2016 EC Election & Towards an Applied Ontology Glossary

The third IAOA Virtual Assembly in 2016 is being held in November and December in order to elect new members for the Association's Executive Council (EC). At the end of 2016, the present terms of João Paulo Almeida, Roberta Ferrario and Michael Gruninger will expire, whereas the remaining six EC members' period in office includes 2017.

In order to maintain nine members, three EC positions are to be filled. The election is structured into three main phases:

• Nov 10 - Nov 23: Candidature phase
• Nov 23 - Nov 30: Campaigning phase
• Nov 30 - Dec 02: Virtual Assembly eBallot

The election wiki page accounts for further details, besides the announcement by the President via the membership mailing list [iaoa-member].

All IAOA members are kindly invited to participate in the election. Please engage in candidate nominations in November. In the actual ballot, a quorum of 50%+1 of the membership is to be met. Thus each IAOA member is asked to log in to the Member's Area during Nov 30-Dec 02, to proceed via Utilities to the personal voting page and to cast your vote, please!

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The Education Committee has (re)started to gather core terms with definitions in and for the field of Applied Ontology (AO) in a term list. Everyone knowledgeable in the field is invited to contribute additional terms and/or definitions as well as to review and comment on what is there. Questions regarding this enterprise can be directed at the [iaoa-education] mailing list.

Jun-Jul 2016: ISAO and FOIS, including Assembly

IAOA's 3rd Interdisciplinary School on Applied Ontology, ISAO 2016, is held in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy on June 27-July 1. Its exquisite program covers the course topics of Mereology (A. Varzi), Time and Processes (A. Galton), Geospatial Ontology (G. Camara), Language and Ontology (L. Vieu), and Reasoning over Ontologies and Conceptual Models (A. Artale).

In the week right after ISAO, IAOA's flagship conference Formal Ontology in Information Systems, FOIS 2016 takes place in Annecy, France during July 6-9, co-located with the International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS 2016, July 5-7. FOIS 2016

• comes with a novel Demonstrations Track,
• hosts an Early Career Symposium  and
• a Formal Ontology Competition  as well as
• the Joint Ontology WOrkshops, JOWO 2016.

The 2nd Assembly of IAOA is held on July 8, 2016 as a physical and virtual meeting in the context of FOIS 2016. Among its main topics, the current status of the relocation to Switzerland will be discussed.

The Ontology Summit 2016 was concerned with the theme "Framing the Conversation: Ontologies within Semantic Interoperability Ecosystems". It ended the Summit Symposium in Arlington, Virgina, USA on May 9-10. Analogously to previous years, results are captured in the Ontology Summit Communique 2016. 

Highlights between April and July 2016

The Ontology Summit 2016 has been ongoing since February and is concerned with the theme "Framing the Conversation: Ontologies within Semantic Interoperability Ecosystems". It will culminate in the Summit Symposium in Arlington, Virgina, USA on May 9-10.

After its last edition in 2014, IAOA's flagship conference Formal Ontology in Information Systems, FOIS 2016, will be held in Annecy, France during July 6-9, co-located with the International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS 2016, July 4-7. FOIS 2016

• comes with a novel Demonstrations Track,
• hosts an Early Career Symposium  and
• a Formal Ontology Competition  as well as
• the Joint Ontology WOrkshops, JOWO 2016, constituted by five thrilling workshops.

During the week before FOIS, IAOA's 3rd Interdisciplinary School on Applied Ontology, ISAO 2016, is organized in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy on June 27-July 1. A limited number of participants may look forward to a broad program presented by world-class experts.

Some events concern matters of more internal nature. IAOA continuously pursues its relocation to Switzerland. The founding act of a Swiss Association is planned for April or May 2016. In this connection, membership registration and renewal had been suspended, but is available again, such that Members are kindly asked to

renew their membership for the remainder of 2016 within April, please.

Likewise in April, the 1st 2016 IAOA Assembly requests the approval of the 2015 Financial Statement and announces the 2016 Budget. If you are an IAOA Member, please cast your vote in the corresponding ballot!