The first IAOA summer school will take place in Trento (Italy) on July 16-20 2012 (the week just before FOIS 2012 in Graz) as a full immersion experience in ontology. The emphasis is on ontological analysis and the goal is to show how the different disciplines interact and communicate to answer a variety of problems.
The school is open to students, to researchers and to practitioners and is organized to foster cross-disciplinary interaction.

http://iaoa.org/isc2012/index.php

Lecturers and courses:
Christiane Fellbaum, Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University,
- Ontology, semantics, and cognitive linguistics

Chiara Ghidini and Luciano Serafini, Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento,
- Introduction to First Order Logic for Knowledge Representation
- Logical tools for ontological analysis

Nicola Guarino, Laboratory for Applied Ontology ISTC-CNR, Trento,
- Introduction to Applied Ontology

Giancarlo Guizzardi, Dept. of Computer Science, Federal University of Espírito Santo,
- Ontology-driven conceptual modelling

Kevin Mulligan, Dept. of Philosophy, Université de Genève,
- Ontological analysis: the philosophical perspective

FOIS 2012 - Seventh International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems
Held together with the 3rd International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO 2012)

http://purl.org/icbofois2012

July 24-27, 2012 - Graz, Austria

We are calling for papers to be considered for inclusion in FOIS 2012.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Paper Submission Deadline: January 31, 2012 February 12, 2012 (updated)
Notification: March 8, 2012
Camera-Ready Deadline for accepted papers: March 24, 2012
Conference Dates: July, 24-27, 2012

CONFERENCE ORGANISATION:
Conference chair: Michael Gruninger (University of Toronto, Canada)
Program chairs: Maureen Donnelly (University at Buffalo, USA) and
Giancarlo Guizzardi (Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil)
Local organization: Stephan Schulz (Gratz University, Austria)

The International Association for Applied Ontology (www.iaoa.org), in cooperation with the Vespucci Initiative (www.vespucci.org), organizes its first Summer Institute in Applied Ontology in Florence, Italy, on July 17-23, 2011. Applications will close soon.

The IAOA promotes interdisciplinary research and international collaboration at the intersection of philosophical ontology, linguistics, logic, cognitive science, and computer science, and applications of ontological analysis more generally.

This first Summer Institute in Applied Ontology will focus on the topic of Process Ontology and its applications to the analysis of processes in the human environment, in engineering, and in business.

The Summer Institute facilitators will be:
Antony Galton (University of Exeter, UK)
Michael Gruninger (University of Toronto, Canada)
Werner Kuhn (University of Muenster, Germany)
David Mark (State University of New York at Buffalo, USA).

Date: July 17-23, 2011, Process Ontology: http://vespucci.org/programme

Venue: Firenze, Italy (see http://vespucci.org/presentation)

Accommodation: hotel, bed and breakfast, or camp ground in Fiesole (20 minutes by bus from Firenze; shuttle bus or car to venue)

Application: at vespucci.org and www.iaoa.org, until the end of April, 2011.
Notification of acceptance: continuing.
Grants may be available for participants with special financial needs, if these are stated and justified in the application.

Goals and Contents:
Understanding processes has become one of the key challenges to society: how much does our climate change, and why? how can deforestation of the Amazon be put under control? how can manufacturing processes be optimized? Process ontology provides the theory, tools, and techniques to analyze processes and to improve the design and use of information systems that support human decisions in dynamic situations. The institute will feature tutorials on ontology, progressing into research discussions and group work on the ontological analysis of processes.

Participants will learn to:
- apply basic ontological distinctions and formal ontology;
- sort out the different kinds of things that go under the name "process";
- identify spatio-temporal patterns underlying processes;
- understand implications of choosing between three- and four-dimensionalism
- relate existing process ontologies to each other;
- specify complex states, processes and events in terms of simpler ones;
- design domain-specific process ontologies (e.g. in manufacturing, e-commerce, geography, biology) from more generic ontologies.

Please find the presentation slides of a talk given by the newly elected IAOA Executive Council, held at the FOIS 2010 conference, here.

The proceedings of FOIS 2010 have been published here. The proceedings of WoMO 2010 can be found here. Both are freely available online for IAOA members in the Member’s Area.

The IAOA will elect its first Executive Council, beginning on April 28, 2010. Read all about the process in this Wiki.

The 4th International Workshop on Modular Ontologies, WoMO-2010, will be co-located with FOIS-2010. Find the CFP here.

The proceedings of FOMI 2009 have been published here.

The 6th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems, FOIS 2010, will be held in Toronto, Canada, 11th-14th May 2010, and we are now calling for papers to be considered for inclusion in the conference. Find the CFP here.