Research in multi-organizational processes and semantic information brokering at the LSDIS lab

The Large Scale Distributed Information Systems Lab (LSDIS) at the University of Georgia was established in the Fall of 1994 to perform research and technology development on two complementary themes in distributed information systems: Enabling Infocosm and Processes for Networked Organizations. Enabling Infocosm Theme. The merging of computers and communications with significant advances in networking infrastructure has made millions of information sources with wide varieties of information accessible. This capability gives us a vision of an information rich society "infocosm", where we expect to have any information any where we want in (m)any form(s) for effective decision making and knowledge-centric activities, improved productivity, and fun. Emphasis of our research is on semantics (meaning and use) of information and semantic interoperability supported by an information brokering architecture. This is closely tied to the recent interest in Semantic Web, which is presented as “ the Web of data (and connections) with meaning in the sense that a computer program can learn enough about what the data means to process it (Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 1999). Our emphasis is on organizing and utilizing Web-based as well as enterprise content semantically, rather than though syntactic and structural methods.