From Information Systems to Web Science Prof. dr. Paul De Bra Kees van Hee symposium

1989 as a pivotal year Global and local events: in 1989 Tim Berners Lee launched the concept of the World Wide Web: −linking information (hypertext) on a global scale (and remote authoring as well as access) −number of websites outside of CERN: 0 −number of publications on hypertext: 0 in 1989 Paul De Bra was hired by Kees van Hee: −wanted to start a research group on hypertext −number of hypertext applications realized: 0 −number of publications on hypertext: 0 these two events were completely unrelated… except that they showed vision of the future of information systems and services

The three stages of study & research 1.Understanding hypertext as an information system architecture the Web as the global information system 2.Using using hypertext to teach hypertext using hypertext in Web-Based Information Systems using hypertext for social interaction 3.Contributing / Shaping the Future studying the interplay between system and user adding personalization (in information services)

Information Systems in the past the DATA side (Paul) database models data modeling formal properties of data models (e.g. optimization through decomposition) the PROCESS side (Kees) formalism for processes (Petri nets) process modeling formal properties of process models (reachability, liveness, boundedness…)

How Hypertext (and the Web) changed things… Is it a hypertext, or is it a (badly drawn) Petri net? We studied browsing semantics using (Boolean) Petri nets (v.d. Aalst, De Bra, Houben, Kornatzky)

Hypertext changed the data and process side From structured to free-form from relational database structures (and forms interfaces) to free text (and multimedia) from querying to browsing/navigation −from data structure to link structure −from data querying to the navigation process but also: from machine interpretable to only human interpretable −semantics of free text (and multimedia) can only be understood by humans −from exact querying to inexact search −seemingly simple services like price watch become very complex…

Hypertext changed the data and process side From HTML to XML to RDF(S) HTML is badly structured; HTML documents very often mix structure with presentation XML is hierarchically structured −a schema can be defined (like one for XHTML) −XML places text into well-defined format, can be used for database applications and data exchange RDF brings us back to data −simple triple structure −no distinction between data and metadata (no schema) −“unifies” navigation and querying  linked open data

But there is more… the HUMAN in the loop hypertext / the Web links information… but humans communicate through that information blogs work because people can link and comment on others discussion forums have replaced discussions on usenet twitter offers very quick short messages and comments to messages everyone can now communicate to and with everybody else we need to understand how this works we need to really understand how this works (e.g. to avoid problems such as spam in )

So we need to understand…

The “colliding” Web Sciences

Web Science focus at the TU/e: personalization event  user model user model  adaptation

Adaptation: process versus data model The process of using information leads to the creation of a user model The user model is used to guide the adaptation of the process…

Example applications adaptive course texts (e.g.: the hypermedia course) and adaptive life long learning adaptive museum websites / guided tours (CHIP, with the Rijksmuseum) adaptive TV guide (iFanzy, with Stoneroos) adaptive advertising / shopping / services (with Adversitement) adaptive research paper adaptive conference presentation adaptive PhD thesis next… adaptive valedictory lecture notes? talk to us, it can be arranged!