JOWO 2019 – Report from Graz

The IAOA event JOWO 2019 – Episode V: The Styrian Autumn of Ontology took place at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, on 23-25 September. The event included twelve workshops, five tutorials, three keynote presentations, and three IAOA meetings, which makes it the largest JOWO event so far. It was a success both in terms of submissions and participants: the call for papers attracted a total of 101 article submissions for all workshops, of which 83 were accepted, and the event counted a little over 100 participants.

The 2019 edition of JOWO hosted workshops that cover a broad spectrum of contemporary applied ontology research, including its foundational aspects (FOUST III), its methodology and quality evaluation (BOG, WOMoCoE), the link between ontologies and data science (DAO-SI), the application of ontologies in specific domains, in particular, cognitive science (CAOS IV), contextual representations of information (CREOL), industry (FOMI), life sciences (ODLS), the concepts of shape, form and structure (SHAPES 5.0), social, legal and economic domains (SoLEEE), digital humanities (WODHSA), and knowledge sharing (WINKS-2).

The tutorials also covered a wide variety of topics ranging from foundational ontologies (FOUNT, TLO), ontology engineering (DOnEReCA), and machine learning with ontologies (MLwO), to biomedicine (SNOMED).

We were very happy to include in our program three keynote speeches by Antony Galton, Yongsheng Gao, and Valentina Presutti, who focused on several aspects of fundamental and applied ontology research.

Finally, the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA) held three meetings: a General IAOA Meeting, a meeting by the IAOA Education Committee, and the kickoff meeting of the new IAOA Special Interest Group on Applied Ontology in Industry and Standards.

There were many opportunities to interact in a more relaxed atmosphere during the social events, including a reception by the Austrian Federal State of Styria at the beautiful Orangerie. JOWO closed with the traditional Pub Quiz organised by the IAOA Education Committee, which was also a success, with 28 participants, and great fun.

We would like to thank all workshop and tutorial organizers, authors and speakers for their contributions; the programme committee members and additional reviewers for their timely reviewing; the local organization team, led by Pablo Lopez-Garcia and Stefan Schulz, for the smooth organization; and the JOWO Steering Committee for its insightful advice. Moreover, we would like to thank SNOMED International and Das Land Steiermark for providing generous financial support and facilities. More information will follow soon about the edition of the proceedings.

The JOWO 2019 Chairs,
Adrien Barton and Selja Seppälä