The ACM 3rd International Conference on Web Science recently concluded in Koblenz, Germany, June 14 to June 17, 2011. The conference, also supported by the International Communication Association and the ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Web, featured paper presentations, speakers, and panels, of which more information may be found on the conference website, http://www.websci11.org/. From the conference organizers:

“Web Science is concerned with the full scope of socio-technical relationships that are engaged in the World Wide Web. It is based on the notion that understanding the Web involves not only an analysis of its architecture and applications, but also insight into the people, organizations, policies, and economics that are affected by and subsumed within it. As such Web Science, and thus this conference, is inherently interdisciplinary and integrates computer and information sciences with a multitude of disciplines including sociology, economics, political science, law, management, language and communication, geography and psychology. This conference is unique in the manner in which it brings these disciplines together in creative and critical dialogue.”

Video lectures from the conference may be viewed at http://videolectures.net/acmwebsci2011_koblenz/. Next year’s Web Science conference will be held at Northwestern University, June 21 – June 24, 2012.

Collaboration network of workshop participants.

The 3rd International Workshop on Network Theory, “Web Science Meets Network Science,” was held March 4 – 6, 2011 at Northwestern University. Sponsored by ANN, the Science of Networks in Communities Laboratory (SONIC), at Northwestern, and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), the workshop featured ten presentations by a diverse group of scientists working at the intersection of Web science and network science. In an article about the workshop in the May 2011 issue of Communications of the ACM, Alex Wright writes:

“The workshop organizers hoped to frame a new research agenda by leveraging the commonalities and distinctive contributions of Web science and network science, and to formulate questions of interest to both communities. The two-day conference covered a wide range of broadly related topics such as debating the merits of network science’s ‘pure’ scientific approach vs. the more applied, engineering-oriented tactics of Web science; analyzing the effects of scale on network behaviors; exploring questions of causality, correlation, and inference; and discussing the possibility of a Web index, an idea currently being promoted by [Tim] Berners-Lee. Looking ahead, plenty of room exists for continuing dialogue between the two camps, who will almost certainly continue to probe each other’s boundaries while searching for common ground.”

For a list of presentations, photos, and additional information about the workshop, please see the ANN Conference page on this site.

Who Connects with Whom: A Social Network Analysis
of an Online Open Source Software Community

A new article by ANN members Cindy Shen and Peter Monge looks into the dynamics of collaboration in an online software community. Read the full text in the June 2011 edition of First Monday.  Read a news article about the research posted on the University of Texas at Dallas News Center Web site. From the authors:

“By examining “who connects with whom” in an online community using social network analysis, this study tests the social drivers that shape the collaboration dynamics among a group of participants from SourceForge, the largest open source community on the Web. The formation of the online social network was explored by testing two distinct network attachment logics: strategic selection and homophily. Both logics received some support. Taken together, the results are suggestive of a “performance-based clustering” phenomenon within the OSS online community in which most collaborations involve accomplished developers, and novice developers tend to partner with less accomplished and less experienced peers.“

Some highlights of ANN participants’ recent research-related honors and activities:

At the International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Conference in Boston, MA, at the end of May, two ANN alumni received awards for their dissertation work. Matthew Weber received the ICA Organizational Communication Division’s Redding Dissertation Award for his dissertation, “From the New York Times to the Huffington Post: The Emergence and Transformation of Coevolving Forms of News Production.” Cuihua (Cindy) Shen received second-place for the ICA Communication and Technology Division’s Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award for her dissertation, “The Patterns, Effects and Evolution of Player Networks in Online Gaming Communities.” Also at the ICA Conference this May, Janet Fulk was elected ICA Fellow for her distinguished contributions to the field of communication.

 This summer ANN participants will engage in several research programs of note. Martin Hilbert will attend the Santa Fe Institute’s annual Complex Systems Summer School, and Katya Ognyanova will attend the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program. Jaclyn Selby will be a summer fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, DC, via funding through a COMPASS Fellowship, and will also attend the Annenberg Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute.