SMWCon Spring 2011

The Spring 2011 SMWCon was held on April 28-30, 2011 at the Raytheon BBN Technologies office in Arlington, Virginia, in the Washington, DC area.

It was the longest SMWCon yet, at three days, and included a "tutorial day" for the first time. The basic schedule was:


 * Tutorial Day: Thursday, April 28 (NEW)
 * Conference: Friday, April 29: presentations, case studies, applications
 * Conference: Saturday, April 30: more presentations, plus panel and group discussions

SMWCon has so far been a twice-yearly Semantic MediaWiki Conference. For more information, see SMWCon.

Description
SMWCon brings together developers, users, and organizations from the Semantic MediaWiki community around the world.

As with the previous SMWCons, SMWCon Spring 2011 will include presentations and discussions about current applications and the future development of Semantic MediaWiki and its extensions and applications. Participants are invited to present their own work and to discuss experiences and ideas. While the conference will have scheduled presentations, each will encourage free discussion and a rapid exchange of ideas.

View the event on LinkedIn here.

Follow along on IRC using #semantic-mediawiki.

Location
The conference will take place at the Raytheon BBN Technologies office at:


 * 1300 North 17th Street, Suite 600
 * Arlington, VA 22209
 * map

You can see directions to get there by car or metro here. The location is a short metro ride from Washington Reagan National Airport. It is a 30 minute taxi ride from Washington Dulles Airport. Parking at the BBN Technologies building is $14 per day. You can gain access to the parking deck from 17th street, just past the building.

BBN is the black glass building.

For security reasons, attendees need register with our host BBN (same-day on-site registration is OK, only on weekdays).

Walking Directions from the Rosslyn Metro Station
From the Rosslyn Metro Station, exit the station onto N. Fort Meyer Dr. which is the small exit up a few steps directly behind you as you exit through the gates at street level (not the street where the bus stops are). Turn left and walk 1/2 block to Wilson Blvd. Turn Right onto Wilson and walk up the hill one block towards the Hyatt Hotel. Turn Left onto Nash St., and Nash will end at 1300 N. 17th St.

Travel
For international attendees who may need a visa, you can find more information about our invitation letter.

Suggestions and deals for flight arrangements:


 * Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) is the nearest major airport

Suggestions and deals for nearby hotels:
 * Location first:
 * Hyatt Arlington, 1 block ****
 * Residence Inn by Marriott Arlington at Rosslyn, directly beside BBN ***
 * Key Bridge Marriott, 6 blocks
 * Best Western Rosslyn, 3 blocks, budget hotel/motel $123/night
 * Price first:
 * Comfort Inn Landmark ** $89/night (30 min drive)
 * Best Western Battlefield Inn **. $68/night (60 min drive; be advised of heavy traffic between Manassas and Arlington.)
 * Due to the long commuting from above hotel, we recommend you research other options of lodging.

Be advised: Rt. 66 eastbound is HOV-2 from 6:30am-9:00am, so if you plan to commute into Arlington, either carpool or take alternate Rt. 50.

News

 * On January 15, 2011, organization committee generally agreed on conference dates, fees and content.
 * On October 26, 2010, Pre-conference survey is sent out; here is the real-time result.
 * On October 12, 2010, Raytheon BBN Technologies agreed to provide hosting services.

If you, or someone you know, are interested in sponsoring any part of the event, please contact [mailto:jessew@vulcan.com Jesse Wang] or anyone in our SMWCon organization committee.

Tutorial Day
On Thursday, April 28, we will have our first-ever Tutorial Day: a full day of instruction, meant to provide a solid basis of understanding for anyone who wants to use or administer Semantic MediaWiki. Everyone from complete newcomers to MediaWiki to people already using the software should be able to benefit.

Each section will be about 1.5 hours long, which may include a 10-minute break (optional, decided by tutorial speakers). There will be 30 minutes coffee break between sections in the morning and afternoon. Lunch break will be 1.5 hours.

Tutorial fee is $100/person ($50/student) including lunch and snack/drink.

Before the tutorial, there will be a short talk by our host BBN Technologies on logistics and security.

Group Dinner
We will enjoy a relaxed group dinner on Thursday, April 28, 2011 following the Tutorial. All conference and tutorial attendees are welcome.
 * Location: Piloa; 3 blocks from BBN.
 * Time: 6pm
 * Cost: conference and tutorial combined attendees - no additional cost.  conference only attendees - $30/person

We have arranged for a prix fixe menu. You can take a look at it and get an idea of your order.

Conference Days
The SMWCon 2011 Spring will be on Friday and Saturday 4/29-4/30.

The fee for the conference is $60/person ($30/student), including lunch and snacks/drinks for both days.

If you attend both the conference and the tutorial, the combined fee is $140/person ($70/student).

Combined conference fees also include a group dinner on Thursday evening (April 28, 2011). For people who only pay for the conference, the dinner is about $30/person extra.

Below is the current schedule for the conference:

Things to do around the DC area

 * Washingtonian Restaurant Resource
 * Gives a list of the 100 best restaurants in the Washington Area, and also the best Cheap Eats.
 * Washington Post Going Out Guide
 * Gives a list of things happening around the DC area

Restaurants
 * Clarendon
 * Just two stops west on the Orange line, about 1.5 miles from the conference
 * Many good restaurants and bars
 * Liberty Tavern
 * Restaurant 3
 * Circa
 * Boulevard Woodgrill
 * Mexicali Blues
 * Faccia Luna
 * Rosslyn
 * Cafe Asia
 * Ray's Hell Burger
 * Ray's the Steaks


 * Dupont Circle
 * Take the orange or blue line to Metro Center, switch to the Red line to the Dupont Circle stop
 * Ideas for Restaurants and Bars
 * China Town
 * Take the blue or orange line to metro center and walk a few blocks
 * Restaurant Ideas:
 * Matchbox
 * Jaleo
 * Ping Pong Dim Sum
 * Adam's Morgan/ U Street
 * Lauriol Plaza
 * Bourbon
 * More ideas:
 * Walking distance to Washington Monument
 * Old Ebbit Grill

Museums/Monuments:
 * Smithsonian Museums
 * Newseum
 * Spy Museum
 * Iwo Jima Memorial
 * Located in Rossyln, just a few blocks away from the conference
 * Arlington National Cemetery
 * viewable from Iwo Jima
 * Metro on blue line to Arlington Cemetery Metro stop
 * National Mall


 * The National's Baseball team is in town this weekend
 * Saturday 4/30 Game at 4:05
 * Sunday 5/01 Game at 1:35
 * 


 * Farmer's Market in Dupont Circle on Sunday


 * Eastern Market is a large farmers market open on the weekends

Fee summary

 * Tutorial only (includes a dinner): $100/p (student fee: $50/p)
 * Conference only (includes NO dinner): $60/p (student fee: $30/p)
 * Combined tutorial and conference (includes a dinner): $140/p (student fee: $70/p)
 * Dinner for conference-only attendees: $30/p
 * For tutorial, keynote speakers and sponsors (includes a dinner): $0/p

The shop takes payments in USD, using any of these methods:
 * Credit card
 * Direct debit
 * Prepayment
 * Paypal

Please go to the ticket shop to register and purchase the ticket(s) you need: SMWCon 2011 Ticket Sales

Please bring a hardcopy of your ticket to the event!

Notes:
 * Tutorial speakers must register, too. Please buy the ticket "Ticket for tutorial speaker (includes a dinner)". We advise to buy the ticket as soon as you are sure that your tutorial is accepted.
 * If you are a student, please bring a proof of your status to the event.
 * Dinner is budgeted at $30-40/p, and is included for people attending the tutorials. Unfortunately, we cannot reduce the fee for people who don't wish to attend the dinner. For conference-only attendees, the dinner costs $30 extra per person.

Attendees
Please put your name below if you will be attending SMWCon.


 * 1) Jesse Wang
 * 2) Keith Fligg
 * 3) Andrew Cowell
 * 4) Eric Bell
 * 5) Clarence Dillon
 * 6) Suzy Tonini
 * 7) Yaron Koren
 * 8) Desirée Gennaro
 * 9)  Bernadette Clemente
 * 10)  Kelly Hatfield
 * 11)  Keven Ring
 * 12) David Multer
 * 13) Daniel Hansch (ontoprise)
 * 14) Michael Erdmann
 * 15) Mary Beebe
 * 16) John Hebeler
 * 17) Wil Smith
 * 18) Mark Greaves
 * 19) Joel Natividad
 * 20) John Callahan
 * 21) Mike Dean
 * 22) Mason McLead
 * 23) Ning Hu
 * 24) Dorene Ryder
 * 25) Suzanne Collier
 * 26) Kristen Hunt
 * 27) Kazuhiro Kawaguchi
 * 28) Mike Cariaso
 * 29) Sherrod DeGrippo
 * 30) Yuna Wong
 * 31) Edward Swing
 * 32) Katie Filbert (User:Aude)

Pictures
SMWCon Spring 2011 Picasa Web Album

Video
Video of presentations from the Spring 2011 SMWCon will become available as they are processed and uploaded. The videos which have been completed so far are listed below:


 * Day One: 29 April, 2011 YouTube Playlist of all Day One Videos
 * Welcome Remarks (Jesse Wang)
 * Keynote: How SMW is used at BBN (Mike Dean)
 * Aqueduct: Collaborative Projection, Annotation, and Analysis of Linked Data using a Semantic Wiki (John Callahan)
 * Semantic Data Integration with SMW+ (Michael Erdmann & Daniel Hansch)
 * Search Engine Optimization for SMW (Wil Smith)
 * Top Ten Reasons we use SMW at PNNL (Keith Fligg)
 * Wiki Widget Editor - First Preview (Jesse Wang & Ning Hu)
 * New features in SMW+ Community Edition (contains Halo core extension) (Daniel Hansch)
 * SMW and the Workflow Puzzle (Yaron Koren)
 * Day Two: 30 April, 2011 YouTube Playlist of all Day Two Videos
 * SMW and Linked Open Data (Mark Greaves)
 * NYCDataWeb (Joel Natividad)
 * All Our Semantic MediaWikis and How We Manage Them: SMW at SAIC (Clarence Dillon & Desiree Gennaro)
 * A Common Repository for Sharing Applications (Daniel Hansch)
 * The Future of Semantic Wikis (Yaron Koren)
 * Discussion: SMW in Enterprise and Government (moderated by Mark Greaves)
 * How do we put wikis in Microsoft Office Apps (Jesse Wang)
 * Use of SMW in Cyber Security (Mason McLead) (Video was truncated)