@conference {403, title = {Semantics and Ontologies for EarthCube}, booktitle = {Workshop on GIScience in the Big Data Age, In conjunction with the seventh International Conference on Geographic Information Science 2012 (GIScience 2012)}, year = {2012}, address = {Columbus, Ohio, USA}, abstract = {

Semantic technologies and ontologies play an increasing role in scientific workflow systems and knowledge infrastructures. While ontologies are mostly used for the semantic annotation of metadata, semantic technologies enable searching metadata catalogs beyond simple keywords, with some early evidence of semantics used for data translation. However, the next generation of distributed and interdisciplinary knowledge infrastructures will require capabilities beyond simple subsumption reasoning over subclass relations. In this work, we report from the EarthCube Semantics Community by highlighting which role semantics and ontologies should play in the EarthCube knowledge infrastructure. We target the interested domain scientist and, thus, introduce the value proposition of semantic technologies in a non-technical language. Finally, we commit ourselves to some guiding principles for the successful implementation and application of semantic technologies and ontologies within EarthCube.

}, author = {Gary Berg-Cross and Isabel Cruz and Mike Dean and Tim Finin and Mark Gahegan and Pascal Hitzler and Hook Hua and Krzysztof Janowicz and Naicong Li and Philip Murphy and Bryce Nordgren and Leo Obrst and Mark Schildhauer and Amit Sheth and Krishna Sinha and Anne Thessen and Nancy Wiegand and Ilya Zaslavsky}, editor = {Krzysztof Janowicz and C. Kessler and T. Kauppinen and Dave Kolas and Simon Scheider} }