The Fundamentals of the Web, the Importance of Web Science - Les Carr
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Transcript of The Fundamentals of the Web, the Importance of Web Science - Les Carr
The Fundamentals of the Web, the Importance of Web Science
LA Carr University of Southampton, UK
Introduc9on Web Science is the study of the technologies and policies that support the co-‐construc7on of a linked online environment by a networked society.
• The Web is not a thing – It is a verb, not a noun. A performance, not an object.
• The Web wasn’t just invented by Tim Berners-‐Lee – It was co-‐constructed with society
• The Web didn’t just appear out of nothing – It was just the latest proposal for scaling communica9on
• Hence we can’t take it for granted. We need to study it and understand it to retain its desirable features.
The Web is a Performance…
Society Web
Architecture
HTTP URIs
HTML
Browsers
Servers
RDF
Caches
Individuals
Companies
Ins7tu7ons
Communi7es
Special Interest Groups
Government
The middle space represents the ac7vity of individuals (poten7ally ac7ng in concert) who create interlinked resources that both reflect and reinforce the interlinkedness of society and social (economic, legal, personal) interac7on.
Blog
Update Facebook
Make a YouTube video response
Create a homepage
Edit a wikipedia entry
Publish a paper
Contribute to a genome
Tweet
Place a bid at an aucBon
…and a record of that performance
Performing on the Web • It’s something we do, not a product we buy ✗ Informa9on and Communica9on Technology ü Informing and Communica9ng Technology
Wikipedia – new knowledge is edited and managed on the web through processes that are discussed and managed through the Web. Wikipedia only exists because of the wikipedia community; the wikipedia community only exists because of the Web. Both are a linked resource with an emerging set of values and standards.
Academia – new knowledge is created privately and some9mes presented on the Web. Centuries-‐old processes and values pre-‐exist in academic organisa9ons and are re-‐interpreted for the prevailing technology.
Different parts of society have different needs to communicate for different ends.
Academics and the Web
• Open Access, Open Data, Open Educa9onal Resources – Web Technology joins the High Moral Ground
• vs the established economic model for ensuring con9nuity of informa9on produc9on – trading of privately held informa9on through subscrip9on products such as journals or magazines
technology affordances
accountability & auditability
scien9fic data mining
high moral ground
distrust
sustainability
business interests
status quo
SCIENTIFIC & SCHOLARLY COMMS
more web, increasing openness
Society is Diverse
Society
Academy Commerce
Press
Media Military
Government
InsBtuBon ObjecBve
Academy Create and transmit knowledge
Commerce Trade goods
Press Report news
Media Broadcast content
Military Defend society
Government Control society & share resources
The development of society as a whole (nuanced and structured and refined) is inextricably related to the technology of informa9on provision, consump9on and dissemina9on (e.g. wri9ng, reading, prin9ng, educa9on). Different parts of society have different objec7ves and hence incompa7ble Web requirements, e.g. openness, security, transparency, privacy.
ICT designs from the last century Sponsor System Scope Real Date Important ProperBes
Press Reuters Professional, centralised
✔ 1850 News & stock informa9on (originally carrier pigeon and subsequently telegraph)
Private Ins9tu9on
Mundaneum Public, centralised ✔ 1920 Based on indexing technology (the library card)
Military Memex Scholarly, individual, centralised
✗ 1945 Aimed at Scien9sts and Technologists in WWII
Media Xanadu Public, decentralised ✗ 1960 Focused on DRM, reuse and wri9ng for “crea9ves”
Media CEEFAX Public, na9onal, centralised
✔ 1970 Broadcast, linked, not par9cipatory
Government Minitel Public, na9onal, centralised
✔ 1980 Commercial services and informa9on
Academy (CS & HEP)
FTP / Archie / Anarchie
Public, decentralised ✔ 1985 Downloaded resources (papers, reports) to hard drives and printed them on LaserWriters.
Commerce Hypercard, HyperTIES
Private, centralised ✔ 1988 Personal applica9ons, some9mes 9ed to mul9media resources on CDROMs / video disks
Academy (HEP) WWW Public, global, decentralised
✔ 1990 Universal naming, linking, interoperability, par9cipa9ve. However no wri9ng, no indexing.
Academy (CS) Microcosm Private, centralised ✔ 1990 Sophis9cated linking and openness for personal informa9on stores
Academy (CS) HyperG Public, centralised ✔ 1990 Extension of Web for with support for wri9ng, indexing and consistency management.
Commerce AOL, CompuServ
Public, centralised ✔ 1990 Dialup access to email, forums, chat rooms and informa9on resources
NASA WMAP Science Team hip://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/3yr_release.html
The Big Bang: Informa9on & Fundamental Constants
• The Web spread the condi9ons of its ini9al crea9on throughout the whole of society as it underwent an ini9al infla9onary phase.
• Consequently, the assump9on of the open exchange of informa9on (found in an academic physics research laboratory) is now being imposed on the rest of society.
• The ques9on that Web Science must address is whether the Web, open access, open data and the Scien9fic and Crea9ve Commons offer us a beneficial opportunity, or a dangerous cul-‐de-‐sac?
• For further details see Carr, L., Pope, C. and Halford, S. (2010) Could the Web be a Temporary Glitch? In: WebSci10: Extending the Fron7ers of Society On-‐Line, April 26-‐27th, 2010, Raleigh, NC: US. hip://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21032/
Dissemina9on of Knowledge
• An old tradi9on and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. (Budapest Open Access Ini7a7ve, 2001)
Ins9tu9onal Repositories
Web Science Ques9ons • How would the world change if one of the previous Web
systems had been in the right place at the right 9me for success? – What if the commercial, crea9ve Web had succeeded (Xanadu + AOL)
instead of the open, academic Web?
• How will the world change as other parts of society impose their requirements on the Web? – What if the requirements of security
and policing take future priority over free exchange of informa9on or unrestricted transfer of knowledge?
Urgent Web Science Ques9ons • Are the public and open aspects of the Web fundamental constants of its opera9on?
• Are they a permanent change in our society’s informa9on processes, or just a temporary mistake? – Are open source, open access, open
science & crea9ve commons efficient, effec9ve and sustainable alterna9ves to fee-‐based transfer of knowledge-‐bearing artefacts?
Summary • We take for granted a Web that provides free and unrestricted informa9on exchange
• But the Web is under pressure to change – to respond to issues of security, commerce, criminality, privacy
• Web Science needs to – explain how the Web impacts society – predict the outcomes of proposed changes to Web infrastructure on business and society.