Workshop PROSIT – PROducing Standards for the ‘Internet of Things’

Zurich, Switzerland, 26 March 2008
http://www.prosit-ws.org

Background and Scope

Imagine a network with literally billions of mobile nodes, without any
pre-defined communication infrastructure, whose nodes are primarily
sensors and actuators with limited processing capabilities. Such
networks exhibit specific communication requirements between individual
nodes, and between nodes and central access points that provide
connectivity with the outside world.

Many, if not most of these nodes are integrated into everyday devices;
they will be found inside cars, at home, and in the shopping mall. The
application areas based on such networks are varied and numerous,
including, for example, intelligent homes, car safety, and item
tracking. Many such applications will become part of our lives, and are
prone to collect information that would be considered as private by
many. For the average user, it will be next to impossible to establish
who has access to these information, and for which purposes.

This unprecedented penetration of virtually everyone’s life suggests the
need for a close scrutiny of the various processes to be associated with
the development of such a technology and its subsequent wide deployment.
International standardisation of information and communication
technologies (ICT) is among the most important of these processes. It is
linked to both the technological development and the policy and legal
frameworks within which the technology is to be developed and deployed.

Accordingly, this Workshop aims to discuss the development of adequate
standards setting processes for the Internet of Things. The analysis of
the current situation in ICT standards setting, the current legal
situation with respect to standards, and the development of
recommendations on how to adapt the processes to adequately serve the
environment created by the IoT will be addressed through insights from
various disciplines.

Sample topics to be discussed by the Workshop include:
* aspects of the standards process’ necessary democratic legitimacy,
* potential barriers of entry to certain stakeholders (e.g., SMEs, NGOs,
consumers),
* the necessary level of openness of the process (i.e., level of
consensus required, observation of due process, ‘equality’ of
participants, etc),
* the different stakeholders’ requirements on the process,
* analysis of today’s standard setting processes with respect to their
suitability for the IoT,
* legal implications of standards today and tomorrow (including IPR issues),
* new forms of participation in the process,
* how to manage relations between relevant standards (e.g., UMTS,
CAPWAP, Zigbee, ISO 18000) and associated standards setting bodies
(ETSI, 3GPP, IETF, ITU-T, etc).

The Workshop aims at serving as a platform for the exchange of ideas and
views. It will, therefore, devote much time to the interaction between
participants. To this end, not only submissions of ‘traditional’ papers
are solicited, but also proposals of topics for round-table discussions
or other forms of moderated interactions.

The Workshop will be held in conjunction with the Int. Conference ‘Internet of Things 2008’; see
http://www.the-internet-of-things.org/

Submission guidelines

We solicit contributions from both academia (draft papers of up to 6,000
words) and practice (extended abstracts of up to 1,000 words). Also,
proposals for interactive activities are solicited (1000 words;
providing information about topic, format, speakers, etc). Submissions
should be sent in .rtf, .doc, or .pdf to the workshop organiser at
kai.jakobs@cs.rwth-aachen.de. All draft papers will undergo a double-
blind peer-review process; all other proposals will be evaluated more
informally, based their on suitability and originality.
Selected papers will be considered for publication in the Int. Journal
of IT Standards and Standardization Research (JITSR).

Important dates:

12 January 2008: Workshop paper submission deadline
9 February 2008: Notification of acceptance/rejection of papers
23 February 2008: Submission of final papers

Programme Committee

Knut Blind, FhG ISI & TU Berlin, DE
Yves Chauvel, ETSI, FR
Tineke Egyedi, TU Delft, NL
Simao Ferraz de Campos-Neto, ITU-T, CH (tbc)
Vladislav Fomin, Vytautas Magnus U., LT
Ole Hanseth, U. of Oslo, NO
Eric Iversen, NIFU STEP, NO
Kai Jakobs, RWTH Aachen U., DE
Ken Krechmer, ICSR, US,
Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve U., US
Roy Rada, U. of Maryland, US
Kai Reimer, RWTH Aachen DE
Mostafa H. Sherif, AT&T, US
Henk de Vries, ERASMUS U., NL
Willem Wakker, ACE Cons., NL
Marc van Wegberg, U. of Maastricht, NL
Robin Williams, U. of Edinburgh, UK

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