Social Networks and Cyberinfrastructure Munindar P. Singh

Personal Background Computer scientist who values insights from studies of social systems and organizations B.Tech., IIT-Delhi, CS&E; Ph.D., U Texas, Austin Professor, Computer Science, NCSU EIC Emeritus, IEEE Internet Computing MEB, J. Autonomous Agents & MultiAgent Systems; J. Web Semantics Cochair, International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & MultiAgent Systems, 2005 NSF support: DST + ITR (past IDM)

Referral Systems and Networks KM going beyond document management Developed a prototype adaptive referral system for use by people, Studied effectiveness for searching experts Studied emergent structural properties contrasting with static studies of Web structure and recommender systems, 1999-present –Quality inversely related with clustering –Distributions of degree and authority under various behaviors –Emergence of communities

Architectural Power of SNs SNs are the right metaphor for dealing with open systems –Changing membership and relationships –Autonomous parties of unknown trustworthiness SNs provide meaning, assessment of possibilities, basis for trust SNs support service selection and system configuration Computing challenge: automate the appropriate parts to improve productivity while still leaving a window for human insight