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SIGIR 2002  Workshop on XML and IR
Second Edition of the
 "XML and Information Retrieval" Workshop
Call for Papers and Participation
Tampere, Finland:  August 15, 2002
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Organizers:
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Ricardo Baeza-Yates, University of Chile, Chile
Norbert Fuhr, University of Dortmund, Germany
Yoelle S. Maarek, IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel

Program committee:
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David Carmel, IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel
David Hawking, CSIRO, Australia
Mounia Lalmas, University of London, UK
Jonathan Robie, XQuery working group at W3C
Aya Soffer, IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel
Gerhard Weikum, University of the Saarland, Germany

Background and goals:
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The previous workshop on XML and Information Retrieval was held in the
context
of SIGIR'2000 (Athens, Greece) and showed that there is a serious interest
in
managing semi-structured data from an IR (i.e., unstructured) perspective
rather
than from the dominating database (i.e., structured) perspective. As a
direct
outcome of the workshop, a special JASIS issue on XML and IR  was edited and
published in March 2002. The topic is still in its prime both in the
Academia
(as evidenced by XML related papers presented at SIGIR'2001) and in the
business
world with more search engines adding  "XML support" as a requirement.
The purpose of this workshop is to continue the effort of applying an  "IR
approach" to XML search and retrieval, and to investigate how the IR
community
could have more impact on organizations like the W3C, and in particular
participate to the XQuery proposal. We believe that this approach is crucial
to
extending the role of XML from pure data exchange (in business-to-business
applications) to actual information exchange (in end-users facing and
Knowledge
Management applications.)

Description of the topic:
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This follow-up workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners
interested in XML and IR to review the progress that has been made since the
previous workshop. More specifically,  recent technologies and new efforts
in
defining query languages will be discussed. Possible outcomes of the
workshop
might be an IR-flavor proposal to W3C working groups on XQuery/XPath, or the
definition of a SOAP based interface for XML Search Services. Topics of
interest
will include:
  XML Query Languages for humans as opposed to applications
  Indexing and Ranking methods for XML collections
  Leveraging IR technologies in XML query standards
  Web Services for XML Search
  Applications domains for XML Search: Life Sciences, e Learning, etc.

Worskshop program:
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  Presentations and demos sessions  (accepted submissions)
  Invited talks (e.g., XML evaluation effort)
  Demo session on XML tools
  Working session on how to work with W3C standards/working groups

How to submit a paper/proposal for the workshop:
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Each  candidate will send to  [log in to unmask]  by email in  PDF or
postscript
format:
  A short bio (between 120 and 500 words)
  A position paper or extended abstract of less than 2000 words for one of 4
  tracks:
  (a) short tutorial, (b) research in progress, (c) system
presentations/demos
  or (d) standards proposal
Submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee and invitations to
attend and present will be sent accordingly. Authors of accepted submissions
will be requested to submit a longer version for inclusion in the Working
Notes
to be distributed during the workshop.

Important dates:
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Submissions:  May 31, 2002
Notification of acceptance:  July 1, 2002
Final submissions: July 15,  2002
Workshop:  August 15, 2002