Workshop PROSIT –
PROducing Standards for the
‘Internet of Things’
Zurich, Switzerland, 26 March 2008
http://www.prosit-ws.org
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 Reimers
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
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