Building upon the success of the first International “Building Web Observatories Workshop” (BWEBOBS) at Web Science 2013, B-WOW2014 aims to examine the challenges of interoperability and distributed analytics across the growing number of Web Observatories. 

With the extension of the Web into virtually every aspect of society from commerce to leisure and from government to social interaction it has become apparent not only that the Web offers a new opportunity to study human interactions but that the action/nature of the Web itself expresses these human interactions and must result in variations of requirements of the various user groups. Web Observatories provide unique opportunities to bring together and study these activities as rich and diverse datasets, and the goal of this workshop is to further advance this venture.

While there is growing emphasis on the capabilities of "big data", it is easy to forget that it is not only in the volume or velocity of the data where the bulk of the challenge lies but rather in the variety of the potential sources and the ability to generate synthetic views and new insights from this richness and diversity. Yet, interlinking datasets is not only technically challenging, but also involves governance and awareness of privacy and legalities. At the heart of these challenges is understanding the requirements for observatories across different user groups and resolving interdisciplinary tensions between business, research and users of open data observatories. Questions need to be asked as to how we shall discover, acquire, construct and curate varied datasets in a way that is suitable for cross-platform, cross-topic and cross-disciplinary usage. Similarly, the discovery, construction and use of analytic and visualisation tools across platforms and disciplines presents significant challenges.

Background and Goals

This event will examine the key aims and features of interlinking existing and emerging Web Observatories which can provide a global network of heterogeneous data repositories across a range of topics (perspectives) over time. Web Observatories can provide vital tools for observing the complex interactions and correlations across different locations, topics and systems in an attempt to deliver insight into the socio-technical interactions between human beings and the Web.

Thus key goals for this workshop are:

1. Discussion to build consensus on the functional aspects of Web Observatories.
   
   
2. Reports, Presentations, Experiences and Tools from those colleagues building observatories to inform best practice.
   
   
3. Discussion on the key issues around mobilising existing datasets to be available through discoverable catalogs.
   
   
4. Proposals for key datasets (partnerships) to be included in a Web Science observatory.
   
   
5. Providing a forum for collaboration and follow-up to address interoperability challenges.

Topics and Discussions

This workshop aims to bring together researchers involved in building Web Observatories to discuss opportunities, challenges and best practices, as well as guidelines for Web Observatory interoperability. Discussion will involve the following topics:

• The functional aspects of Web observatories; analytics and visualisation
  
  
• .Best practice on deploying and managing Web observatories
  
  
• .Harvesting, cataloguing and discovering datasets on the Web
  
  
• .Interoperability of datasets and analytic methods and tools

Topics may also include but are not limited to:

• Best practice on deploying and managing Web Observatories.
  
  
• Discussion on the functional aspects of Web Observatories and of interoperability challenges for datasets and analytics.
  
  
• Reports, Presentations, Experiences and Tools from building observatories to inform best practice.
  
  
• Discussion on the key issues around mobilising existing datasets to be available through discoverable catalogs.
  
  
• Discussion on the key issues on performing analytics across distributed and/or heterogeneous datasets.
  
  
• Challenges in harvesting, cataloguing and discovering datasets on the Web.
  
  
• Provide an environment to showcase the latest in cutting-edge analytics and visualisations for Web datasets
  
  
• Proposals for key datasets (partnerships) to be included in a Web Science Observatory.

Workshop Format

Position papers in the following areas are invited:

• Building Web Observatories; functional aspects, architectures and best practices
  
  
• Linking Web Observatories; interoperability challenges and guidelines

Position papers need to be 2-3 pages long in LNCS format and they can be submitted at  BWOW14 on EasyChair

All accepted position papers will be included in the online proceedings.

Authors of selected papers will be invited to give a 10 minute presentation and sit on a panel; there will be two panels, one for each of the above areas.

Programme

This is a half-day workshop. The following provides an out-line of the programme

Location: Distinguished Alumni Room (DAR)

• 1000 Welcome and Introduction

• All attendees introduce themselves and their interest to Web Observatories




• 1015 Keynote Presentation (40 mins, 5 mins discussion):

• Professor Noshir Contractor




• 11:00 Presentation Session One (10 mins, 5 mins discussion)

1. Building a Connected Web Observatory - Architecture and Challenges. (Thanassis Tiropanis, Xin Wang, Ramine Tinati and Wendy Hall)

2. Observing Real-World Phenomena through EventWeb over Space, Time and Theme. (Siripen Pongpaichet, Mengfan Tang, Laleh Jalali and Ramesh Jain)

3. Building Web Observatories for Health Web Science (Dominic Difranzo, John Erickson, Marie Joan Kristine Gloria, Deborah McGuinnessand Joanne Luciano)




• 11:45 Refreshment break

• Coffee/Tea




• 12:15 Presentation Session Two (10 mins, 5 mins discussion)

• What Do You Want to Collect from the Web? (Thomas Risse, Elena Demidova and Gerhard Gossen)
• Security and Legitimacy in a Web Observatory: Requirements for Data Linkage, Sharing and Collection in Policing and Justice (Kieron O'Hara, Alistair Sackley, Ian Brown, Ramine Tinati, Thanassis Tiropanis and Xin Wang)



• 1245 Round-Table Discussion (all participants)

• Thoughts about presentation

• Thoughts about Web Observatories in the future

• Planning for Web Observatory expansion




• 1315 Close

Organisers

The principal organizers of the workshop are as follows:

• Ramine Tinati, University of Southampton, UK
  
  
• Ian Brown, University of Southampton, UK
  
  
• Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton, UK
• 
  Wendy Hall, University of Southampton, UK

Programme Committee

• (Chair) Wendy Hall, University of Southampton, UK
• (Chair) David De Roure, University of Oxford, UK
• Ramine Tinati, University of Southampton, UK
• Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton, UK
• Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University, US
• Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S and University of Hannover, Germany

Key Dates

Paper submission deadline:  20th April 2014 23.59 PST Friday 2nd May 2014 23.59 PST

Acceptance notifications: Tuesday 20th May 2014

Submitting

• Position papers, ongoing work can be up to 3 pages, with an additional page of references.
• Full papers can be a maximum of 8 pages including references

All accepted papers will be included in the online proceedings. Authors of selected papers (independent on submission type) will be invited to give a 10 minute presentation and sit on a panel; there will be two panels, one for each of the above areas.

Papers need to be in LNCS format and they should be submitted at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bwow14

All accepted position papers will be included in the online proceedings and their authors will be invited to provide a poster, which will be presented in the area outside the workshop rooms during the break.

Authors of selected papers will be invited to give a 10 minute presentation and sit on a panel; there will be two panels, one for each of the above areas.

Please produce your paper using the LNCS format and submit to BWOW14 on EasyChair  by (20th April 2014)

Proceedings

The workshop proceedings will be published on EPrints and on the WSTnet Web Observatory website http://webscience.org/web-observatory/

Contact 

For more information, questions or comments, please contact tt2 OR rt506 (at) ecs.soton.ac.uk 

Additional Information

2st International workshop on Building Web Observatories

Bloomington, Indiana, USA. June 23 2014

https://sites.google.com/site/bwebobs14

co-located with the ACM Web Science Conference 2014

http://www.websci14.org