A new branch of science?

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on

web

I was reading online an article about how computing experts are kicking around the idea that there needs to be a "science of the Web."

My first thought was that there must already be one. Aren't computer science or information science or information technology departments teaching this?

Apparently, the answer is - not really.

They are defining web science as "an interdisciplinary study that would look at the Web's rapid evolution and its scientific underpinnings."

The article in Scientific American describes how M.I.T & the University of Southampton, in England, announced plans for a Web Science Research Initiative. Here's some of what the article describes:

"...vast emergent properties are beginning to arise on the Web, and no one is studying how they have blossomed or what they may mean for society. E-mail led to instant messaging, which grew into social networks such as MySpace. The transfer of documents led to file sharing sites such as Napster, which led to user-generated portals like YouTube. Tagging documents with identifying labels is prompting the emergence of a Semantic Web, a global effort to allow computers to recognize not just what online documents are, but what kinds of information they contain and what it might mean. The Semantic Web promises to bring all sorts of useful data to users, not just text and imagery."

I would be curious to hear from those of you who teach CS/IS/IT to see if you agree that  a) it is not being taught in any cohesive manner currently and  b) there is need for the creation of a new branch off the computer science tree for it.

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