Recommender systems are software applications that aim to support users in their decision-making while interacting with large information spaces. They recommend items of interest to users based on preferences they have expressed, either explicitly or implicitly. The ever-expanding volume and increasing complexity of information on the Web has therefore made such systems essential tools for users in a variety of information seeking or e-commerce activities. Recommender systems help overcome the information overload problem by exposing users to the most interesting items, and by offering novelty, surprise, and relevance. Recommender technology is hence the central piece of the information seeking puzzle. Major e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Yahoo are using recommendation technology in ubiquitous ways. Many new comers are on their way and entrepreneurs are competing in order to find the right approach to use this technology effectively.
3rd ACM Conference on Recommender Systems
Brainstorming more #websciencefiction - tweet suggestions. http://wiki.websciencetrust.org/w/Web_Science_Fiction
Two events in the Learningworks Virtual Conference series take place on the morning and afternoon of Wednesday 16 September 2009.
RT @lescarr: How useful is Twitter? A quick analysis of twitter activity around CETIS09 http://repositoryman.blogspot.com/
NESTA has provided funding to assist in the establishment of WSRI as an autonomous unit and to provide administrative and operational support and to further drive the strategic development of WSRI in partnership with corporate bodies, governments and academia. Press Release
"what motivates us to create & break links with people? what are the global implications?" #webscience
INSNA - Sunbelt Social Networks Conference
Report [PDF] The potential of technology to shape and support human memory is only now beginning to become clear: remedial prosthetics for those suffering from memory problems technologies to address information overload in the workplace the use of computers in the home to store private memories (such as the dramatic growth in digital photography). Hence it is an important moment to look at the topic of memory in relation to the Web, at the beginning of two interlinked research agendas.
Memories for Life Colloquium: The Future of our Pasts
British Library Conference Centre, London.
Trust Directors give keynote at Online Information 2009
Wendy Hall and Nigel Shadbolt will give the opening keynote at the Online Information Conference 2009 at Olympia, London, on 1 December.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall speaks to the Guardian
Leading computer scientist and WSRI director Wendy Hall tells Anthea Lipsett why she accepted a damehood, but doesn't Twitter. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/02/interview-wendy-hall
In their recent list of the fifty most influential individuals in the worldwide technology and IT industries, Silicon.com have named WSRI director Tim Berners-Lee as the number one agenda setter of 2008, ahead of Google CEO, Eric Schmidt and Apple founder and CEO, Steve Jobs. The Agenda Setters panel praised Berners-Lee for being "a guardian and promoter of the fundamental social and technical innovation of our era, who is still pushing its boundaries and continues to set the agenda".
We are pleased to announce the seventh European Summer School on Ontological Engineering and the Semantic Web (SSSW 2009). The successful and groundbreaking SSSW series of summer schools started in 2003, as part of the activities of the OntoWeb Network Consortium, continued from 2004 to 2007 as part of the activities of the Knowledge Web Network of Excellence, and is now a well-establish event within the research community and a role model for several other initiatives. Presented by leading researchers in the field, it represents an opportunity for postgraduate students to equip themselves with the range of theoretical, practical, and collaboration skills necessary for full engagement with the challenges involved in developing Ontologies and Semantic Web applications. To ensure a high ratio between tutors and students the school will be limited to 50 participants.
The 6th Summer School on Ontological Engineering and the Semantic Web
The Web Science Trust has been granted charitable status, in a move which will enable greater focused, global development of the discipline.
£30 million institute for Web Science will lead the way in Web 3.0
The Government today announced the creation of the new Institute for Web Science.
Nigel Shadbolt interviewed on BBC Pods and Blogs
Listen to the Nigel Shadbolt interview on BBC Radio 5 Pods and Blogs
"people need to know there is privacy before they are willing share" (some of the web is "dark" for good reason) #webscience
Tetherless World Constellation Launch Event: "The Future of the World Wide Web"
Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies Auditorium, RPI, New York, USA
RT @timberners_lee: RT @Nigel_Shadbolt: Sometimes you have a good day - sometimes a great day http://bit.ly/1pwa9w #opendata
The 4th International Conference on Semantic and Digital Media Technologies (SAMT '09) targets at narrowing the large disparity between the low-level descriptors that can be computed automatically from multimedia content and the richness and subjectivity of semantics in user queries and human interpretations of audiovisual media - The Semantic Gap.
4th International Conference on Semantic and Digital Media Technologies
RT @timberners_lee: Bit by bit, globally, through great effort, democracy, openness and justice inch ahead. #MerryChristmas
A team of European researchers has developed an algorithm that ranks the expertise of users and can spot those who are using a site only to spam.
WSDM (pronounced "wisdom") is a young ACM conference intended to be the publication venue for research in the areas of search and data mining. Indeed, the pace of innovation in these areas prevents proper coverage by conferences of broader scope. The high attendance at the first two WSDMs, held at Stanford University and Barcelona in February 2008 and 2009, has confirmed community interest in a more focused venue.
Third ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) 2010
Engineering Doctoral Programme at University of Southampton
The Engineering Doctoral Programme provides opportunities in Web Science. If you are interested in pursuing an EngDoc in Web Science at the University of Southampton, please contact info@webscience.org.
"what motivates us to create and break links with people? what are the global implications?" #webscience
WWW as important to the future as free speech, says Tim Berners-Lee
The World Wide Web is becoming as important to the future of humankind as free speech, Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC.
"people had to learn that being able to get anything didnt mean they had to read everything" (how to cope with too much data?)
Report [PDF]
RT @cgutteridge: At the Southampton webscience Christmas Party http://phodroid.com/09/11/dtd3dn
Professor Noshir Contractor joins Web Science Trust
Professor Noshir Contractor, the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, USA, and one of the world’s leading network scientists, is now a Director of the Web Science Trust.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall elected Fellow of the Royal Society
Dame Wendy Hall DBE, Professor of Computer Science in the University of Southampton, has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, it is announced today (Friday 15 May).
BT Joins Inventor of the World Wide Web to Promote Study of ‘Web Science’
BT today became a founding sponsor of the Web Science Research Initiative, an international body established to promote the science and development of the World Wide Web. Established by British Web pioneer Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web with co-directors Nigel Shadbolt, Wendy Hall and Danny Weitzner. The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) exists to promote the study of ‘Web Science’, a new academic discipline focusing on the analysis, engineering and social impact of the World Wide Web.
Semantic Computing is currently emerging as a new field that integrates methods from multimedia (computer vision, speech processing), natural language processing, semantic web and ontology engineering, software engineering, and other fields with the goal of creating new applications that connect intuitively formulated user-intentions with the content of data.
IEEE 2009 Summer School on Semantic Computing
Why study Web Science? Watch the live event right now! http://webscience.org/event/48.html
Southampton and Oxford to partner in new Institute for Web Science
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced £30M of funding to take forward research on the next generation of the World Wide Web.
Nigel Shadbolt interviewed about Web 3.0 on NPR’s On the Media
Listen to the Nigel Shadbolt interview talking about Web 3.0 on National Public Radio’s On the Media
Video Archive To see the archived video of the event, please select one of the following links: Introduction by Nigel Shadbolt, http://archive.zepler.tv/266/ Introduction slides in PDF format Panel chaired by Dr Aleks Krotoski, http://archive.zepler.tv/267/ Opportunities for Studying Web Science, http://archive.zepler.tv/268/ The Web Science Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Southampton has teamed up with the Web Science Trust to promote opportunities to study the new discipline of Web Science. Dr Aleks Krotoski, presenter of BBC's "The Virtual Revolution", Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Government Information Adviser, and leading experts discuss the future of the Web and why we need to study it now. 18:30 Refreshments available 19:00 Professor Nigel Shadbolt (University of Southampton): What is Web Science? 19:10 Panel Discussion Dr Aleks Krotoski, Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee (MIT), Professor Noshir Contractor (Northwestern University), Professor Helen Margetts (Oxford Internet Institute), JP Rangaswami (BT) 20:10 Opportunities to study Web Science Professor Dame Wendy Hall (University of Southampton), Professor Jim Hendler (Rensselaer Polytechic Institute), Professor Bill Dutton (Oxford Internet Institute) 20:30 Close For more information about the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre please visit http://webscience.ecs.soton.ac.uk/dtc/ To contact the organisers, email info@webscience.org Studying Web Science in the UK Doctoral Training Centre for Web Science at the University of Southampton, http://webscience.ecs.soton.ac.uk/dtc/ Oxford Internet Institute, http://oii.ox.ac.uk/ Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh, http://www.stis.ed.ac.uk/ Studying Web Science in the US MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, http://www.csail.mit.edu/ School of Communication at Northwestern University, http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/ Tetherless World Constellation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, http://tw.rpi.edu/ Please contact the organisers to have your institution added to the list.
Why Study the Web? Social Machines and the Virtual Revolution
The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG, UK
Interested in studying #webscience? links at the bottom of http://webscience.org/event/48.html
A WSRI-organised panel at the 5th European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC2008), moderated by Professor Wendy Hall of the University of Southampton. Panelists: Professor Stefan Decker, DERI, National University of Ireland Professor Guus Schreiber, Free University Amsterdam Professor Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton, UK Professor Frank Van Harmelen, Free University Amsterdam
"Does the Semantic Web Need Web Science?"
Trust Directors influence UK policy change
We Science Trust Directors Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt are behind the significant change in UK policy towards public data announced by the Prime Minster yesterday (17 November).
Panel on privacy and identity. Tuesday 12th. Southampton. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/about/news/2930
News Innovation conference discusses future of news
Journalists, academics and web developers met in London on Friday to discuss the future of journalism with a sense of urgency as the recession challenges news organisations.
Web Foundation launches global operations
World Wide Web Foundation launched global operations and announced its first ambitious projects at the 2009 Internet Governance Forum.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee tops Intel's most influential technologist list
In Intel's list of the top forty-five most influential technologists in the past 150 years, Sir Tim Berners-Lee takes the top spot.
Vodafone Donates $1 Million in Support of Web Foundation Initiatives
Vodafone is donating $1M towards projects that will train entrepreneurs in Africa to leverage the Web as a platform for delivering locally relevant content, applications and services.
The School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton (ECS)
In a world increasingly dominated by the internet, what does the future hold for us all? Join Dame Wendy Hall to find out what it will mean to be a digital citizen in the future.
Centenary Talk: Living in a Digital World
"The opportunities for outweigh the challenges" - Noshir #webscience
The International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym) is the premier conference dedicated to wikis and related open collaboration systems and processes. WikiSym 2009 aims to explore and extend the thriving wiki community, bringing together researchers, practitioners, writers and scholars to gather, discuss and share knowledge and experience on all areas related to wikis and wiki philosophy, ranging from social to technical, and from theoretical to experience studies.
The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration
Social Computing can be broadly defined as computational facilitation of social studies and human social dynamics as well as design and use of information and communication technologies that consider social context. Social computing has recently become one of the central themes across a number of information and communication technology fields and attracted significant interest from not only researchers in computing and social sciences, but also software and online game vendors, web entrepreneurs, political analysts, digital government practitioners. The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing provides a key forum for researchers and industry practitioners to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of social computing.
IEEE International Conference on Social Computing
What fiction to inspire or caution Web Scientists?
Professor David De Roure appointed UK's National e-Social Science Strategic Director
Professor David De Roure has been appointed to the new role of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) National Strategic Director of e-Social Science.
Prestigious Schlumberger Foundation award for PhD student
A PhD student from the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, England has received a prestigious Fellowship award from the Schlumberger Foundation.
Innovation Partnership to Keep the Web Collaborative
Original source, 7th July 2008 The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has announced a partnership with the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) which will see the two organisations work together to safeguard the Web as a platform for collaboration and innovation.
"we invented the web so we should be able to figure out how to make it better" - TimBL #webscience
Post Doctoral Positions in Social Network Research @ Northwestern University, USA
The Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Laboratory at Northwestern University invites applications for up to three post doctoral positions.
Southampton and MIT launch Web Science collaboration
The University of Southampton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today announced the launch of a long-term research collaboration that aims to produce the fundamental scientific advances necessary to guide the future design and use of the World Wide Web.
Registration now open! Nothing like the Web has ever happened in all of human history. The Web is the largest human information construct in history. The scale of its impact and the rate of its adoption are unparalleled. If we are to ensure that the Web benefits the human race we must do our best to understand it, engineer its future and ensure its social benefit. Web Science is the new interdisciplinary field targeting these objectives. The Web Science Summer Academy offers a unique combination of 7 courses and 3 invited talks in Web Science. The courses cover socio-economic as well as computer science subjects. All courses award credits for transfers to home institutions. Courses are held in English in a 4 weeks period in June/July 2010. Join Web Science Summer Academy and: * explore interdisciplinary facets of web science. * earn credit points for your studies at your home institution. * meet a lot of interesting people. * have fun enjoying a variety of social events. * if you want: aquire basic skills in the German language. Courses *Computer Science Track* * Semantic Web (Prof. Staab * Web Retrieval (Dr. Sizov) * Web Engineering (Prof. Ebert) *Socio-Economic Track* * Social Web and Bibliometry (Prof. Sure) * Agent Based Simulation for a better Understanding of Social Processes on the Web (Prof. Troitzsch & Prof. Gilbert) * System Analysis and Mathematical Modelling (Prof. Chernyshenko) * Virtual Goods (Prof. Grimm) *Invited Talks*: Highlights in Web Science (to be confirmed) * The Web and the Law (tbc) * Prof. I. Antoniou: The Physics of the Web: The Web as a Complex System * Data.gov (tbc) Participation in Courses We recommend participants to register for two or three courses. If you apply for three courses (or even more) please consider the amount of work and exams you will have to master in a rather limited period of time. A good command of English is required to successfully participate in the courses. Registration fee per course amounts to 175 Euro (late registration: 200 Euro), which includes the course materials. Students from Partner Universities of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Koblenz-Landau will receive fee waivers. Travelling and Accommodation Located at the banks of the rivers Rhine and Mosel, at the heart of Europe, and with only 1 hour distance to three international airport, Koblenz is easy to reach from anywhere. The Summer Academy offers various accommodations for a low price. You may apply for a sponsor-subsidized accommodation. Further Information The Web Science Summer Academy is held as part of the Summer Academy of University of Koblenz-Landau. Please find more details about the (Web Science) Summer Academy on our website:
Web Science Summer Academy - Koblenz 2010
"This isnt just a few web besotted Brits thinking we should study it cus it was invented here - its international" J.Hendler #webscience
NESTA's Innovation Edge conference is an unrivalled opportunity to get under the skin of innovation in the UK - and consider the impact it will have on our future. The conference brings together a powerful mix of experts from industry, culture, politics and academia. Bob Geldof, Lord Puttnam, Helen Alexander, Michael Birch and urban artist 'Inkie' are just a few of those who'll be fuelling the discussion. Be a part of it. The Innovation Edge is free to attend.
Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London, UK
Webscience.org URI's now 303, rather than 302. curl -I http://webscience.org/WST
The BIS conference is by now a well-respected event joining international researchers to discuss the wide range of the development, implementation, application and improvement of business applications and systems. It is addressed to the scientific community, people involved in the development of business computer applications, consultants helping to properly implement computer technology and applications in the industry. Professor Steffen Staab, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany, will be giving a keynote speech.
This workshop, to be conducted at WWW2008, invites you to present and explain your prediction of the future of the Web, discuss how this evolution can be observed and influenced, and to reflect on why the Web has evolved to its current state.
Web Science Workshop at WWW2008: Understanding Web Evolution: A Prerequisite for Web Science
RT @DameWendyDBE: WebSci'10 conference submissions due 29th Jan. See http://j.mp/85k2VP for details. It's a really fun conference!
Digital Revolution - How the Web is changing our lives
An open and collaborative documentary on the way the Web is changing our lives.
Barely more than ten years after the birth of the World Wide Web, the Global Information Infrastructure is daily reality. In spite of the many applications in all domains of our societies: e-business, e-commerce, e-learning, e-science, and e-government, for instance, and in spite of the tremendous advances by engineers and scientists, the seamless integration of information and services remains a major challenge. The current shared vision for the future is one of semantically-rich information and service oriented architecture for global information systems. This vision is at the convergence of progress in technologies such as XML, Web services, RDF, OWL, of multimedia, multimodal, and multilingual information retrieval, and of distributed, mobile and ubiquitous computing.
11th International conference on Information Integration and Web-based Application & Services
Memories for Life/Grand Challenges Workshop 2008
As part of the BCS Grand Challenges in Computing Research Conference, Memories for Life (M4L) presents a call for participation for its Grand Challenge workshop, to be held on 18 March, 2008. Interested parties are encouraged to submit a position paper by February 22nd; details can be found in the CFP. See also other upcoming WSRI events.
Trust Directors lead development of data.gov.uk
Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt have played a key role in the development of the new data.gov.uk web site launched today by the UK Government.
RT @Nigel_Shadbolt: With PM at Digital Future gig :-)
SDP 2008 - Summer Doctoral Programme on Web Science
WSRI is taking part in the OII Summer Doctoral Programme through the WSRI Exchange Programme. Doctoral students interested in participating should read through the linked page for details.
"The opportunities far outweigh the challenges" - Noshir #webscience
The IADIS WWW/Internet 2009 Conference aims to address the main issues of concern within WWW/Internet. WWW and Internet had a huge development in recent years. Aspects of concern are no longer just technical any more but other aspects have arisen. This conference aims to cover both technological as well as non-technological issues related to these developments.
Fun fact: The URI for our news is shorter than the URL so we'll use that for Twitter! eg. http://webscience.org/article/48
In recent years we observe growing availability of structured information on the Web. While significant part of it is in a human readable form, not adapted for automated processing (HTML, AJAX, Flash, Deep Web, Web applications), more machine-processable information enters the Web thanks to complementary top-down and bottom-up tendencies. Bottom-up tendencies are related to publication of structured information in a machine-processable form (e.g. in XML, RDF, JSON). It also covers annotation of unstructured content with meta-data (e.g. microformats, RDFa, SIOC, MPEG-7). Top-down approaches are related to algorithmically structuring unstructured information. They combine different methods of Web mining, information extraction, classification, categorisation, automated linking and named entities recognition. Moreover, phenomena combining these tendencies, such as social annotation of resources, are widely present in today’s Web. More structured information on the Web enables information integration using shared vocabularies (linked data approach), data mashups (domain-specific integration), and automated algorithmic information integration (schemas matching, dataspaces, lexical techniques). In parallel, popularization of mashup, data monitoring and social data sharing techniques, enable easier information reuse and growing number of intelligent services combing various dynamic information sources, algorithms and explicit or implicit users input. The ESIW 2009 workshop will adopt a multidisciplinary approach to current tendencies in exploiting structured information on the Web. The workshop will provide an informal and vibrant forum for researchers and industry practitioners to share their research results and practical development experiences.
Tenth International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering
Call for Papers! WebSci 2010. Raleigh, North Carolina, 26 & 27 April 2010. http://www.websci10.org/cfp.html
We invite graduate students and recently graduated PhDs to apply to attend a week-long Web Science Summer Research Program
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York
Fun fact: The Logo for the Trust represents the middle of the Cluster diagram.
Southampton professor elected to lead global computing organisation
A Southampton professor has been elected president of the world's largest educational and scientific computing society - the first time in 60 years a person outside North America has held the position. Professor Wendy Hall was announced as the new President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
"we need to be doing our field experiments online" #webscience
It is nearly 5:30, Friday and the Web Science team have lots to celebrate! http://yfrog.com/5cj2sj - they really earned it!
Web Science features in new BBC SuperPower series
Research on the development and future of the World Wide Web is featured in a new BBC season of programmes, Superpower, which began on Monday 8 March and runs for two weeks.
Planning the datastructure for the WebSci2010 Website. http://is.gd/50rOX + http://is.gd/50rP1
As part of the BCS Grand Challenges in Computing Research Conference, Memories for Life (M4L) presents a call for participation for its Grand Challenge workshop.
Memories for Life/Grand Challenges Workshop
The British Computer Society, London, UK
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt to advise the Government on public information delivery
The Prime Minister has announced the appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt as expert advisers on public information delivery. The announcement was part of a statement on constitutional reform made in the House of Commons on June 11th.
The purpose of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST) is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in the technological advances and business applications of web-based information systems. The conference has four main track, covering different aspects of Web Information Systems, including Internet Technology, Web Interfaces and Applications, Society, e-Communities, e-Business and Web Intelligence.
6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies
RT @Rchards: Delighted to be listening to @timberners_lee launch data.gov.uk #opendata
RT @Nigel_Shadbolt: PM has just described Semantic Web and Linked Data as "revolutionary" #opendata #linkeddata #opengov
Tim Berners-Lee gives ECS Inaugural Lecture
Tim Berners-Lee gave the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science's Inaugural Lecture on March 14, 2007, titled The World Wide Web: Looking Back, Looking Forward.
Business Southampton has teamed up with the Web Science Trust, NESTA, Seme4 and the University of Southampton to bring you a unique opportunity to find out about the future of the Web. The aim of this breakfast seminar is to help businesses prepare for and anticipate the next stage of the evolution of the Web and the impact that the emerging Web of Linked Data will have on your business. Web experts Professor Dame Wendy Hall and Professor Nigel Shadbolt from the University of Southampton and the Web Science Trust will speak of how the Web has evolved over recent years and how its future evolution is likely to affect businesses. Agenda: 0745 Registration and breakfast served 0815 Presentations commence 0900 Networking 0930 Close * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * RSVP • City Champions: 2 FREE PLACES • Additional City Champions and Associates: £30 + VAT • Other delegates: £35 + VAT If you would like to reserve your place, please RSVP by 6th January 2010 by e-mailing bookings@businesssouthampton.com or calling 023 8068 2520 . Please note that this is likely to be a very popular event and spaces are limited so early booking is recommended.
Here Comes Everything: Preparing for the Web of Linked Data
"the datasphere and the mashup sphere are separate layers. Put your data out there!"
The Web Science Research Initiative have announced WebSci09, the first 'Web Science' conference to be organised by the WSRI. Web Science focuses on understanding, designing and developing the technologies and applications that make up the World Wide Web. But the Web does not exist without the participation of people and organisations. Now that a significant proportion of life is spent on-line in many countries, it makes sense for this conference to be dedicated to the presentation of research into society on the Web.
The interest in integrating Ontologies and Software Engineering has gained more attention with commercial and scientific initiatives. The Semantic Web Best Practice and Deployment Working Group (SWBPD) in W3C included a Software Engineering Task Force (SETF) to explore how Semantic Web and Software Engineering can cooperate. The Object Management Group (OMG) has an Ontology Platform Special Interest Group (PSIG) aiming at formalizing semantics in software by knowledge representation and related technologies. The concrete results of such initiatives are the specification of the OMG Ontology Definition Metamodel, the OWL2 Metamodel, the introduction to Ontology Driven Architectures and a Semantic Web Primer for Object-Oriented Software Developers.
2nd Workshop on Transforming and Weaving Ontologies and MDE
Key role for Nigel Shadbolt in local government data release
Speaking yesterday at No.10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced that he had asked Professor Nigel Shadbolt of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton to lead a panel of experts who will oversee the release of local public data, ensuring that it is linked effectively across relevant agencies, authorities and government departments.
News Innovation London is an opportunity for journalists, developers and academics to talk about the latest developments in news - new ways of gathering news, analysing data, distributing news, adding value to news, and building news communities.
hosted by the Media Standards Trust and WSRI, kindly supported by NESTA
The next stage of the web’s evolution presents huge business opportunities, say Wendy Hall and Nigel Shadbolt, in an article in Computing magazine.
Book: "The Spy in the Coffee Machine"
"The Spy in the Coffee Machine" is a new book about the implications of privacy in today's increasingly web-based world. It is written by Nigel Shadbolt and Kieron O'Hara, two prominent figures in the realm of Web Science.
The World Wide Web has changed almost every aspect of modern life. It touches us all. The Web's billions of pages, links and other resources comprise the largest information fabric in the history of humanity. Yet the Web is rarely approached as an object of scientific study. What processes have driven the Web's growth, and will they persist? How does large-scale structure emerge from a simple set of protocols? How does the Web work as a socio-technical system? What drives the viral uptake of certain Web phenomena? What might fragment the Web? Featuring some of the worlds leading researchers on these areas this interdisciplinary meeting will discuss these and other issues as it presents the components of a Science of the Web.
Royal Society Discussion Meeting ‘Web Science: A New Frontier’
RT @octodude #webscience to study the web you need to look at the 99% of web that failed or is now archived
MIT and Northeastern University in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts USA.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall re-appointed to top-level Council
The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has re-appointed Professor Dame Wendy Hall to the Council for Science and Technology (CST).
6th Annual Southampton City Lecture - The Emerging Science of the Web and Why it is Important - http://bit.ly/3gimB
The goal of the workshop was to find ways to facilitate the deployment of Web standards across eGovernment sites and help shape the ongoing research agenda in the development of Web technology and public policy in order to realize the potential of the Web for access to and use of government information.
Toward More Transparent Government Workshop on eGovernment and the Web
US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC
6th Annual Southampton City Lecture - The Emerging Science of the Web and Why it is Important - http://bit.ly/3gimBB
Professor Nigel Shadbolt talks about privacy
In an article in The Times, WSRI director Nigel Shadbolt tells us how we should keep an eye on the powers watching us.
Inventor of Web Announces Creation of New Foundation to Bring the Web to All People
Tim Berners-Lee's speech before the Knight Foundation is available here. Washington, D.C. (USA) 15 September 2008 Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, unveiled today the World Wide Web Foundation, to fulfill a vision of the Web as humanity connected by technology. The mission of the Foundation is:
The advanced capabilities required in most Semantic Web application scenarios primarily call for reasoning. Reasoning capabilities are offered by Semantic Web languages that are currently being developed. Most of these languages, however, are developed mainly from functionality-centered perspectives (e.g. ontology reasoning or access validation) or application-centered perspectives (e.g. Web service retrieval and composition). A perspective centered on the reasoning techniques complementing the above-mentioned activities appears desirable for Semantic Web systems and applications. This Summer School series is devoted to this perspective.
BBC's Virtual Revolution - Web Science's Contribution
The first episode of BBC's landmark series Virtual Revolution airs 830pm on BB2 Saturday January 30th. Web Science has played a formative role in shaping this series. Professor Nigel Shadbolt acted as Series Consultant and appears with Sir Tim Berner-Lee. We will be linking the issues raised by the series into a range of material here at the Web Science Trust site.
RT @Nigel_Shadbolt: PM just announced £30M for a new Institute of Web Science #linkeddata #opendata #semanticweb
Tim Berners-Lee gives BCS 2007 Lovelace Lecture
Tim Berners-Lee gave the British Computer Society's Lovelace Lecture, an annual lecture given by that year's winner of the society's Lovelace Medal. You can view the lecture titled "The Web: Looking Forward, Looking Back," given on March 13, 2007.
Perhaps the key issue in the online era of the Connected World in which we live is that of identity. Public concern over identity theft and privacy is already high, and can only grow as we become more engaged online. What happens as we move forward and make medical records fully electronic for example? How should governments plan to provide public services securely? Even if we cut out the regular loss of electronic records from laptops or CDs left on trains or lost in transit, how will governments keep our records safe? Should we link tax, driving, medical, benefits, and other personal records to be accessible in one place for ease of citizen use, or does that introduce an unacceptable systemic weakness? And how do we know that information about us kept by commercial organisations is safe and not available to be abused? Today we have the Data Protection Act to protect us, but is it adequate? What should the rules be about availability and use of private records? What should be covered by privacy laws and what is fair game to be sold on and used for (say) marketing? What is privacy anyway, and are we entitled to it? If we put information about ourselves online (for example on Facebook, or even on an email), can we reasonably expect it to stay private? And can IT security keep pace with both technological change and the best efforts of increasingly sophisticated online criminals? Panelists: Simon Davies (Privacy International) Tim Kelsey (Dr Foster Intelligence) Liam Maxwell (Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead) Nigel Shadbolt (University of Southampton) For free registration, visit
Panel Discussion: Privacy and Identity in a Digital Age
"do your phd in the mashupsphere but CREDIT YOUR SOURCES!" #webscience
The workshop is for people interested in collaboration support and collective intelligence in the age of Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web. This includes not only people with technical expertise, but also those who study human aspects of Web phenomena, such as the emergence of on-line communities, and the impact of these phenomena on wider society.
Web Science Workshop at HT2008: Collaboration and Collective Intelligence