LISC 2014                                                                                  Preface


Preface
Traditionally scientific dissemination has been relying heavily on publications and presenta-
tions. The findings reported in these articles are often backed by large amounts of diverse data
produced by complex experiments, computer simulations, and observations of physical phenom-
ena. Although publications, methods and datasets are often related, due to this avalanche of
data it remains extremely hard to correlate, reuse and leverage scientific data. Semantic Web
technologies provide a promising means for publishing, sharing, and interlinking data to facil-
itate data reuse and the necessary correlation, integration, and synthesis of data across levels
of theory, techniques and disciplines. However, even when these data become discoverable and
accessible, significant challenges remain in making intelligent understandings of these data and
scientific discoveries that we anticipated.
    Our past three series (LISC2011, LISC2012 and LISC2013) have seen many novel ideas of
using Semantic Web technologies for integrating scientific data (for example about real experi-
ments or from simulations), or enabling reproducibility of research via online tools and Linked
Data. The theme for LISC2014 is “Making Sense out of Data Through Linked Science”. Here
we focus on new ways of discovering interesting patterns from scientific data, which could lead
to research validation or identification of new hypotheses and acceleration of the scientific re-
search cycle. We target both new results through making use of semantic reasoning or making
innovative combination of existing technologies (such as visualization, data mining, machine
learning, and natural language processing) with SW technologies to enable better understand-
ing of data. One goal is to create both an incentive for scientists to consider the Linked Science
approach for their scientific data management and an incentive for technologists from different
disciplines to work together towards the vision of powering science with technologies.
    LISC2014 was hosted at the 13th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2014), in
Riva del Garda, Trentino, Italy. Twenty-seven attendees enjoyed the opening keynote “Making
more sense out of social data” by Harith Alani (KMI, the Open University, UK), followed by
excellent presentations of the eight regular papers collected in these proceedings. We continued
the tradition of a “working” workshop with a plenary discussion on the challenges and oppor-
tunities of using Semantic Web technologies for sense making. The results of this discussion is
published at FigShare, and can be cited as:


Zhao, Jun; Patton, Evan; Vardeman, Charles; Peroni, Silvio; Osborne, Francesco; Nart, Dario
De; Dumontier, Michel; Diallo, Gayo; van Ossenbruggen, Jacco (2014):
LISC 2014 - Results: Discussion on Challenges in Making Sense Out Of Data Using Linked
Data Technologies.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9. figshare. 1209243

    Overall, this edition continued providing a successful forum for discussing how semantic web
technologies and linked data can help science. We wanted to thank the entire program commit-
tee for helping to assemble the program and the attendees for their enthusiastic participation.
The LISC 2014 Co-organizers:
                                                                                       Jun Zhao
                                                                                 Marieke van Erp
                                                                                  Carsten Keßler
                                                                                 Tomi Kauppinen
                                                                         Jacco van Ossenbruggen
                                                                         Willem Robert van Hage