Field Trip
Trip Report
Yorgos Amanatidis
This is a trip report for the Web Science Conference 2009 (WebSci'09) that took place from the 18th to the 20th of March 2009, in Athens, Greece. Location: The Conference was held at the “Hellenic Cosmos” complex of the Foundation of the Hellenic World. Hellenic Cosmos was indeed very suitable for such an event. The place was technologically equipped, the location was easily accessible for me, both by public transportation and by car, with adequate parking space. Although I stayed in Piraeus, I can assume that the transportation to/from the Conference was equally easy for all the participants. Organization: Concerning the organization and the advertisement of WebSci'09, I have to say that everything was well planed and the conference was quite publicized. However, and this was not an objection of me alone, most of the publicity was due to the unusually large number of members of the Greek Parliament that talked during the Conference. Workshops, Talks, Posters: I attended the Web Science Curriculum Workshop and just the first hour of the UIWoSC Workshop due to my jet lag. I understand that the two workshops were planned to have only a few participants, however they were very interesting and illustrative of the struggle to determine the boundaries of an emerging scientific area. To say my opinion, I cannot see web science independent of computer science, and I think the most plausible direction is the one of information science, as it is called in the U.S. I attended several talks and enjoyed most of them, although the topics of some sessions diverged too much from my idea of what web science should/will be, e.g. the “Cultural Convergence and Digital Technology” session. I had the chance to talk to a few people about my research and get some interesting ideas on more applied directions; I was a bit disappointed though, that two of the three other speakers in my session did not show up. Finally, a few thoughts about the Poster Session.
Yorgos Amanatidis
This is a trip report for the Web Science Conference 2009 (WebSci'09) that took place from the 18th to the 20th of March 2009, in Athens, Greece. Location: The Conference was held at the “Hellenic Cosmos” complex of the Foundation of the Hellenic World. Hellenic Cosmos was indeed very suitable for such an event. The place was technologically equipped, the location was easily accessible for me, both by public transportation and by car, with adequate parking space. Although I stayed in Piraeus, I can assume that the transportation to/from the Conference was equally easy for all the participants. Organization: Concerning the organization and the advertisement of WebSci'09, I have to say that everything was well planed and the conference was quite publicized. However, and this was not an objection of me alone, most of the publicity was due to the unusually large number of members of the Greek Parliament that talked during the Conference. Workshops, Talks, Posters: I attended the Web Science Curriculum Workshop and just the first hour of the UIWoSC Workshop due to my jet lag. I understand that the two workshops were planned to have only a few participants, however they were very interesting and illustrative of the struggle to determine the boundaries of an emerging scientific area. To say my opinion, I cannot see web science independent of computer science, and I think the most plausible direction is the one of information science, as it is called in the U.S. I attended several talks and enjoyed most of them, although the topics of some sessions diverged too much from my idea of what web science should/will be, e.g. the “Cultural Convergence and Digital Technology” session. I had the chance to talk to a few people about my research and get some interesting ideas on more applied directions; I was a bit disappointed though, that two of the three other speakers in my session did not show up. Finally, a few thoughts about the Poster Session.