Sergey S. Shirin
web scientist


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About web science

Web science research initiative brings together academics, scientists, sociologists, entrepreneurs and decision makers from around the world. These people will create the first multidisciplinary research body to examine the World Wide Web and offer the practical solutions needed to help guide its future use and design.

The discipline of Web Science was proposed by T. Berners-Lee on Nov. 2, 2006 to understand the reciprocal relationship between the Web and society at a number of scales, from technical protocols to emergent social behaviour, to ensure that the Web’s growth will continue, and will benefit society. The need for both analysis and engineering demands an inherently interdisciplinary approach.

Web science is not just modelling the current Web. It is about engineering new infrastructure protocols by using scientific and technological tools from many disciplines to understand the human society that uses them, to create beneficial new systems – which may involve extremely radical thinking about both technology and society. Such new engineering must respect the invariants of the Web experience: decentralisation to avoid bottlenecks and allow increases of scale; serendipitous reuse of information; fairness, openness and trust. In this way the Web will remain a technology that enhances human society, and supports human aspiration.

 

(This text contains extracts from the article Web Science by Kieron O'Hara and from the Web Science Resesarch Initiative website.)


Read Kieron O'Hara's Web Science

Visit Web Science Research Initiative website