WOW2013 provides a focus for the emerging Web Observatory community to share tools, methods, results and experience in the development and deployment of Web Observatories – and to set the agenda for future work in the field.
BACKGROUND
The Web operates at a very large scale and is dominated by emergent phenomena with radical innovations coming from and driven by its users, and in time scales that are faster than those exhibited by earlier computer-based systems. We are just beginning to understand how to conduct scientific research on the huge and constantly changing socio-technical system formed by the web and all the people and agents that use it. Scientific method begins with instrumentation and measurement to describe and characterize what is actually happening – that is, the construction and study of a Web Observatory. Only then can we begin to develop theories and abstractions that enable better design of future evolutions of the systems and quantitative predictions of their behaviour.
IMPORTANT DATES
Workshop paper deadlines (extended): March 7th 2013 (UTC-11)
Workshop paper notifications: March 13th 2013
Workshop paper final copy hard deadline: April 3rd 2013
WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES
Numerous research labs around the world are building Web Observatories and conducting studies within them, many highly advanced, but typically developed in isolation. The objectives of the workshop are therefore:
– A forum for reporting, presenting, and evaluating this work and disseminating new approaches to advance the discipline;
– An opportunity to explore how Web Observatories might in the future interoperate – be that through the exchange of data, metadata, remote access, algorithms, or results;
– A venue for critically and constructively evaluating and verifying the operation of Web Observatories and the results that flow from them;
– Inauguration of a workshop series for the Web Observatory research community, setting the agenda for research in the field.
TOPICS
Topics of interest for the workshop include but are not limited to:
– What is required of an Observatory so it can be used for empirical research of Web associated phenomena? What is the taxonomy of Web Observatories?
– What software and services are required to build a Web Observatory?
– How can we analyse and visualise the vast quantity of data captured by the Web Observatory? Can we construct computational models for these systems?
– How can we use the Web as a tool to study real world events and situations?
– What kinds of temporal models and methods do we need to access and explore the diachronic Web?
– Which methods of semantic enrichment are needed to allow ease exploration of Web Observatory data sets and corpora?
– Can observed patterns and trends of existing communities be applied to aid the formation and evolution of new, more effective and collaborative, shared-interest groups?
– How can I use observatory tools to explore emerging communities / activities on the Web?
– Can non-consumptive methods play a role in opening Web Observatories to researchers?
– How can Web Observatories share or exchange datasets, tooling, and methods?
– What are the ethical, legal, and commercial implications of Web Observatories as a research resource? How might these be addressed?
– How do I know the data from a Web Observatory is correct? What methods are required for validation and corroboration?
We invite full papers (8 pages) or short / position papers (2-4 pages). Please produce your paper using the ACM template and submit to WOW2013 on EasyChair by 1st March 2013. Accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library.
ACM template: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates
Submissions: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wow2013
WORKSHOP ORGANISATION
Chairs
David De Roure, University of Oxford, UK
Wolfgang Nejdl, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
Publicity and Proceedings
Megan Meredith-Lobay, University of Oxford
Kevin Page, University of Oxford
Advisors
Wendy Hall, University of Southampton
Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University
James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
Executive Program Committee
Tat-Seng Chua, National University of Singapore
Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton
Steffen Staab, Universität Koblenz
J. Stephen Downie, University of Illinois