Ben Shneiderman
Abstract
Here's how it can awaken computer science to the interdisciplinary possibilities of the Web's socially embedded computing technology.
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Index Terms
- Web science: a provocative invitation to computer science
Recommendations
Reviews
Arthur Gittleman
We are all too familiar with the drop in computer science enrollment in the last five years. Last year, I looked at the program of the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education annual conference, and found almost nothing in it focusing on computer science education that was related to the Web. So, I am thrilled to see Ben Shneiderman’s push for Web science. In this short article, Shneiderman hopes to “awaken computer science to the interdisciplinary possibilities of the Web’s socially embedded computing technology.” He states that the shift involves moving away from studying the technology and toward studying what users can do with the technology. As he says, “In short, the shift is from chips to clicks.” He gives suggestions for expanding Web science to develop descriptive theories to explain the adoption of social computing projects, and also surveys the role of explanatory and predictive theories. This short article concludes by placing Web science in the context of other reform movements, including Georgia Tech’s New Face of Computing initiative and the i-schools (information schools and colleges of information studies). The author hopes that the computer science community will accept this invitation to Web science. He provides some good references for further exploration. There is a natural inertia in pursuing the areas of one’s training and research that can impede a major shift. Shneiderman has powerfully and succinctly made the case for Web science as an invigorating direction. Online Computing Reviews Service
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