Third workshop on exploiting semantic annotations in information retrieval (ESAIR) CIKM 2010 workshop

There is an increasing amount of structure on the Web as a result of modern Web languages, user tagging and annotation, and emerging robust NLP tools. These meaningful, semantic, annotations hold the promise to significantly enhance information access, by enhancing the depth of analysis of today's systems. Currently, we have only started exploring the possibilities and only begin to understand how these valuable semantic cues can be put to fruitful use. Unleashing the potential of semantic annotations requires us to think outside the box, by combining the insights of natural language processing (NLP) to go beyond bags of words, the insights of databases (DB) to use structure efficiently even when aggregating over millions of records, the insights of information retrieval (IR) in effective goal-directed search and evaluation, and the insights of knowledge management (KM) to get grips on the greater whole.

The Workshop aims to bring together researchers from these different disciplines and work together on one of the greatest challenges in the years to come. The desired result of the workshop will be concrete insight into the potential of semantic annotations, and in concrete steps to take this research forward; synchronize related research happening in NLP, DB, IR, and KM, in ways that combine the strengths of each discipline; and have a lively, interactive workshop were everyone contributes and that inspires attendees to think "outside the box".