...followed by an opportunity to discuss the lecture over drinks and a finger buffet in the Computer Science Atrium
Title: What is Web Science and why is it important?
Speaker: Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton
Abstract: Since its inception less than two decades ago, the World Wide Web has changed the ways we communicate, collaborate, and educate. In a very short-space of time we have come to live in a web-dependent society within a web-dependent world. There is a growing realization among many researchers that a clear research agenda aimed at understanding the current, evolving, and potential Web is needed. If we want to model the Web; if we want to understand the architectural principles that have provided for its growth; and if we want to be sure that it supports the basic social values of trustworthiness, privacy, and respect for social boundaries, then we must chart out a research agenda that targets the Web as a primary focus of attention. The Web is an engineered space created through formally specified languages and protocols. However, because humans are the creators of the content of Web pages and the links between them, their interactions form emergent patterns in the Web at a macroscopic scale. These human interactions are, in turn, governed by social conventions and laws.
Web Science embraces the study of these phenomena. In this seminar we will consider what Web Science is, and why it is important, as well as presenting ideas about how we can study the Web as both a technical and social phenomenon.
http://www.crg.computer-science.nottingham.ac.uk/component/content/article/42-adademic/141.html
Dame Wendy Hall is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours, and became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) that year too. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS) (also serving as President) and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET).
In 2008 Hall was elected as the President of the Association for Computing Machinery, a professional society for computing.