Journal call for papers from Aslib Journal of Information Management (Aslib Proceedings) Semantic Search and Linked Open Data Special Issue

This special issue aims to explore the possibilities and limitations of Semantic Search. This issue will be jointly guest edited by Professor Dr. Ulrike Spree, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany and Fran Alexander, BCA Research, Inc, Montreal, Canada. We are looking for articles on:

The opportunities and challenges of Semantic Search from theoretical and practical, conceptual and empirical perspectives. We are particularly interested in papers that place carefully conducted studies into the wider framework of current Semantic Search research in the broader context of Linked Open Data. Topics of interest include but are not restricted to:

•The history of semantic search - the latest techniques and technology developments in the last 1000 years
•Technical approaches to semantic search : linguistic/NLP, probabilistic, artificial intelligence, conceptual/ontological
•Current trends in Semantic Search, including best practice, early adopters, and cultural heritage
•Usability and user experience; Visualisation; and techniques and technologies in the practice for Semantic Search
•Quality criteria and Impact of norms and standardisation similar to ISO 25964 “Thesauri for information retrieval“
•Cross-industry collaboration and standardisation
•Practical problems in brokering consensus and agreement - defining concepts, terms and classes, etc
•Curation and management of ontologies
•Differences between web-scale, enterprise scale, and collection-specific scale techniques
•Evaluation of Semantic Search solutions, including comparison of data collection approaches
•User behaviour including evolution of norms and conventions; Information behaviour; and Information literacy
•User surveys; usage scenarios and case studies

Papers should clearly connect their studies to the wider body of Semantic Search scholarship, and spell out the implications of their findings for future research. In general, only research-based submissions including case studies and best practice will be considered. Viewpoints, literature reviews or general reviews are generally not acceptable.

Schedule and submissions
Paper submission: 15 December 2013
Notice of review results: 15 February 2013
Revisions due: 31 March 2014
Publication: Aslib Proceedings, issue 5, 2014.

•Please contact the guest editors Dr. Ulrike Spree or Fran Alexander if you need more guidance before submitting your paper
•All papers should follow the publisher's style and format , go here for information on using Scholar One to submit your paper
When submitting please ensure to complete the box "How did you hear about this journal?" and quote reference: APJCALL10

More about the special issue topic
Research into Semantic Search and its applications has gained momentum over the last few years, with an increasing number of studies on general principles, proof of concept and prototypical applications. The market for Semantic Search applications and its role within the general development of (internet) technologies and its impact on different areas of private and public life have attracted attention. Simultaneously, many publicly funded projects in the field of cultural heritage were initialised. Researchers in many disciplines have been making progress in the establishment of both theories and methods for Semantic Search. However, there still is a lack of comparison across individual studies as well as a need for standardisation regarding the dissociation of Semantic Search of other search solutions, agreed upon definitions as well as technologies and interfaces.

Semantic Search research is often based on large and rich data sets and a combination of techniques ranging from statistical bag of words approaches and natural-language-processing enriched via a subtle utilisation of metadata over classificatory approaches right up to ontological reasoning. Over the last 10 years a lot of initial technical and conceptual obstacles in the field of Semantic Search have been overcome. After the initial euphoria for Semantic Search that resulted in a technically driven supply of search solutions, appraisal of successful and less successful approaches is needed. Amongst other things the limitations of working with open world solutions on – only apparently comprehensive – linked open data sets compared to small domain specific solutions need to be determined.

One ongoing challenge for semantic search solutions is their usability and user acceptance, as only highly usable walk-up-and-use-approaches stand a chance in the field of general search.