“Web Science is a deliberately ambiguous phrase. Physical science is an analytic discipline that aims to find laws that generate or explain observed phenomena; computer science is predominantly (though not exclusively) synthetic, in that formalisms and algorithms are created in order to support particular desired behaviour.
Colliding web science
Web science has to be a merging of these two paradigms; the Web needs to be studied and understood, and it needs to be engineered. At the micro scale, the Web is an infrastructure of artificial languages and protocols; it is a piece of engineering. But the linking philosophy that governs the Web, and its use in communication, result in emergent properties at the macro scale (some of which are desirable, and therefore to be engineered in, others undesirable, and if possible to be engineered out).
And of course the Web’s use in communication is part of a wider system of human interaction governed by conventions and laws. The various levels at which Web technology interacts with human society mean that interdisciplinarity is a firm requirement of Web Science.”
A Framework for Web Science
Tim Berners-Lee, Wendy Hall, James A. Hendler, Kieron O’Hara, Nigel Shadbolt and Daniel J. Weitzner.
Foundations and Trends in Web Science Vol. 1, No 1 (2006) 1–130
