METHOD 2012

Homepage of the 1st IEEE International Workshop on Methods for Establishing Trust with Open Data, which was co-located with COMPSAC 2012 in Izmir, Turkey. The workshop concluded successfully and we did have an overall of nine submissions and accepted five submissions as regular papers and two submissions as short papers (Acceptance Ratio: 78%). During the workshop there were a minimum of 6 up to a maximum of 15 people attending the sessions.

Aims and Scope

Technological advancements enables the gathering and analysis of large amounts of data, as well as the worldwide distribution in a matter of seconds. As a consequence, various information is routinely collected and utilized, for example to calculate more accurate bus schedules, optimise goods storage, have a better public administration, and generally to foster transparency in science, societal and economic processes. There is also strong effort, especially at the level of national and regional administrations, to provide already collected data based on "Open Data" principles. Open data implies that data is available in standardized formats, with liberal licensing models, free for everyone to use, and with no restrictions on its usage. One goal is the creation of a secondary market based on business models that offer new services by combination and enrichment of available open data sets. Unfortunately, by employing large-scale data analysis processes and by giving away control over the provided information, society also becomes increasingly vulnerable to information misuse. This prospect is met with rightful scepticism by the larger population and researchers are not only called upon to find new ways to protect citizen's privacy, but also to prevent data forgery, and identity theft. Solely relying on the structures of the current internet, which is worldwide connected and abundant with information, it is not possible to prove the provenance of data, or to decide if a certain piece of information is true. In other words: it is very hard to make an informed decision on the trustworthiness of a given piece of information.

In the METHOD workshop we plan to discuss approaches and concrete technical means required to establish trust in information that is processed, collected, managed, and provided using open data principles. In doing so, the workshop will bring together experts from two different areas. On the one hand from a technical field, namely trust research and trusted computing. On the other hand, there is the idea of open data, as put forward by researchers, activists and political stakeholders. Combining these two areas raises many interesting questions: Is there a way to assure the trustworthiness of an information source while keeping the identity of the source protected? How would engineers create systems with built-in accountability? Could one apply non-repudiation protocols to applications using linked open data? Is large-scale involvement of citizens a feasible approach to ensure data quality?

Topics

We invited authors to submit original papers that are relevant to both fields: open data and trust research. Contributions from the following list of topics were especially welcome:

Open data provenance

Expressing trust

Open trust management

Privacy preservation

Program Committee

Organisation