COVER FEATURE GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Web Science: Now More Than Ever James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Wendy Hall, University of Southampton Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University 12 COMPUTER PUBLISHED BY THE IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY 0018-9162/18/$33.00 © 2018 IEEE The Web has transformed our lives, and a cursory review of recent headlines shows both our dreams and nightmares writ large as a result. Is it possible to retain the benefits through algorithms and apps for romance, books, music, and fitness, without suffering the devastation wrought by the hacking of health records, elections, and bank accounts? This special issue explores the many facets of Web Science, the study of the Web’s impact on our society and technology, and how we can use it to achieve our dreams without living our nightmares. n a 2006 Science article, Web inven- proposed, many of the things we have Even just a few years ago, who could tor Tim Berners-Lee and several come to take for granted in Web use have imagined the leader of a major others (including two of the guest were in their infancy. The interven- country communicating his thoughts editors of this special issue), ing years, however, have brought the on national policies and preferences Iaddressed the need for an interdisci- societal impacts of the Web to the through daily Twitter blasts? In short, plinary field centered around studying forefront. The Web’s potential for the Web’s power to amplify messag- both the social and technical aspects mobilizing populations was cited as ing and communication is now under- of the World Wide Web, and particu- major factor in 2010’s “Arab Spring,”7 stood—but will it be used to benefit larly around the interaction between and online activism has continued to humanity? Or will it bring out our those areas.1 The authors argued that increase significantly since then. This worst features? has led to the “hashtag” phenomenon Beyond the political sphere, the …the scale, topology and power of of “counterpublic networks,” in which Web has disrupted the future of decentralized information systems those without access to major media work.10 The Web’s early successes such as the Web also pose a unique platforms use social media to widely relied on voluntary efforts, most nota- set of social and public policy propagate their messages.8 bly wikis, games with a purpose,11 challenges. … Transparency and Similarly, Web technologies have and citizen science.12 However, it has control over the complex social also been used to influence thinking. also ushered in a new genre of crowd- and legal relationships behind this Indeed, as early as 2010, Web Science work platforms that serve as a general information is vital, but require researchers showed how the Web could purpose marketplace for paid work a much more well-developed potentially affect major elections.9 (such as Mechanical Turk, Upwork, set of models and tools that can Recent controversies have arisen over Freelancer, ManPower), specialized represent these relationships. the use of Facebook data by Cambridge marketplaces targeted at specific pro- Analytica and the onslaught of influen- fessions (such as TopCoder, uTest, That article, and several others that tial advertising by Russian companies, 99Designs), or specialized activities followed,2–6 led to an emerging field which had not been identified as such such as crowdfunding (for example, now known as Web Science, which has at the time. We can no longer ignore the Kickstarter and Kiva) and crowd- been growing in the years since that Web’s utility in influencing the public’s sourcing design (such as Thread- first publication. frame of mind as a growing factor in less). The Web, fueled by peer produc- At the time Web Science was first political discourse around the world. tion networks,13 flash teams,14 flash JUNE 2018 13 GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION organizations,15 and enterprise social has gone behind the screens19 and is Web-based Instagram platform. The media such as Slack,16 has enabled the itself sitting on top of the infrastruc- authors studied how users’ attitudes creation of a sharing economy17 that ture of the Internet, extending the and behaviors were affected by infor- coordinates peer-to-peer marketplaces ways in which all of the information mation about “privacy leakage” in for activities such as accommodation can be accessed. social media platforms. Based on this rentals (such as Airbnb), transporta- With changes in the ways people study, the authors discuss the implica- tion (such as Lyft and Uber), domestic access the underlying Web, we need tions for how Web platforms can better chores (TaskRabbit), delivery (Post- to better understand the interplays support users in managing their pri- mates), and many more. Together, between the Web, its users, informa- vate information. The article is a good these marketplaces have resulted in tion providers and gatekeepers, and example of the Web Science “axiom” the dramatic rise of the “(fre)e-lance the larger society that is increasingly that good social science can inform the economy,” which may bring unprece- affected by it. The pursuit of Web Sci- technological design of the Web. dented work opportunities to citizens ence increasingly requires exploring In “Bringing Citizens and Policy- around the globe, but also raises deep multiple avenues to better understand makers Together Online: Imagining concerns about workers’ welfare and the growing and changing construct the Possibilities and Taking Stock of rights.18 that is the World Wide Web. Privacy and Transparency Hazards,” John Gastil and Sascha D. Meinrath reflect on the challenges of increas- ing civic engagement online. They examine what would be involved in IT IS ALSO THE CASE THAT AS THE WEB integrating some of the best online HAS BEEN CHANGING THE WORLD, THE tools for public engagement, while WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN also exploring the challenges in doing CHANGING THE WEB. so, given the high variance in quality and openness of the tools involved. This is a good example of studying the tradeoffs between the positive aspects of Web use (namely, how a system It is also the case that as the Web has IN THIS ISSUE could boost the capacity and increase been changing the world, the world of This issue features a collection of the public legitimacy of civic portals) technology has been changing the Web. papers exploring a variety of aspects and the associated challenges (includ- Whereas in 2006 the browser was the of Web Science. We include papers ing the related privacy and transpar- primary Web interface, since then the that provide exemplars of the kinds ency issues). Web has evolved from being a primary of research needed to understand In “How Do Organizations Publish vehicle of communication to being the how Web technologies are impact- Semantic Markup? Three Case Stud- development platform on which other ing and being impacted by our lives ies Using Public Schema.org Crawls,” systems rely. Access to social media both on- and offline. We also include Daye Nam and Mayank Kejriwal pres- sites such as Facebook, Weibo, or Twit- papers exploring core attributes of the ent case studies of how different orga- ter is increasingly afforded through the Web itself, including privacy, access, nizations bring semantic markup use of mobile phones or other devices. engagement, and globalization. into their practices. They look closely Voice-controlled “virtual assistants,” In “Understanding Users’ Privacy at how schools, hospitals, and muse- such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Home Attitudes through Subjective and ums are increasingly using this tool, are increasingly penetrating markets Objective Assessments: An Instagram which embeds the machine-readable and becoming an ever more common Case Study,” Kyungsik Han, Hyunggu markup of the Semantic Web20 onto way for people to access information. Jung, Jin Yea Jang, and Dongwon Lee Web pages via the schema.org initia- In this paradigm, the Web increasingly explore how users think about the tive sponsored by major search engine becomes the invisible infrastructure, it privacy of their information on the companies.21 The paper not only 14 COMPUTER WWW.COMPUTER.ORG/COMPUTER presents some early, though intrigu- novel insights on aspects of the “dig- n summary, these articles comprise ing, results, but is a good methodologi- ital divide,” which have not previ- a snapshot of work going on in mod- cal example of Web Science in practice. ously received sufficient attention. Iern Web Science research and in In particular, the authors use infor- The article also provides suggested the many disciplines involved. They mation obtained from the Web Data solutions, both policy-based and tech- explore policy implications and social Commons (http://webdatacommons nical, for those providing services to impacts of the Web from a number of .org), an open crawl that can be used these communities. The author thus perspectives, ranging from qualitative for research studies such as this, to integrates the three pillars of Web social studies to quantitative mathe- explore how the social and technical science—social, policy, and techno- matical analyses. These articles reflect aspects of this emerging technology logical aspects—for analysis, and pro- the wide range of approaches needed to might affect users in the future. poses strategies to improve Web use study and truly understand the nature In “Understanding Social Networks within these communities. of the Web and its impact on us all. Using Transfer Learning,” Jun Sun, In “Language Service Infrastruc- The major research challenges in Steffen Staab, and Jérôme Kunegis ture on the Web: The Language Grid,” achieving privacy, security, trust, and lay out a Web Science methodology Toru Ishida, Yohei Murakami, Dong- personal data protection in an open, used to more quickly understand hui Lin, Takao Nakaguchi, and Mas- interconnected platform are a major user behaviors on emerging Web plat- forms.