WORKSHOP THEME

There is growing interest in the development of context-aware ubiquitous systems which can support seamless computing for mobile users in integrated, heterogeneous environments built from a variety of network technologies, sensors and computing devices. In addition, there is growing interest in context-aware applications that intelligently support user tasks by acting autonomously on behalf of users in these integrated, ubiquitous environments. However, there is also increasing recognition of challenges associated with context-awareness, including barriers associated with scalability and usability and novel software engineering problems. Some of these challenges can be addressed through the development of context models that (i) enable development of robust and reliable context-aware applications by modelling the quality of context information, ambiguity and histories, and (ii) support ease of programming by providing appropriate abstractions and mechanisms for context reuse and reasoning about context. This workshop focuses on context models that provide abstractions to foster context reuse and ease of programming, and support development of scalable, robust, reliable and usable context-aware applications. The workshop also responds to the growing popularity of ontology principles and methods in ubiquitous computing systems, and examines the role that these can play in context modelling and reasoning about context.

WORKSHOP GOALS AND ACTIVITIES

This workshop offers the opportunity to bring together researchers involved in the development of context models and context-aware applications for ubiquitous computing environments. It aims at exploring the most recent research results and ongoing work in the areas of context modelling, reasoning about context, and management of context information. The workshop will foster exchange of experiences and collaboration among researchers.

Recently, there has been considerable interest in applying ontologies in ubiquitous computing environments to support semantic interoperability between software components. This has led to a variety of early approaches for modelling and reasoning about context in ubiquitous systems using ontologies. One of the key goals of the workshop will be to discuss experiences with these early approaches, and to explore the potential benefits and pitfalls associated with the use of ontologies. The workshop will also seek to position ontology-based approaches to context modelling and reasoning in relation to traditional approaches, and to examine how the benefits of the new and traditional approaches can potentially be combined using hybrid models. Additionally, the workshop will debate the applicability of inference rules used in ontology-based approaches to reasoning in context-aware systems.

Special emphasis will be placed on presenting state of the art and emerging research as well as experience reports from the following research areas:

· Role of context models. What is the role of context models in ubiquitous systems? What kind of context models would support scalability, reliability and robustness of applications? Can context models make programming easier by providing suitable abstractions of context and support for context reuse?

· Use of ontologies for context modelling and reasoning. What is the role of ontologies in context-aware systems? Do ontologies provide more than common terminology, modelling of relationships and inference rules?

· Hybrid context models. Can context modelling and reasoning be based on ontologies only, or are hybrid approaches required? If hybrid, which aspects of context modelling and reasoning are most amenable to the use of ontologies? What are the other methods used for context modelling and reasoning?

In particular, the following topics are of interest to this workshop:

· formal or disciplined approaches to modelling context

· semantics of context models and expressiveness of different context modelling approaches

· ontology-based approaches to context modelling and reasoning

· comparison of different approaches to context modelling and reasoning, including ontology-based and alternative approaches

· advanced issues in context modelling and reasoning, including:

- issues of imperfect context information, including ambiguity and incompleteness

- issues related to temporal and spatial information

· distribution and structuring of context information

· scalability, integration and reuse of context models

· interoperability of context modelling approaches

· evolution of context models and versioning issues

· experiences with using context models to build ubiquitous computing applications

The workshop will be organized into panels and breakout sessions. The results of the breakout sessions will be presented in a plenary session at the conclusion of the workshop.

WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

This workshop will last for 1 full day and will be limited to 20 participants to enable productive discussions. Participants will be invited on the basis of position papers, which will be selected based on their originality and contribution to the workshop topics. Position papers should address at least one of the workshop topics and be in the form of a technical paper, experience report, or work-in-progress report. The papers will be refereed by the workshop Program Committee. We are seeking cooperation from an international journal to publish selected extended workshop papers.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Each position paper should be no more than 6 pages in length and should be in ACM SIGCHI format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/chipubform/). The paper should show the author's vision on some of the workshop topics. Papers should be submitted in Postscript or PDF format on or before 26 July 2004 to Ted McFadden (mcfadden@dstc.edu.au) with a subject field "Ubicomp 2004 Workshop submission". In addition, the authors are requested to submit the title and a short abstract of the paper by 21 July 2004.

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission: 26 July 2004
Acceptance Notification: 2 August 2004

ORGANISERS

Co-Chairs

Jadwiga Indulska (The University of Queensland)

David De Roure (University of Southampton)

Program Committee

Christian Becker (University of Stuttgart, Germany)

John Davis (IBM TJ Watson Research Center)

Ted McFadden (DSTC, Australia)

Karen Henricksen (DSTC, Australia)

Jadwiga Indulska (The University of Queensland)

Paddy Nixon (University of Strathclyde)

David De Roure (University of Southampton)

Albrecht Schmidt (LMU Munich)

Peter Steenkiste (Carnegie Mellon)

Thomas Strang (German Aerospace Center)