Muhammad Atif Qureshi gave a presentation on Webology at the Institute of Business Administration. He discussed the importance of web science as a field of study to develop a systems-level understanding of the web. Web science extends beyond computer science by studying how people interact and are connected through computers on the web. It examines the web as a large, directed graph made up of web pages and links. Web science takes multi-disciplinary perspectives from physical sciences, social sciences, and computer science to understand and classify the web and how it evolves in response to various influences. Scientific theories for understanding the web could examine topics like how many links must be followed on average to reach any page, the average length of search queries, the

1. Welcoming Webology Presenter: Qureshi, Muhammad Atif June 18, 2011 Institute of Business Administration (IBA)

2. Contents – Part IWebology Introduction Importance Implication June 18, 2011

3. Science of the Web Introduction Why we need Web Science as a research field? Because we need a systems-level understanding of the Web. – Prof. Nigel Shadbolt, One of pioneers of Web Science program, University of Southampton June 18, 2011

4. Web Science Social and engineering dimensions (New York Times at launch of Web Science Program at Univ. of Southampton and MIT in 2006) Extends well beyond traditional Computer Science Introduction The Web isn’t about what you can do with computers. It’s people and, yes, they are connected by computers. But computer science, as the study of what happens in a computer, doesn’t tell you about what happens on the Web. –Tim Berners-Lee One of the founder of WWW June 18, 2011

5. What is the Web? A distributed document delivery system implemented through application-level protocols on the Internet A tool for collaborative writing and community building A framework of protocols that support e-commerce A network of co-operating computers A large, cylindrical, directed graph made up of Web pages and links June 18, 2011 Introduction

6. Science (in a nutshell) Existence Does X exist? Description and Classification What is X like? What are its properties? How can it be categorized? How can we measure it? What are its components? Descriptive Process How does X work? What is the process by which X happens? What are the steps as X evolves? How does X achieve its purpose? Descriptive-Comparative How does X differ from Y? Relationship Are X and Y related? Do occurrences of X co-relate with occurrences of Y? Casuality Does X cause Y? Does X prevent Y? What causes X? What effect does X have on Y? Design What is an effective way to achieve X? How can we improve X? June 18, 2011 Introduction

8. Analytic disciplines that aim to find laws/processes that generate or explain observed phenomena

9. Social science perspective

10. Scholarly or scientific disciplines that deal with the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society

11. Computer science perspective

12. Synthetic discipline that creates mechanisms (e.g., formalisms, algorithms, etc.) in order to support particular desired behaviorJune 18, 2011 Introduction

13. Which Science Explains the Web? Given Neither the Web nor the world is static The Web evolves in response to various pressures from Science Commerce The public Politics Etc. June 18, 2011 Introduction

14. Web Science The Web is a new technical and social phenomenon and a growing organism The Web needs to be studied and understood as an entity in its own right Web Science is a new field of science that involves a multi-disciplinary study and inquiry for the understanding of the Web and its relationships to us June 18, 2011 Introduction

15. Why Web Science? Dynamics and evolution The “deep (or dark) Web” Sampling, lack of complete enumeration Scale (e.g., What is the percentage of Web pages updated daily?) Search (e.g., What percentage of Web pages are indexed by search engines?) Web topology Artifacts of social interactions (blogs, etc.), Web sociology June 18, 2011 Importance

16. What Could Scientific Theories for the Web Look Like? Every page on the Web can be reached by following less than 10 links The average number of words per search query is greater than 3 A wikipedia page on average contains 0.03 false facts The Web is a “scale-free” graph June 18, 2011 Importance

17. Intersection of Disciplines June 18, 2011 Importance

18. June 18, 2011 Proper discipline of interest is not only Web Science But “Web Science and Technology”

19. Web’s Relation with Entrepreneurship June 18, 2011 Implication Web Science represents a pretty big next step in the evolution of information. This kind of research is likely to have a lot of influence on the next generation of researchers, scientists and most importantly, the next generation of entrepreneurs who will build new companies from this. – Eric Schmdt, Ex-CEO, Google Inc.

20. For Pakistan Web Science and Technology Job market is heavily consumed by technology of Web solutions Remote industry such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft is heavily investing in it Business is getting a good amount of share from the Web Social Media reaches people massively than the traditional media June 18, 2011 Implication

21. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! maqureshi@iba.edu.pk June 18, 2011