Sunday afternoon before the workshop. Accomodation for these participants will be at the Monte Verità, where the workshop is held.
Accomodation in nearby hotels is possible.
The registration fee will include:

coffee breaks, lunches and dinners (from Monday on)
the conference proceedings
the conference banquet
a tour to the surrounding area.

Submission of contributions (papers, panels, demos, tutorials)

You are warmly invited to contribute to the workshop by submitting papers, proposals for panels or tutorials, proposals for demos, and any other suggestion that aims at enriching the workshop. Submitted papers should be in the 5000-8000 words range, and specify whether they should preferably be considered for the application track or the scientific track. Papers should include an abstract and keywords precisely identifying the domains they relate to, and indicate the contact author. Formatting specifications will be given in the final call for papers.
Proposals for panels should include a title, brief description, moderator and expected panelists.
Proposals for tutorials should target a limited duration (one hour), hence address a focused topic. Exceptions may be considered but will have to be strongly motivated. The proposal should make very clear what significant message is being conveyed and its relevance to the objectives of the workshop.
Proposals for demos should include a short documentation on the product or prototype and on the proposer. Should the proposer need provision of hardware/software/communications facilities, this should be clearly stated in the proposal.
For all proposals it is understood that at least one author is committed to participate to the workshop for the whole duration of the event.

SUBMITTING YOUR CONTRIBUTION: all submissions and proposals should be sent in paper or electronic (preferably PostScript or PDF) format to both Program Committee Co-Chairs (addresses shown below). If your file is in a different format, please check with the PC Co-Chairs.

Grants

Grants for participants from Eastern European countries may be given by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Should you qualify, please contact the workshop secretariat. A detailed CV, an abstract of the presentation during the workshop, if any, and the cost to be covered by the grant have to be handed in for each person. The deadline for grant applications is March 15, 2000.

Organization

Workshop Co-Chairs :

Prof. Stefano Spaccapietra, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland email: spaccapietra@epfl.ch
Prof. Yahiko Kambayashi, Kyoto University, Japan email: yahiko@isse.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Program Committee Co-Chairs :

Prof. Moira Norrie, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland - email: norrie@inf.ethz.ch
postal address: Institute for Information Systems, ETH Zentrum, IFW D 45.1, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Prof. Robert Laurini , INSA & Université C. Bernard Lyon I, Lyon, France - email: laurini@if.insa-lyon.fr
postal address: LISI -502- INSA de Lyon, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

Program Committee :

Dave Abel, CSIRO, Australia
Marie-Aude Aufaure, University of Lyon, France
Robert Barr, University of Manchester, UK
Michel Bernard, COGITIS, Montpellier, France
Jean-Paul Cheylan, CNRS Montpellier, France
Richard Cooper, University of Glasgow, UK
Ed Crane, ESRI, Kansas City, USA
Michael Gould, University of Madrid, Spain
Ralf Hartmut Guting, University of Hagen, Germany
Mike Kevany, PlanGraphics, Washington DC, USA
Udo Maack, Berlin, Germany
Massimo Rumor, Padova, Italy
Mauro Salvemini, University of Roma, Italy
Timos Sellis, NTUA, Greece
Dimitri Tombros, STCG, Switzerland
Nectaria Tryfona, Aalborg University, Denmark
Peter Widmayer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Michael Worboys, Keele University, UK

Workshop Secretariat

Mrs Chiara Donini, EPFL-DI-LBD, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
email: chiara.donini@epfl.ch

Important Dates

Deadline for Submissions: February 1st
Reviews due: March 10
Notification: March 20
Final versions: April 15 (Camera ready copy)

Additional Information

For more information please contact the workshop secretariat. The workshop web page will be maintained to contain the most up to date information.

Last modified by Stefano Spaccapietra, Friday, 22-Feb-2002 14:44:05 CET

International Workshop onEmerging Technologies for Geo-Based Applications

Supported by (preliminary list)

Call for papers

Important Dates

Additional Information

International Workshop on
Emerging Technologies for Geo-Based Applications