Prof. Dr. Beat Signer

Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Department of Computer Science
Pleinlaan 2
1050 Brussels (Belgium)

Phone: +32 2 629 12 39, Fax: +32 2 629 35 25
10 F 721, bsigner@vub.ac.be, wise.vub.ac.be

Research Activities

Departmental Roles

Member of the Faculty Teaching Commission (for the Department of Computer Science) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, October 2011 - now.
Erasmus Coordinator for the Department of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, September 2009 - now.
Member of the University Council for the Master's of Applied Informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Secretary of the Exam Commission for the 1st Bachelor in Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Secretary of the Exam Commission for the Bachelor in Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Secretary of the Exam Commission for the Bridging Programme in Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Member of the Exam Commission for the Master's of Applied Informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Member of the Exam Commission for the Master's of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, January 2013 - now.
Secretary of the Exam Commission for the Department of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, September 2011 - 2013.

Professional Memberships

SI, Swiss Informatics Society.
ACM, Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM SIGWEB, ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia and the Web.
ACM SIGCHI, ACM Special Interest Group on Human Computer Interaction.
IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
IEEE Computer Society
Digital Pen and Paper Society

Programme Committees

CHI 2013, Workshop Selection Committee, International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2013, Paris, France.
CMTA '09, 1st International Workshop on Cross-Media Technologies and Applications, March 2009, Fukuoka, Japan.
CoPADD 2007, 2nd International Workshop on Collaborating over Paper and Digital Documents, November 2007, London, UK.
CoPADD 2006, 1st International Workshop on Collaborating over Paper and Digital Documents, November 2006, Banff, Canada.
DATAVIEW 2011, 2nd International Workshop on Data Visualization and Integration in Enterprises and on the Web, September 2011, Lugano, Switzerland.
DATAVIEW 2010, 1st International Workshop on Data Visualization and Integration in Enterprises and on the Web, October 2010, Crete, Greece.
ICDEM 2010, 2nd International Conference on Data Engineering and Management, July 2010, Tiruchirappalli, India.
ICPCA 2011, 6th International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications, October 2011, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
ICPCA 2008, 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications, October 2008, Alexandria, Egypt.
ICPCA 2007, 2nd International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications, July 2007, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
PaperComp 2010, 1st International Workshop on Paper Computing, September 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark.
RCIS 2012, 6th International Conference on Research Challenges (demo track), May 2012, Valencia, Spain.
SAAKM 2009, Semantic Authoring, Annotation and Knowledge Markup Workshop, September 2009, Redondo Beach, USA.
SAAKM 2007, Semantic Authoring, Annotation and Knowledge Markup Workshop, October 2007, Whistler, Canada.
TEI 2014, 8th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, February 2014, Munich, Germany.
TEI 2013, 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, January 2013, Barcelona, Spain.
TEI 2012, 6th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, February 2012, Kingston, Canada.
TEI 2011, 5th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, January 2010, Funchal, Portugal.
TEI 2010, 4th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, January 2010, Cambridge, USA.
TEI 2009, 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, February 2009, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
TEI 2008, 2nd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, February 2008, Bonn, Germany.
TPDL 2012, International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, September 2012, Cyprus, Cyprus.
TPDL 2011, 15th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, September 2011, Berlin, Germany.

Reviewer

ACM TOCHI, ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction.
CHI 2011, 29th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 2011, Vancouver, Canada.
CHI 2010, 28th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2010, Atlanta, USA.
CHI 2009, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2009, Boston, USA.
EICS 2013, 5th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems, London, UK, June 2013.
i-com, Zeitschrift für interaktive und kooperative Medien, 2012.
IEEE Pervasive Computing, Journal on Research and Practice in Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing.
IEEE TLT, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies.
IJART, International Journal of Arts and Technology.
IJCIS, International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems.
IJHCS, International Journal on Human-Computer Studies.
IJSWIS, International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems.
IS, International Journal of Information Sciences.
ITS 2009, International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, November 2009, Banff, Canada.
NordiCHI 2012, Nordic Forum for Human-Computer Interaction Research, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2012.
SCP, Science of Computer Programming.
SNF, Swiss National Science Foundation.
TableTop 2006, 1st IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems, January 2006, Adelaine, Australia.
The Computer Journal, British Computer Society.
UbiComp 2011, 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, September 2011, Beijing, China.
UbiComp 2006, 8th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, September 2006, Orange County, USA.
UIST 2013, 26nd ACM Symposium on User Interface Software, October 2013, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
UIST 2009, 22nd ACM Symposium on User Interface Software, October 2009, Victoria, Canada.
UIST 2007, 20th ACM Symposium on User Interface Software, October 2007, Newport, USA.
WWW 2006, 15th International World Wide Web Conference, May 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Session Chair

WISM 2010, Seventh International Workshop on Web Information Systems Modeling, Vancouver, November 2010.
ICOODB 2009, 2nd International Conference on Object Databases, July 2009, Zurich Switzerland.

Conference and Workshop Organisation

Tutorial Chair of ICOODB 2010, 3rd International Conference on Objects and Databases, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, September 2010.
Local organiser of CAiSE'01, 13th Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, June 2001, Interlaken, Switzerland.

Editor

Proceedings Editor of CoPADD 2007, 2nd International Workshop on Collaborating over Paper and Digital Documents, November 2007, London, UK.
Proceedings Editor of CoPADD 2006, 1st International Workshop on Collaborating over Paper and Digital Documents, November 2006, Banff, Canada.

PhD Juries

Lamia Abo Zaid, The Feature Assembly Approach for Modelling & Managing Software Variability, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2013.
Quentin Bonnard, Paper Interfaces: An HCI Approach to Geometry Education, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), November 2012.
Elisa Gonzalez Boix, Handling Partial Failures in Mobile Ad hoc Network Applications - From Programming Language Design to Tool Support, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, September 2012.
Abdalghani Mushtaha, Towards Designing Localized Websites, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, August 2012.
Matthias Stevens, Participatory Sensing for Sustainable Societies - The Case of Urban Noise Pollution, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, June 2012.
Wael Al Sarraj, A Usability Evaluation Framework for Web Mashup Makers for End-Users, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, March 2012.
Adriana Ispas, Solutions for Natural Notetaking based on Paper-Digital Technologies, ETH Zurich, December 2011.
Andoni Lombide Carreton, Ambient-oriented Dataflow Programming for Mobile RFID-Enabled Applications, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, November 2011.
Jorge Vallejos, Modularising Context Dependency and Group Behaviour in Ambient-oriented Programming, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, June 2011.
Michael Spranger, The Evolution of Grounded Spatial Language, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, April 2011.
Andres Yie, A Non-invasive Approach for Evolving Model Transformation Chains, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, February 2011.
Mario Sanchez, Executable Models for Extensible Workflow Engines, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, February 2011.
Oscar Gonzales, Monitoring and Analysis of Workflow Applications: A Domain-specific Language Approach, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, September 2010.
Joris Bleys, Language Strategies for the Domain of Colour, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, June 2010.
Sven Van Segbroeck, Complex Dynamics in Adaptive Networks, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, April 2010.
Feng Liu, Biological Literature Miner - Gene Normalization and Interaction Article Classification, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, February 2010.
Yifei Chen, Biological Literature Miner - Gene Mention Recognition and Protein-Protein Pair Extraction, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, February 2010.
Yan Tang, On Semantic Decision Tables, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, October 2009.

Invited Talks

Cross-Media Information Spaces and Architectures, Seminar organised by Infogroep, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, April 24, 2013.
Cross-Media Information Systems - Quo Vadis?, CRAFT, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, November 2, 2012.
The Future of Computers and the Internet, Mens en computer in 2030?, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, March 24, 2011.
Paper-Digital User Interfaces - Applications, Frameworks and Future Challenges, User Interface Colloquium, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, November 2, 2009.
Interaktives Papier - Ein neues Medium zur Integration von Papier und digitalen Medien in crossmedialen Publikationen, Swiss Publishing Week, Hotel Banana City, Winterthur, Switzerland, September 19, 2008.
Interactive Paper and Cross-Media Publishing, Zukunft Crossmedia - Publishers Zukunft?, Schule für Gestaltung Bern und Biel, Bern, Switzerland, August 28, 2008.
Interactive Paper - Introduction and Basic Technology & Interactive Paper - Applications and Future Developments, Y-Toolbox, Workshop about Paper, Y (Institute for Transdisciplinarity), Bern University of Arts, Bern, Switzerland, April 17, 2008.
Integrating Paper and Digital Information Spaces - The iServer / iPaper Solution, Research Seminar, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Kaiserslautern, Germany, March 31, 2008.
Interactive Paper and Cross-Media Publishing, Treffpunkt Publishing, Berufsschule für Gestaltung, Zurich, Switzerland, January 29, 2008.
Interactive Paper @ ETH Zurich, multi task - Crossmediales Publizieren live, multi digital, Baar, Switzerland, November 29, 2007.
Bridging the Paper-Digital Divide: The iPaper Interactive Paper Framework, Research Seminar, Faculty of Informatics, University of Lugano, May 2007.

Recent Presentations

HTML5 and the Open Web Platform, Brussels, March 2012.
Current and Future Trends in Web Search - Seminar on Web Search, Brussels, September 2011.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Seminar on Web Search, Brussels, September 2011.
History of Search and Web Search Engines - Seminar on Web Search, Brussels, Belgium, September 2011.
What is Wrong with Digital Documents? A Conceptual Model for Structural Cross-Media Content Composition and Reuse, ER 2010, 29th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, Vancouver, Canada, November 2010.
Interactive Paper: Past, Present and Future, PaperComp 2010, 1st International Workshop on Paper Computing, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2010.
An Architecture for Open Cross-Media Annotation Services, WISE 2009, 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering, Poznan, Poland, October 2009.
Active Components as a Method for Coupling Data and Services - A Database-Driven Application Development Process, ICOODB 2009, 2nd International Conference on Object Databases, Zurich, Switzerland, July 2009.
The Remediation of Paper - Creating Affinities between Paper and Cross-Media Information Spaces, DINF Seminar Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, April 2009.
PowerPoint Multimedia Presentations in Computer Science Education: What do Users Need?, USAB 2008, 4th Symposium on Usability & HCI for Education and Work, Graz, Austria, November 2008.
A Framework for Developing Pervasive Cross-Media Applications based on Physical Hypermedia and Active Components, ICPCA 2008, 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications, Alexandria, Egypt, October 2008.
Interactive Paper as a Reading Medium in Digital Libraries, ECDL 2008, 12th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, Aarhus, Denmark, September 2008.
Google PageRank, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, August 25, 2008.
PAD - Recent Developments and Future Work, GlobIS Workshop, Zurich, Switzerland, July 10, 2008.
Collaborating over Paper and Digital Media - Interactive Paper Applications @ ETH Zurich, CSCW Seminar, Zurich, Switzerland, May 27, 2008.
i3 - Recent iServer, iPaper and iGesture Developments, OMS Seminar, Zurich, Switzerland, December 5, 2007.
iGesture: A General Gesture Recognition Framework, ICDAR 2007, 9th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition, Curitiba, Brazil, September 2007.
iPaper@GlobIS - Interactive Paper Research, CSCW Seminar, ETH Zurich, June 2007.
Bridging the Paper-Digital Divide, CSCW Seminar, ETH Zurich, March 2007.
PaperPoint: A Paper-Based Presentation and Interactive Paper Prototyping Tool, TEI 2007, 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, February 2007.
General Framework for the Rapid Development of Interactive Paper Applications, CoPADD 2006, 1st International Workshop on Collaborating over Paper and Digital Documents, Banff, Canada, November 2006.
Print-n-Link: Weaving the Paper Web, DocEng 2006, ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, October 2006.
Bridging the Divide Between Paper and Digital: Some Investigations, Stanford HCI Group, Stanford, May 2006.
Bridging the Divide Between Paper and Digital: Some Investigations, Ricoh Innovations, Menlo Park, May 2006.
Linking Paper and Digital Media, DELOS Demo Day, February 2006.

Press Articles

Papier als digitale Schnittstelle, viscom print & communication Nr. 10, May 23 2006.
Monte Generoso meets Platzspitz, ETH Life international, December 2004.

Other Activities

Participant of the Seminar on Professional Education organised by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, September 2011, Nieuwpoort, Belgium.
Participant of the Inter-Disciplinary Summer School, Information Environments: Analysis and Design, August 2002, Zurich, Switzerland.
Partner and member of the managing board of Tenera AG.
Work placement at Oerlikon Contraves Defence (real-time software engineering for a driving simulator), 1997.
Work placement at Teleprint tdc SA (software and hardware installations), 1993.

Hobbies

Literature, movies, photography, volleyball, snowboarding.