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 â€Å"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 â€Å"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 a bout the Poster Session. I found many of the posters really interesting and I had the chance to talk to some of the authors.It seems to me, that it would be a good idea if the poster session was a bit more â€Å"central† in the program, since at the and of the first day most people were already exhausted. Also, it would be nice to have some information about the posters on the web page of the conference. Overall, I would say that attending WebSci'09, was a useful and interesting experience, and I will try to attend WebSci conferences again in the future. WebSci’09 Report – Norhidayah Azman When I received the e-mail saying that I was one of the lucky recipients of the WebSci'09 bursary award, I couldn't believe my eyes.Firstly, it dawned on me that I was going to attend the first ever conference to be run by WSRI. Then secondly, I was going to go to Athens! The conference ran from 18-20 March 2009 in the beautiful Hellenic Cosmos of the Foundation of the Helleni c World. The moment me and my friends set eyes on the venue, we were truly excited. I fully agree with Dame Wendy when she said in her welcoming address that the futuristic dome was reason enough to come there for the conference. The city centre also provided more than enough distractions for us delegates before and after the conference.Being a first-year PhD student, I was thrilled to be given to the opportunity to mingle amongst these brilliant minds congregating in support of a common goal: to witness the future of the Web. I also had the pleasure of talking to Bebo White, a prominent personality in the world of Web research. He said it was such a good reception for a conference where nobody knows what it's about! Lots of prominent speakers graced the event, delivering interesting keynote speeches that provided a good overview of the breadth and depth of Web Science.Sir Tim Berners-Lee, with his affable conduct, showcased his revolutionary thinking during the opening WWW Forum. H e said that 80% of the world's population does not have access to the Internet, thus future technological developments must be inclusive of this huge populace. To help reach out to more people, he suggested building a water-based wireless router! It's quite interesting to see the different ways of how different keynote speakers envisage the evolution of the Web.Joseph Sifakis likens its maturity today as similar to physics during the Middle Ages, while Nigel Shadbolt symbolized the Web's issues as an elephant in the room. He also asked: how do you evaluate the economic value of collective content? Nosh Contractor gave an excellent speech, clearly outlining the ways to identify different generative mechanisms that explain emergent structures observed in large-scale networks. He emphasized that technology does not spell the death of distance, because from his experimental results using EverQuest, individuals within a 50km radius is 22. times more likely to be friends online than compa red to a 50-80km radius. The papers and panels presented were eye-opening as well. This is where the breadth of Web Science seemed very apparent. On the same track, you could find a Computer Science paper followed by a Law paper which was then followed by a Sociology paper. The different approaches and angles towards addressing Web issues do spur a lot of discussion during the Q sessions, which I find very refreshing. I attended the following tracks: Trust and Distrust, Openness vs. Control, Social Networks, and Government, Citizens, Law and the Web.Throughout these tracks, some of the interesting issues included reputation, mobile Web, collaborative filtering, trust propagation, Net neutrality, digital identities and Bibles written in Klingon. My favourite was the legal panel which discussed privacy and data retention issues. It was interesting to see how the perspectives of law practitioners and computer scientists clash when it comes to determining the roles of law in the Web. I really enjoyed my days in Greece. The intellectual stimulation was well complemented by the cultural sites across Athens.I am thrilled to be a part of Web Science's history, and what better place to do this than in a historical city like Athens! Summary Report for WebSci ’09 Conference Athens, Greece 18th-20th March, 2009 by Bipana Bantawa Doctoral Student It was indeed very exciting to attend my first Web Science conference and I admit that I came back with mixed feelings about the proceedings of the conference. The very first workshop on web science curriculum turned out to be more like a presentation session and I really wish there could have been a better way to handle the unprecendented number of participants.Although it was mandatory to submit a position paper to attend the workshop, most of the attendees joined at the last minute and I believe we lost a great opportunity to have an engaging debate about the subject. In the end I would have agreed with Jim Hendlerâ€⠄¢s argument that the curriculum should be such that students should be able to create something new and only relevant elements from different disciplines should be chosen for the purpose.The second workshop on the impact of the web was conducted on similar lines and I was eagerly looking forward to have a discussion, which ofcourse did not materialise due to the structure of the room and number of participants. I certainly enjoyed most of the participant’s views and Steven Harnad’s introduction to the debate could not have been more appropriate. Nigel Shadbolt’s key note speech on the second day was certainly promising and encouraging to novices like myself.His emphasis on philosophy and multidisciplinarity was the highlight for me of that day. The following paper session on ‘teaching and learning’ began with a presentation, which really disappointed me since it gave us a brief overview of the web phenomenon in a very superficial manner without muc h evidence to back it up. It might be a bit too critical about it, but maybe I was expecting something new and exciting as a strarter. However, Carl Lagoze’s presentation on OreChem introduced me to new methodologies that I had been looking for.The highlight of the third day and perhaps the entire conference for me was Noshir contractors key note, which was perhaps the most engaging speeches of the event and it was wonderful to hear from a true multidisciplinarian and I am certainly going to follow his work, which I believe I would not have found so easily otherwise. The paper session on social networks was the one that was most memorable that day and I quite enjoyed Schindler and Vrandecic’s presentation on wikipedia’s new features and Halpin’s philosophical arguments for this methodologies.Overall, I definitely gained a lot from attending this conference by getting to meet academics from different disciplines and fellow doctoral students who had such di verse views that I had to challenge my own. I was also introduced to new methodologies and theories which I will study in detail in the next couple of months to determine what could be important for my research. I appreciated the diversity of participants and their effort to understand each other although they came from completely different academic disciplines, which I imagine is not an easy matter.The opportunity to briefly introduce myself to several academics whose work I intend to follow and maybe ask for advice on different aspects on my own idea was truly invaluable. It was my first conference as a doctoral student and I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate. Apart from learning more about the emerging field, I feel greatly encouraged to pursue my own research and attend future conferences and I am looking forward to the next websci event. Thank you, again. WebSci09 Conference Attendance Report Mohamed Bishr m. [email  protected] e The first W ebSci conference was a very good chance for me to attend the birth of a new research community. The overall organization of the conference was, in fact excellent, and the poster session where I was involved was very well managed. I have met several interesting people at the conference; as well I have managed to make valuable contacts for my research and career. The conference as an interaction platform proved very valuable to me. The papers presented at the conference, while being diverse, managed to attract my attention for the most part.Especially papers focusing on non-technical aspects of the web as this is an area that is often understudied. The location of the conference was ideal, and allowed me to experience a new country and culture, which is always a benefit I’m look forward to from attending conferences. My attendance of the conference was supported by a generous grant from WSRI sponsors, and as a young researcher this support is warmly appreciated and I hope it wi ll continue to the next few years of the WebSci conference.Overall, it was, for me, a very good opportunity to present my work and receive feedback from a multi-disciplinary audience. It is also, a forum of established people in their domains which I have found very stimulating. WebSci09 Trip Report Ilaria Bordino I have been very glad to be given the opportunity to attend the 1st Web Science Conference. We all know that in the last few years the Web has really changed the life of everybody. In particular, it has changed the way in which we communicate and collaborate, disclosing possibilities that could not be even imagined before.The Web Science Research Initiative is promoting a joint work of several different scientific fields, with the aim of gaining a clear comprehension of the fundamental issues that have to be addressed in order to improve the future design and usage of the World Wide Web. This new Science is inherently multidisciplinary, as it requires to take into consider ation different aspects that actually need to apply knowledge derived from several fields, like physics, computer science and also social science. The peculiar nature of this new Science has made the participation in this conference a novel and great experience for me.First of all, I had the chance of meeting the great scientists that are the founders of the Web Science Initiative. It was really nice to meet people that have given so great a contribution to the development of the Web and to listen to their opinions and ideas about the crucial issues that researchers have to take into consideration when thinking about the future of the Web. The presented papers were also very interesting because they spanned different topics from research areas much broader than the ones that I am used to see when taking part in typical Computer Science conferences.There was a lot of interaction between computer scientists and social scientists. This is important, because the WWW does not exist witho ut the participation of people and organizations. Significant parts of people's lives are now spent online in many countries. For example, among the topics that were taken into consideration, there were eCommerce, Social Sciences and e-learning, e-culture, Cybercrime, tagging systems. The researchers discussed many problems that have a critical importance for the so called online society, like openness and control, privacy and trust.The conference also addressed issues concerning people's behavior and motivation on line. Yana Breindl Ph. D Candidate Information and Communication Sciences Department Universite Libre de Bruxelles Belgium Susan Davies Administrator for the Web Science Research Initiative School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton UK April 20th, 2009 Subject: WebSci'09 Bursary Report To whom it may concern, The Websci'09 conference was worth participating in. From the first day on, the program was of outstanding quality.It was a unique occasion for me as a Ph. D student to listen to high-standing speakers which turned out to be quite approachable as the size of the conference was small enough to feel comfortable. The various panels were highly interesting and touched upon most issues related to the World Wide Web. Coming from a social sciences background, I found it very stimulating to get in touch with many scholars from various disciplines and especially the computer sciences. At stages it was hard to discuss ones research objects in more depth.The topics represented were very wide-ranging and the lack of common concepts and knowledge about the others' disciplines turned out to be quite a challenge as conversations risked to remain somewhat superficial. However, the conference left me more convinced than ever that it is very necessary to favor interdisciplinary research. When studying the World Wide Web, legal, political, social, technical and security issues need to be addressed. As the web constitutes a unique site fo r research, scholars from all fields need to think about how to address its many challenges.In this sense, it could have been even more interesting to organize methodological panels. Indeed, all participants would have benefited from a deeper insight into how other disciplines study the WWW. It was extremely rewarding to be part of such an ambitious project and I am looking forward to the next conference. Sincerely, Yana Breindl Report about WebSci’09 Conference Author: Lucia Ciofi It is not an easy task to write a report about a conference. A conference, obviously, it is not made up only of presented papers and posters, which, at least, it is possible to read whenever you want thanks to on-line publishing.A conference conveys something more and the spare value comes mainly from sensations and emotions felt during the happening. Let me remember then, that it has been exciting to see such a gathering of many famous researchers, whose work is widely known and appreciated. Besid e it has been really impressive to see the success of the conference among the students, as there was a huge number of them attending the conference, and it is easy to reckon how the idea to become a web scientist is regarded as an appealing one.What instead, from my point of view, it has been difficult to perceive during the conference, it is a unitary vision for the Web Science. This is probably due to two facts: first one, Web Science is still a very young discipline and second one, its aim to follow an interdisciplinary approach it is extremely complex to obtain. Then it is still difficult to find out a way of its own. Probably for this reason the program seemed to be a bit fragmented and that each fragment was not fully connected to each other.Beside the lack of a common language across the various disciplines involved in Web Science makes difficult to understand the point of view of researchers that come from different cultural backgrounds. However the main target of the confe rence was to officially declare that this discipline has moved its first steps and it is no more a project of a few people, but that it has become a field of work shared by many different researchers and this target has been fully reached.For what concerns the choice of topics for the paper sessions, it seems that it has been paid more attention to social aspects connected with the Web and a bit less attention has been given to infrastructural aspects, for example, only the session entitled â€Å"Web of data† was concerned with technological developments connected with the Web, but it could have been interesting to expand this topic. Again it must be difficult to find a proper balance among so many different aspects addressed by this discipline.On the other side the poster session has tried to solve the aforementioned question but it has resulted a bit confusing for the high number of posters presented and the different research areas addressed. At last it could be worthy to make a reflection about how an interdisciplinary approach could be a dangerous way to follow in the training of future web scientists, because it could result in having researchers that will have a rich cultural background but that could not master any particular area in order to conduct a proper research work as the one required nowadays.Among the papers presented, I would remember the work â€Å"Semantic technologies for learning and teaching in the web 2. 0 era† which has reported a clear summary about which are the current positions in Semantic Web field and its possible developments in the future. Beside it seems important the effort spent trying to classify the current technologies available, since there is a lot of confusion in this area at the moment.Another work really engaging, it has been the one entitled â€Å"Class associated structure derived from linked objects† which identifies a possible model to describe the structure of RDF data published on the web following the linked data principles. The capability to understand such a model is really important for the implementation of new applications, as it has been important for the current web, the analysis of the model of the information structure which allowed the birth of the famous Page Rank algorithm. Another work worth mentioning is the one entitled â€Å"Social meaning from the web: From Wittgenstein To Search Engines†.It takes the move from an ongoing discussion about the meaning of the URIs. The object debated is: from the point of view of the Semantic Web, the URI is a simple identifier without any meaning or it has to convey a meaning, as it is often used to identify different things in different situations? The author thinks that an URI has to convoy a meaning but he is not satisfied with the current approaches to solve this issue. His idea then, is to find the meaning of a URI through the meaning that the community of users gives to it, and in order to reach this pur pose, he has studied the queries made to a search engine.The idea is good but it is possible to scale for all URIs this kind of approach? In the poster session I have appreciated the one entitled â€Å"Towards a reference architecture for Semantic Web applications†. The purpose of this work was to find common features that are present in many different semantic applications and from this analysis it has been tried to define a common architecture, which could represent a reference to develop software frameworks in order to aid the implementation of semantic applications, an approach that currently is widely used for the development of common web applications.Web Science 2009 Conference Trip Report. By Shankaron Gambi, Sheffield Hallam University. The Web science conference was the first ever conference of its kind to be held and Athens was to make it one of the most memorable. Being held in Athens Foundation of the Hellenic World the conference boasted a unique venue that repr esented a virtual future and helped to convey the conferences message of the webs power and its importance in our future world and everyday lives. The conference was on all sides a real success and easily met its key objectives of bridging the gap between computer science and social science.People from Psychology, Computer science, Web design, Sociology, Philosophy and other disciplines readily filled the conference rooms, each presentation focusing on a number of diverse aspects of the impact of the Web on our lives. What was most enjoyable about this was that people genuinely seemed interested in learning about the research being carried out in different disciplines and many people like myself used the conference to help them shed light on different aspects of their own research.The key emphasize of the conference-society on-line, really brought alive the importance of understanding the web from both a behavioural and technological perspective. Coming from a social psychological p erspective I have long thought that together such disciplines could offer insightful answers to many research questions. I am already theorizing the conclusions of my PhD which incorporate both spheres of the webs technological and social aspects. A real highlight of the conference for me was the poster session held on Wednesday evening.This was a highlight for me not only because I was presenting my own research in a poster but because of the opportunity it gave people to actively ask questions about other researchers work and learn so much more about the work being done in the very new field of web science. I also met some very interesting people who had some very original ideas and who will no doubt go onto make some very big contributions to the new field of web science. There is already talk about next year's Web Science's 2010 conference commencing.I believe that this conference will only get bigger and more popular as the years go on and perhaps may include a number of other diverse disciplines which is very exciting. I will be in my final year of my PhD then and so plan to apply to present my research there. Overall, I really enjoyed the conference. I feel that the conferences success was in its highlighting the importance and significance the web is playing in changing the way people communicate, socialize, work and generally live. Such an emphasis showed the positive power the web can have on many people’s distant and isolating lives.In such cases I believe that the power of the web has helped many people and society as a whole to live in a more connected way and has helped dissolve the loneliness and isolation in what would be a very disconnected offline world without it! 1 Web Science 2009 Report Harry Halpin H. [email  protected] ac. uk School of Informatics University of Edinburgh 2 Buccleuch Place EH8 9LW Edinburgh Scotland, UK The Web Science 2009 conference was an astounding success, and I can only give the briefest highlights.In part icular, I presented Edinburgh’s more traditional Informatics curriculum, such as our over-subscribed information retrieval course, and received very useful feedback on the latest work on Web Science curriculum. One of the most personally productive sessions for me was the workshop on â€Å"Workshop on Understanding The Impact of the Web on Scholarly Communication (UIWoSC). † Stevan Harnad’s presentation, even over video, on the concept of the Web as â€Å"sky-writing† was of immense relevance to my own work, as he seems to be pursuing similar ideas but from a slightly di? erent angle.We seem to have a major theoretical disagreement, as I am ultimately interested in how â€Å"collective intelligence† forms in the form of a new relational theory of the self based on the ideas of Maturana and Deleuze, while he is more interested in the Web as a form of external medium operating within a more classical Lockean or Kantian cognitive framework. I also exp lained the role of W3C Incubator Groups in possibly standardizing a vocabulary for open linked bibliographic databases. From the various sessions, I found the paper on â€Å"On Measuring Expertise in Collaborative Tagging Systems† by Yeung et al. o be by to be very relevant to my previous work on collaborative tagging systems. The largest surprise I had was during the poster session, where a poster by Jeremy Smart, Jim Hendler, and others talked about how my Ph. D. advisor, Andy Clark’s, philosophical analysis on the Extended Mind could be applied to the Web. I had an absolutely fascinating conversation with Jeremy Smart, and perhaps future collaboration could result. The invited talk by Noshir Contractor opened my eyes to a whole new world of statistical generative models for networks, and I explained linked open data to him in a way he really enjoyed over lunch.The highlight of the conference for me was of course my talk, in which I had the honor of having Tim Berner s-Lee, Jim Hendler, and Nigel Shadbolt in the audience. The talk went well, although it was di? cult for me to compress my entire Ph. D. thesis into a relatively short talk. Jim Hendler gave very excellent feedback about my sampling method and how I should make my sample more representative of the Semantic Web. Tim Berners-Lee gave me an invaluable hour or so of his time to give his feedback, and con? rmed in person a lot of the theses that I was attributing to him.Lastly, Nigel Shadbolt mentioned how his Ph. D. work was on a similar topic, work that I am now investigating. WebSci’09 Trip Report Dave Karpf May 21, 2009 The WebSci’09 conference proved to be an excellent experience for me in all regards. Going into the conference, I recognized it as my first opportunity to meet and interact with the international, cross-disciplinary web science community and an excellent chance to present my research and gain feedback from members of the various fields represented there. I could not be happier with how everything turned out.From an early interaction on Wednesday evening with semantic web developer Lynda Hardman to several excellent conversations with students and faculty at the Oxford Internet Institute, I built the framework for what I believe will be longtermproductive working relationships. The presentation of my conference paper, â€Å"Why Bowl Alone When You Can Flashmob the Bowling Alley? Implications of the Mobile Web for Online-Offline Reputation Systems,† was to a large and enthusiastic audience which asked several useful questions for further exploration.I am currently revising the conference paper for publication with Policy and Internet, one of the conference cosponsoring journals. Keynote speeches by Tim Berners-Lee, Noshir Contractor, and Nigel Shadbolt were particularly illuminating for me, drawing together topics in network theory, the semantic web, and data mining in ways that had clear relevance to my work in political scie nce. I also particularly appreciated Jim Hendler’s enunciation during the keynote Friday night that â€Å"we aren’t all from the same tribe. More than anything, what I took away from the conference was a clear sense of what Web Science is and what it isn’t. Web Science isn’t a single discipline. It is a space where those elements of the various disciplines who share an interest in the web come together and interact with each other, â€Å"cross-pollinating,† if you will. Those speeches, along with papers presented at the â€Å"Government† and â€Å"Legal† panels, were probably the most impactful for me as a scholar. As a whole, I was extremely pleased to have attended WebSci’09 and was thankful for the generous bursary support which helped make the trip possible.I am looking forward to next year’s conference and am already considering possible paper topics. WebSci09 Trip Report Spyros Kotoulas I have attended the first W ebSci conference in Athens, Greece. In general, the conference was a happy mix of computer scientists (especially SemWeb people), sociologists, lawyers, philosophers , politicians, journalists and other disciplines that I failed to spot. I think that everybody contributed to making a really interdisciplinary conference. The opening event was attended by approx. 000 people and the rest of the conference by approx. 200 – 300. The conference started with a workshop on web science curricula. Researchers from various universities presented new studies that they have devised for Web Science. I think there were about 5 of purely web science curricula, and some related ones. There was a lengthy discussion about which disciplines should be included in a web science curriculum. Some proposals, along with an argument supporting them were: Humanities: We need to be able to examine and interpret sources on the Web.Linked data: It is all about links and knowing WHAT it is that we are talki ng about. Social science: We need sociology to show us how the Web is changing the world. Other proposals, for which the argument was not so clear to me were philosophy, economics & business, art, humanities. Although there was effort to â€Å"throw† some of these disciplines out, it did not happen. Furthermore, the curricula presented did not contain all of these disciplines. The opening event was meant for a much broader audience. Major greek policial figures attended. As a result, the audience was approx. 1000 people.The keynotes from Tim Berners-Lee and Wendy Hall were, as expected a bit of general information about Web Science, intended for a general audience. They were followed by a very different keynote. The accent changed from that of a british Sir and a Dame to than of a person from Crete and the content from generally the Web to embedded systems: J. Sifakis (Turing award laureate) gave a talk about reliability and security of embedded systems, with a bit technical content. A keynote by N. Shadbolt was also about web science in general. There several talks/keynotes about trust, security and privacy.The point was made that it is essential for the Web. Some people were advocating that this should be done through legislation and some by system design. These talks were generally interesting. There were in total 27 paper presentations in (mostly) 2 parallel sessions. The topics were quite diverse, covering all aforementioned disciplines. I saw presentations on privacy, linked data, user interfaces, sociology, law and more. All in all, there were quite interesting and only a few of them I could not follow. I should also note that this was not the same for the non-comp. ci participants. I have serious doubts that they could understand some of the more technical presentations. There was a 2,5 hours poster session. Approx 40% of the poster presenters did not show up in the conference, mainly from the non comp. sci. fields. I was presenting a poster abo ut MaRVIN. There was much interest for it. Namely, I was kept talking for almost the entire session and I barely had time to look at other posters. Admittedly, the interest was from the Sem. Web people. Researchers from other disciplines shunned with fear from papers with very technical content. 7 papers accepted for presentation – 16% acceptance rate 115 accepted as posters – 75% acceptance rate Ordered list of participation by country (my own approximation, they have shown a tag cloud): UK – There were many presentations from Southampton people US Greece Spain Netherlands All in all, it was a very educational experience and it was really great looking at how different disciplines fit together. Report During the 18th and 20th of March 2009 I had the opportunity to attend and participate as a volunteer and as a new scientist at the WEB Science Conference: Society Online 2009.The experience was unique and worthwhile. I attended the most interested to me lectures and spend many hours during the poster session reading the most of the posters of the conference. As far as it concerns the lectures I attended the presentations of distinguished scientists from around the world on issues that are related to my scientific area and interests such as Socio-Psychology of the Web. As far as it concerns the posters I really was enthusiastic about the number of them and the multi-dimensionality of the issues they covered.I had the chance to keep notes useful to my scientific research, meet posters’ authors and have discussions about our common research interests. Additionally, as I had expressed the willingness and I been selected to be at the organizing committee, I voluntarily offered my help whenever and wherever there was a need during the preparation months and during the three days of the conference. This was another aspect of my participation to the conference and it was a very important and useful experience, an undoubtedly life experience. The conference organization phase gave me the opportunity to understand better and in depth many issues related to a scientific conference and science. Finally, as my research work was selected for the poster session I had the chance during the conference and especially during the poster session to present to many people and especially to people who where experienced researchers or academicians the work that had been done by me up to these days and receive back their comments. Dialogues developed about the theme and content of my poster and offered me a lot of material opinions, impressions, scientific methods, future implications) so as to improve my work in future. I end up with the conclusion that the WebScience Conference Society OnLine 2009 was very successful and as far as it concerns my case it was a great challenge and a experience I lived to the full. Helen Koutsonika Report It was my great honor to attend WebSci’09 in Athens, Greece in March. First of all, I would l ike to thank Susan Davies in the Southampton University. Without her help, as a postgraduate student from China, I wouldn’t be able to get the bursary and afford my travelling expense.Also, I want to thanks her colleague, Samantha Collins, for her reminding me of the report. I am really sorry for the late of this report. It was a fancy trip. As soon as I relaxed from the discomposure in my first oversea travel, I indulged myself in enjoying the beautiful view outside the plane. The clouds above Beijing, the sea near the United Arab Emirates (where I changed my flight) and the mountains surrounding the Athens were all very impressive. And of course, the Aegean Sea! It was so amazing! In the four days in the Greece, I lived in a youth hotel near the Sigma Square.Although the conference was held in the Hellenic World, which located between the Piraeus and Athens, the metro was very convenience for me to go to the conference. In the wonderful conference, I met with many famous sc holars such Tim Berners-Lee and Joseph Sifakis, whose topics greatly attracted my attention. From the presentations in the WWW Forum, I knew the latest advancements in the area of the Internet research. What was more exciting was that my poster attracted the interest of many scholars. By responding to the comments and explained my research to them, I help them understand more deeply the situation in China.As I have just accepted a PhD admission from the Hong Kong City University, where I am supposed to continue my research on internet and its impact on society, I think such an wonderful experience of attending an international conference will make me more sure of the topics that I should devote my time on. As I mentioned in my bursary-application letter: this fancy travel will undoubtedly be an unforgettable memory of me, a future scholar: at the age of 24, he got his first English paper published; and at the same time, it was the first time he went abroad to see another world.Wu Li ngfei School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University Jun. 12, 2009 REPORT ON WEB SCIENCE 2009 CONFERENCE: SOCIETY ON-LINE 18-20 March 2009, Athens, Greece Date: 18 March 2009 The conference starting with two half-day workshops: Second Web Science Curriculum Workshop (WSCW2) chair by Dr. Catherine Pope, and Workshop on Understanding The Impact of the Web on Scholarly Communication (UIWoSC) chair by Dr. Leslie Carr. The opening ceremony officiated by H. E. President of the Hellenic Republic, Dr. K. Papoulias. Welcome addresses were given by 3 other important persons including Prof. Dame Wendy Hall.Primary keynotes had been given by Prof. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Prof. J. Sifakis. Prof. Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave talked about the concept of Web Science by comparing it with human neuron in mind. WWW design could be redesigned to replicate the neurons in human mind. Social Networks for human should be nurtured and encouraged from all over the world where web could be used for lot s of benefits especially for humanity. The second keynotes speaker talked about system design in software engineering. Date: 19 March 2009 The first keynote given by Prof. Nigel Shadbolt emphasized on refining our insight about the Web Science.He talked about the dynamic of Web Science where it is for global used either in computer science or other domains, such as sociology, law etc, by avoiding the two culture syndrome. The collaborative between all domains could enhance creativity, engineering and science which will generate new innovation and development, because collaborative innovations came from collective intelligents. The conference followed with paper sessions, and I attended the Trust and Distrust session. First paper covered about reputation systems which explained about the set size, proxy and algorithm for the systems.Second paper was about recommendation system which recommend about topic or others with personalization. And last paper talked about the Devil’s l ong tail. Afterwards, I have attended the Legal Panel session where the discussed about data retention, law – between practical and moral/ethical and transferring data through mobile devices. The second keynote given by Jacques Bus, covered the principle of trust, 7 laws of identity and privacy including accountability, transparency, fair distribution of responsibilities, support tool and protection of personal sphere.The conference followed with panel discussion on Trust on the Web; paper sessions of Tags and Search and posters session. Date: 20 March 2009 Starting with paper session on Web of Data, covered papers on Class association structure, social meaning on the Web, interactive information access and new features to Wikipedia. The conference continued with discussion panel on the Cultural Convergence. The third keynote given by Noshir Contractor highlighted on Social Networks, based on Generative Mechanism regarding the questions and answers of 8 issues on why do we cr eate and sustain networks?.Followed by more paper sessions and ended with closing ceremony. Written by: Miss Zurina Muda IAM, ECS, University of Southampton April 2009 WEB SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2009 March 18-20, Athens – Greece Dade Nurjanah Learning Societies Lab Electronics and Computer School University of Southampton [email  protected] soton. ac. uk The Web Science describes the evolution of the web and systems on the web. The implementation of systems is not only related to technological aspect systems but also social aspect. This one page report The Web Science Conference 2009 held at Theatron, in Athens Greece, on March18-20, 2009.The conference was excellent that many researchers of many fields attended the event and many interdisciplinary papers and pages. All sessions conducted in English and the Poster session were excellent. The parallel sessions I attended are the ones which related to my PhD research: Learning and Teaching, Openness versus Control, Web of Data an d Life Online. The paragraphs below briefly summarize papers and poster presented in the Web Science Conference 2009. Teaching and Learning. Nowadays, with the popularity of web and Web 2. , learning systems has changed to open content system with evolving courseware that support lifelong learning. However, Learning is not only about content delivery. It must involve content, services and users, and considers three aspects of technological, methodological and organizational aspects. Deal with the three aspects, semantic technology has given significant improvement to learning systems by adding some information to content that both human and machines can understand, and also providing reasoning mechanisms which support adaptation and personalization of learning.In addition to semantic technology, social network aspects has changed the paradigm of learning provided by learning tools from adaptiveindividualized learning to personalized-collaborative learning. With this paradigm learnin g is not a personal process between teacher and learner, but also social process that each learner can learn from other learners. Collaborative Work, Knowledge Sharing and Online Community. There are many social systems that facilitate social interaction and collaborative work. One of them is Wikis that have shifted authoring paradigm to community driven knowledge development.It facilitates knowledge and content creation which is complex, immense and requires collaborative expertise. In addition, it leads to the development of online communities. However, the social webs have a problem in managing content that always evolve, thus causing complex structure and the difficulties in finding information. Semantic technologies like semantic annotation offer a solution to overcome the problem by structuring the content. We call the systems Semantic Wikis. At the other side of collaborative work, collaborative tagging provides a way for organizing and sharing knowledge.It enables user to fi nd other research and researcher which are relevant to a particular domain. The relevancy of fields can also be found from other social technologies like Friend Of A Friend (FOAF). This network can also lead to the development of online communities. E-Commerce, e-Government, and e-Health. The web also gives impacts to daily life. Marketing including auctions, counseling, behavioral interventions, culture and governmental tasks are some works harnessing the web. Some works in the fields applied cognitive aspects to improve the result.The implementations raise issues of policy and regulation, trust and distrust, security, control, and bandwidth capacity. WebScience 2009 18th – 20th March, Athens – Greece I had the opportunity to participate in the WebScience 2009 conference. It was a very interesting experience: my first international conference. I met many people from various areas: from psychology to engineering. The most interesting meeting was the WWW Forum, where I had the possibility to know Time Berners-Lee, the father of HTTP technology.For me, it was the first time I met a person that has changed the future of the computer science. Moreover, I had the opportunity to talk with him and I found a very kind person, open to new ideas. Apart from the WWW Forum, the conference had more interesting appointments. It started with a workshop about the definition of an academic curriculum on Web Science: a head to head among different areas. Participants started an animated discussion about the possibility to develop a curriculum with psychological and sociological topics, besides informatics ones.This discussion allowed me to reflect about a point, today very popular in the community of science: the relation between humanities and informatics. Just few weeks ago, I participated in another workshop, where participants attempted to a similar discussion. During next days, I attempted to all sessions about social network, socio-psychological aspects of t he Web, Tag and Search. Some of presented papers were very interesting and gave me the possibility to understand new aspects of problems that I am studying for my personal research.In particular, there was an article about a mathematic model to represent a typical social network: the authors showed how it is possible to formalize unpredictable behaviours. Another one was about the measurement of user’s expertise in tagging based search. The last one that I want to talk about is a study to define the sense to be a member of a community, considering Facebook as an example. Another interesting meeting was the poster session. I found many interesting works related to my research area and I met authors for a comparison and an idea exchange.In conclusion, I want to give thanks to the local organization that helped me with the accommodation and various useful information during the conference. Moreover, I want to congratulate the organization for the chosen venue: I discovered a lov ely city that offered me a funny stay. At the end, I want to give thanks to the Web Science Research Initiative that gave me the possibility to attempt to this very interesting workshop. I hope to meet you soon and to participate together to future conferences. Best Regards, Teresa Onorati Phd Student University Carlos III of MadridWebSci’09 – Trip Report Clare Owens, [email  protected] soton. ac. uk I had the privilege of attending WebSci’09, thanks to a bursary provided by the conference organisers. The conference was a wonderful event, and I feel that my attendance benefited me in various ways: An obvious significant point for me was the poster session, where I presented my poster on methods for re-imagining social tools in new contexts. During this session I spoke to various people from a broad range of backgrounds, including computer scientists, sociologists and a reporter from an IT news company.Given this diversity of background, I received an equally b road range of feedback from these people, which was highly useful – as was the experience of explaining my work to noncomputer scientists. I also had the opportunity to meet and network with many people during the conference. Of particular note is the connection I formed with Lynda Hardman, head of the Interactive Information Access group at a university in Amsterdam. Lynda turns out to be carrying out research somewhat related to my own, and I hope to remain in contact with her and possibly collaborate in the future.Of course, I also attended various paper sessions, which broadened my knowledge of all things Web Science. I was particularly interested to learn of work regarding perception of extremist activity online; the meaning of URIs (presented by Harry Halpin from the University of Edinburgh – we continued the discussion of his paper during the coffee session afterwards); SemWeb technologies to augment museum repositories (this paper was by Lynda); and offloading cognition onto the web. In addition to the above, I was inspired by the various keynotes, especially those given by Tim Berners-Lee and Nosh Contractor.Overall, the conference was awash with activity and energy, and the opportunity to meet and speak with people from such diverse backgrounds was wonderful. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers for running this event, and also the scholarship programme. Betty Purwandari’s Bursary Report Web Science Conference Athens, Greece (18 – 20 March 2009) It was enormously great to attend the 1st Web Science Conference, because it gave a unique experience to feel the real vibrant of a new born Web Science community.The participants consisted of two different tribes. One of them was computer scientists, who traditionally gathered in the World Wide Web conferences. Another tribe consisted of social scientists, lawyers, political scientists, economists, and psychologists, who have studied the Web from non techn ical point of view. In this report, I write some highlights about keynote speakers, interesting papers and posters, useful contacts, suggestion for the 2nd Web Science Conference, along with conclusion of lessons learnt from the conference.On the opening ceremony, Prof Dame Wendy Hall spoke about the basic idea of Web Science, plus general goal of the conference. She emphasised a crucial issue in Web Science to develop a new methodology, in order to anticipate potential social impact of the web, as well as to help us build more robust system. She said, â€Å"It is not just about the technology. It is about human behavior. † Later on, Prof Sir Tim Berners-Lee delivered a remarkable speech. He mentioned two challenges in Web Science. Firstly, he mentioned the importance to adjust the mobile web to help less fortunate people in the developing world.Secondly, there was a necessity to advance the web as links of data, not just as links of web pages. The next day, Prof Nigel Shadbo lt thoroughly explained the existence of Web Science as a new or old discipline. And on the last day, Dr Noshir Contractor impressively talked about some real data and examples in the USA, showing how social networking on the web related to communication theories. Among conference papers, David Karpf’s paper (Why Bowl Alone When You Can Flashmob the Bowling Alley? ) was very closely related to my research area.It was about the impact of iPhones on a reputation system among US politicians. I have had conversation with Mr Karpf ([email  protected] upenn. edu), a PhD candidate in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He gave references to Thomas Valente’s and Everett Rogers’ papers about the diffusion of innovation. It could be used to forecast the impact of mobile web to rural people. There were also some interesting papers from the Oxford Internet Institute. However, they focused on the impact of the web on European Union countries, not to the developing world.A discussion with Prof Helen Margetts revealed that I should contact Prof Richard Heeks, from the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester (http://www. sed. manchester. ac. uk/idpm/staff/heeks_richard. htm). It turned out that Prof Heeks did significant research on mobile phone for development. In addition, there was a very interesting poster from the Brazilian Institute for Web Science Research. I had to keep contacting them for future cooperation. For the next Web Science Conference, it would be better if all talks are in English, in order to make all sessions being more inclusive.If there are speakers who will use different languages, it could be very helpful if the information about headphones and translation service is written clearly on the conference booklet. As a conclusion, it was tremendously amazing listening to talks from various experts, getting involved in discussion with people from a mixture of disciplines having the same interests in the web, as well as building networks for future collaboration. As a new web scientist, I really hope to grow and mature with the new born Web Science community. WebSci’09: Society Online ?Conference Trip Report Mark Schueler? Athens, Greece? 18th–20th March 2009 I was quite fortunate to attend the first global Web Science conference, held at the Hellenic Cosmos in Athens last month. Attended by over 300 registrants and leading figures in the Web world, it provided an excellent view of current and forthcoming developments in the study of the Web’s technological and social dimensions. I attended sessions on: Web Science Curriculum Understanding the Impact of the Web on Scholarly Communication Trust and Distrust Legal Panel Openness vs.Control Social Networks Cultural Convergence and Digital Technology I also heard keynotes by: Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee Professor Joseph Sifakis Professor Nigel Shadbolt Professor Noshir Contractor I had the pl easure of meeting a number of people working in areas relevant to my work, including Pascal Jurgens, Shankaron Gambi, Peter Geczy, Wolf Richter, Chris Eckl, Dave Tarrant and Erik Cambria. I also met several people with key Web credentials and broad general interest, including Bebo White, Daniel Weitzner, Jim Hendler, Ian Millard, Michalis Vafopoulos, and Thanassis Tiropanis.The high point of the conference was Noshir Contractor’s talk, which ranged across the essence of contemporary, leading-edge developments in social uses of the Web. All taken, WebSci’09 provided a broad-ranging view of all the latest in Web Science. Despite a few off-moments, the overall experience was quite productive and I look forward to attending this conference again in the future. I was able to learn more about the state of the art of Web Science. I met interesting contributors to the field, and learned more about current research and possible opportunities for collaboration. In the end, WebSc i’09 was quite a worthwhile experience.WebSci’09 Conference Trip Report Rob Vesse April 2, 2009 1 Wednesday The Conference opened on the Wednesday evening with a series of Welcome Speeches and Keynotes by a variety of people. Wendy Hall gave a brief but e? ective welcome and introduction to Web Science while Tim Berners-Lee gave a potted history of the Web leading up to the Semantic Web and Web Science as his Keynote. Josef Sifakis gave a keynote that contained remarkably little Web Science except for the closing few slides where he discussed the future of the Web of Things which the Semantic Web and Ubiquitous Computing may ultimately lead to. Thursday Thursday was in my opinion the best day of the Conference with several interesting paper sessions, some excellent panel sessions and the poster session. The day began with Nigel Shadbolt giving the keynote discussing Web Science as a whole before moving to the ? rst paper session ’Trust & Distrust’. This s ession included an interesting paper presented by Kieron O’Hara on how the web can facilitate (though not create) extremism in religion [3].I then attended the Legal Panel which involved some intriguing discussions and arguments regarding the EUs proposed ISP Data Retention plans and how this might a? ect our privacy and whether it needs to come into force as law or not. Statistics regarding how little the authorities have actually used this kind of information provided food for thought about whether they could really justify it. In the afternoon I missed the keynote in order to sit in on an impromptu panel organised by Les Carr for a Skype session with Web Science Masters students back in Southampton.The panel consisted of Nigel Shadbolt, Noshir Contractor, Helen Margetts and James Hendler answering questions posed by the Masters students about Web Science, I also spoke brie? y to the Masters students to give them my impressions of the opening Keynotes and the conference so far. Then I went on to attend the ’Tags & Search’ paper session in which I was particularly impressed by Yeung et al’s SPEAR algorithm for determining expertise in collaborative tagging system which can thwart most existing spam attacks on these systems [4]. 1In the evenings poster session I saw several interesting posters but most notable was Heitmann et al ’s poster on a reference architecture for describing semantic web (SW) applications that was based upon an analysis of the structure of a wide variety of existing SW applications [2]. This provides an easy way to evaluate the completeness of any SW application you build and compare it to others. 3 Friday On Friday morning I attended the ‘Web of Data’ paper session which included Harry Halpin’s shortened version of the talk he recently gave at Southampton on Social Meaning on the Web [1].This was of particular interest to me since the issue of meaning of URIs is potentially signi? c ant in my research. Afterwards there was a Panel session on Cultural Convergence and Digital Technology which I felt was a very poor session, a Greek MP gave an interesting opening speech but the other speakers were poor. Two of them were techno-phobes who primarily moaned about the impact of the web on society and the other simply wanted to talk about the digital technology in theatre work she’d done which had no connection to the web.After lunch Noshir Contractor gave the keynote which was very positive about the potential of Web Science and presented a little bit of some research that he and his collaborators are already carrying out on Social Networking in Massively Multi-player Online Games which has had some surprising results. I attended the ‘Life On-Line’ paper session in the afternoon which contained a couple of interesting papers on work being conducted by other researchers at Southampton though nothing was directly relevant to my own research. The Conf erence ? ished with some closing remarks by Wendy Hall followed by a long speech by the Managing Director of the Conference centre which highlighted the centre’s long term history of innovative web and technology use to present cultural exhibits. 4 Conclusion Overall the Conference was highly interesting with the opportunity to talk to or hear from a wide variety of people; in particular those from outside Computer Science. We have a tendency to get wrapped up in the technology and it’s fascinating to get a clear non-technical point of view on the web from people in other ? elds.The Conference also gave me the opportunity to get to know more of the people from Southampton who are involved with Web Science and gain a broader view of the ? eld as a whole. 2 References [1] Harry Halpin. Social meaning on the web: From wittgenstein to search engines. In WebSci’09: Society On-Line, 2009. [2] Benjamin Heitmann, Conor Hayes, and Eyal Oren. Towards a reference architect ure for applications leveraging semantic web technologies. In WebSci’09: Society On-Line, 2009. [3] Kieron O’Hara and David Stevens. The devil’s long tail: Religious moderation and extremism on the web.In WebSci’09: Society On-Line, 2009. [4] Ching Man Au Yeung, Michael Noll, Nicholas Gibbins, Christoph Meinel, and Nigel Shadbolt. On measuring expertise in collaborative tagging systems. In WebSci’09: Society On-Line, 2009. 3 WebSci’09: Trip Report Patricia Victor The call for papers of this new conference immediately aroused my interest, since some of the main topics were about trust, social networking and e-commerce – precisely what I’m working on. When reading the CFP again, I also noticed that it was not going to be a typical AI/CS conference like I was used to, but something completely di? rent, with people coming from all kinds of research areas. I only had to look at the program of the session in which I was presenting to see that this was the case indeed: the other two speakers had a background in sociology and political sciences (and I think the largest part of the public too). This was certainly an interesting opportunity to listen and learn from researchers in an area I was not familiar with, but it also brought along some di? culties for me; adapting myself to the writing style and the way of presenting sociology-related talks was not that easy.The same holds for the organization of the session: personally, I don’t see the bene? t of postponing questions till after all talks have ? nished, then letting people ask all the questions at once, and only then allowing to address all of them (I’m more in favor of asking one question, then answering that question, then proceeding with the next one, etc. ) But apart from that, the talks in my session were really interesting and refreshing, and I learned some new things that I de? nitely have to check out (Yelp, MoveOn, and the Smart Mobs b ook for instance).Of course there were also other sessions that I looked forward to. For instance the Tags and Search session, a topic related to what I’m doing and which always contains exciting new work. Furthermore, to my pleasant surprise, a lot of the keynotes/talks were about trust, in all its shapes. In particular, Paul Spirakis’ talk was very interesting because he discussed several ways to measure trust, something I’m working on myself. Through these talks I came across a lot of new pointers, and from Kai Rannenberg I learned that you can do a lot while sitting on the toilet1 .Furthermore, I really enjoyed the WWW forum (except the long welcome notes in Greek): I already had the opportunity once to hear Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaking, but this time he really captured my attention for the whole duration of the speech: not at all technical, but an agreable talk about the genesis of the Web and it’s future consequences. Finally, overall, attending Web Sci was a completely new experience for me, I’ve met a lot of interesting and nice people, the conference was well-organized, the food was delicious, and Athens was beautiful, and the weather too – well, at least most of the time2 . The 2I Japanese Networked Washlet try to forget the fact that I arrived soaking wet at the Theatron the ? rst evening†¦ 1 CONFERENCE TRIP REPORT WebSci’09: Society On-Line March 18 – 11, 2009 At Athens, Greece By Huan WANG Nanyang Technological University To my understanding, this is the first international conference specifically called for web scientists from different disciplines all over the w

Leadership: Theory and Practice Essay

1. Based on the principles of the path-goal theory, what kind of leadership should David exhibit with each of the three running groups? According Northouse the Path-Goal Theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish goals (125). Northouse also points out the leadership generates motivation when it increases the number and kinds of payoffs that subordinates achieve from their work. The basic idea behind the Path-Goal Theory is each type of leader behaviors, which are directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented have a different king of impact on subordinates’ motivation. This simply means that the Path-Goal Theory does not lock leaders into one type of leadership. This theory gives leaders the opportunity to adapt their styles to fit the situation and motivational needs of their subordinates. Based on the analysis of all three groups the Path-Goal Theory would apply different types of leadership behavior. A subordinates characteristics will determine how a leaders behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work situation. Some of these characteristics are needs of affiliation, preferences of structure, desires for control, and so forth. In the first group the members or subordinates are mostly runners who have never ran in a marathon before. The main issue of concern for this group is how should they prepare themselves for the New York City marathon. They illustrate this by asking questions like how to do the marathon? how far to run in the training?, What to eat or drink?. Since this particular group lacks experience there is a huge emphasis on self-preparation and high anxiety among the members. I think as president, David should apply the directive style of leadership in this situation because the task characteristics are ambiguous, there is no set of rules or method on how to execute the marathon, also the runners need self-assuring because of their self-doubt to complete the marathon and is this situation very complex. According to Northouse, directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for subordinates. Overall this group needs a huge amount of guidance because of their limited experience and high emphasis on preparation. Also Northouse clarifies this when he says that for subordinates who are dogmatic and authoritarian and have to work in uncertain situations, directive leadership helps the subordinates by clarifying the goal, making it less ambiguous and the subordinate feels more comfortable when the leader provides a greater sense of certainty in the work setting (129). This in turn gives the runners less anxiety and a clear and direct way to achieve the goal. In the second group, the main issue of concern was how the effects of training would impact their performance and they also wanted assurances from their leader David because they wanted to know if they were properly trained for the New York marathon. This group of runners wanted a lot of feedback from their leader and showed high level of involvement that would affect their performance. The group was concerned with regular training activities and David’s commitment to them. In this case, David should apply the both supportive and participative leadership behavior style. Supportive leadership helps to provide what is missing by nurturing subordinates when they are engaged in tasks that are repetitive and unchallenging. Since the group two runners are going to be doing a lot of training and it can become very repetitive. In this leadership role it require David to be very supportive and his runners because of their efforts to continue this mechanized training for the marathon. Another point is the David can apply participative leadership behavior style because as we know the subordinates want a sense of freedom, control and clarity. They illustrate this by initiating their own self-involvement on how they can be more effective in the marathon by asking questions and requiring a huge amount of feedback from David. In the third group, David should apply the achievement-oriented leadership behavior because the runners in this group are seasoned runners who finished in the top ten in other races. The subordinate characteristics of this group are high expectations and the need to excel. The group has a lot of confidence in their ability to compete and finish well. However, they lacked excitement about running in the New York Event because they were usually concerned with the appropriateness of their training strategy and whether the training would help them to win more races. As a leader, David should challenge his subordinates to perform work at the highest level they can achieve. Norhthouse (2010) says that this leader establishes a high standard of excellence for subordinates and continuous improvement. Northouse also contends that achievement oriented leaders show a high degree of confidence that subordinates are capable of establishing and accomplishing challenging goals (128). In retrospect, David is the president of Mertrocity Striders Track Club and he can use this achievement as a tool to influence his runners since he knows that they are already high achievers. He can solicit his own credibility as a runner and a president of the organization to promote his belief on achieving success as a runner and person of character. 2. What does David have to do to help the runners accomplish their goals? To be an effective leader, David needs to do all of the following: (1) attend to the needs of his subordinates, (2) help subordinates define their goals, and (3) the paths they want to take in reaching the goals. 3. Are there obstacles that David can remove or help runners to confront? When obstacles get in the way, David must help his runners confront them. If obstacles create excessive uncertainty, frustration or threat for his subordinates it is David’s responsibility to remove these obstacles or help them around them. In light of this, removing obstacles will increase a subordinate’s expectation that he or she will be able to get their work done and improve satisfaction. 4. In general, how can David motivate each of the three groups? David can motivate all of the three groups by helping his subordinates reach their goals by directing, guiding and coaching them along the way. This simply means attending to their needs of the group, defining the goals and how the group can reach these goals, clearing the path by removing obstacles to get the work done, and providing support.

Violence in Mass Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Violence in Mass Media - Essay Example Currently, the media has become a central element of the social environment. Through the television, radio, movies, video games and the internet, a significant number of the population, particularly children are exposed to high levels of violent content. Resultantly, the frequent consumption of violent content facilitates imitative learning thus leading to increase in aggressive and violent behavior in children. The prevalent in real-world aggression and violent acts creates a need to effectively mitigate the violent content by the media so as to ensure societal well-being. An ideal intervention strategy in mitigating media violence is parental/adult intervention. Parents can play a detrimental role in restricting children’s access to media violence. The violent media content can be substituted with non-violent media content so as to promote behavioral change thus reducing the violent culture (Humphrey & Palmer 45). Parents can also play a key role in promoting media literacy. Parents/adults can educate the youth regarding the effects of violence and the mechanisms used by the media to portray violence as acceptable, useful and detached from negative consequences (Humphrey & Palmer 44). Ideally, the parents can educate the youths on the impact of too much media violence and the difference between reality and fantasy. Considering the detrimental role played by parents in child development, parental intervention is an ideal way of mitigating the impacts of media violence in the society.

News Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

News Analysis - Essay Example Broadcasting can also use diagrams or caricatures to enable readers or audiences understand the news. The use of newspaper is the oldest form of disseminating or communicating news. Newspapers were used before the introduction of broadcast tools such as radio, internet and television. The main advantage of newspaper over other forms of communicating news is that newspaper signifiers are on display to readers simultaneously (Allan, 2007, p. 114). This enables the readers to absorb the coded information or signifiers at their pace. This is not achievable with the radio or the television dissemination of news because once the audience misses the news they do not gain the information. News or stories on radio or television broadcasts are scheduled. Newspapers allow their readers to effectively and timely scrutinize the graphic codified materials and typographical linguistic. Radio and television are limited by the availability of direct visual coverage of stories or events. The stories a nd news are edited with an aim of displaying visually emotive elements of a story. The process of generating and disseminating news is dependent on the process of news selection. The process of news selection requires an individual to select stories based on the worthiness of the event. New selection also requires an individual to ignore items that are considered irrelevant or insignificant. News selection is dependent on the focus and target audience (Foreman, 2010, p. 59). For instance, tabloids mainly focus on people who consume celebrity gossip, while quality press publication focuses on people who read scandalous or political stories. A tabloid newspaper will have celebrity gossip on the front or cover page while a quality publication will have political news or news about a scandal on its front page. Different newspaper publications focus on different conventions (Bignall, 2007, p. 19). As a result, it is vital to decipher the signage within a news story

BMWi Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

BMWi Case Study - Essay Example It uses cutting-edge material, custom built architectures with future production technologies (Case study: BMWi, 2011). The brand presence is global and has a niche market with dealers representing almost every corner of the world. The company has a loyal database of customers and it also expects an older segment (53 years old) to constitute the majority (84 percent) of their new customers (for BMWi) as against the younger (49 years old) audience for the earlier versions of BMW. However, the average age of its customer base is expected to be lesser than its competitors in Audi and Mercedes. The company constantly engages its loyal customer base through a range of media including TV, YouTube, Facebook, Email, Phone and Website among others. Its social media initiatives for BMWi through its ‘join the conversation’ invitation and a set of about 50 mobile apps through its ‘MyCityWay’ apps initiative to keep the customer updated with the local information is anot her innovative approach to constantly communicate with their customers. The company also has tied up with the London Olympics, 2012 as an automotive partner to leverage higher exposure for the brand and the new concept car (Case study: BMWi, 2011). Figure 1: Logo- BMW. ... The company plans to engage its target segment through direct and digital marketing with a ?400, 000 budget allocated for the purpose (Case study: BMWi, 2011). Figure 2: Model overview of BMW335i Coupe. Source: https://www.bmwcenternet.com Strategies to generate the 5,000 leads. Acquiring a new type of customer for BMWi- BMWi is a concept car which promises zero emission and is environment friendly. It also has a government approval for a ?5,000 grant that their customers can avail. As more than 50 percent of the target segment for BMWi are set to avail finance either from BMW or others, the grant from the government can be advertised with sufficient emphasis as it can help in subtly drive across the patronizing support from the government due its high fuel efficiency and eco friendly design and manufacture. This information can be communicated to the target customers through trade-shows, occasional TV and print advertisements and social media. In addition, the company can leverage i ts ‘join the conversation’ initiative to gather sufficient new leads as loyal customers and prospects are bound to network extensively on social media. The 5Cs of real-time marketing: content, conversation, context, continuity and commerce need to be constantly put in focus to reflect the brand (Leonard, 2011). Further, the online presence of the company must be readily leveraged in all aspects to actively engage the customers while giving them quality experience through seamless integration of its systems. Creative engagement needs to be fostered through the company’s as well as the dealer websites to actively listen to customer preferences. A live chat on the company and dealer websites can also help generate sufficient leads of new

Rbv2 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Rbv2 - Research Paper Example John Lewis too experienced negative sales and at one point in the year 2009 it was below the average of the British Retail Consortium. During this time, John Lewis experienced a serious fundamental difficulty in the UK market. Even though the company had a massive rational affinity, its emotional affinity as well popularity was dwindling. The result was that the retail shop underwent a period of relatively low share of the wallet of its target customer. For the past few years, John Lewis has developed and implemented an assortment of resources aimed at giving it a competitive advantage over other retail shops in the industry. (Barney, 1991) in the Resource Based Review (RBV) argues that companies and organisations should put more investment on the capabilities and resources that they deem, able to propel them towards achieving a sustainable and realistic competitive advantage hence boosting their performance. Resources can be defined as stocks of available factors owned by a firm (Amit et al, 1993). On the other hand, ‘capabilities’ is defined as the ease of an organization to coordinate different tasks while using the available resources to attain a set objective (Helfat et al, 2003). John Lewis developed a more sophisticated e-commerce website that has advanced functionalities and services than those of its competitors. The company management ensures the online store is frequently updated with product information as it may appeal to potential customers. Additionally, John Lewis embarked on a serious online campaign and social network marketing. For instance in Dec 2009 basically the Christmas period, the company introduced more sectional and emotional ads that generated huge leads to back to the online store as well as physical store visits. Its ad campaign named ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ has made the company to outperform in the UK

Safety Management Plan Implementation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Safety Management Plan Implementation - Essay Example The service providers should execute and implement a Safety Management System which is acknowledged by their respective state. The functions are as follows: †¢The main function is to identify the safety hazards related to it. †¢It should ensure that corrective actions necessary to sustain a satisfactory level of safety must be implemented. †¢This is also liable to provide continuous monitoring as well as a regular appraisal of the safety level that has been achieved. †¢It should also aim to make a constant improvement to the overall level of safety and security. †¢It should also promote an improved safety and security culture all through the organization. †¢Realizing a return on Safety Management System investment through enhanced competence and abridged operational risk. Apart from the requirements of ICAO Safety Management Systems has been also incorporated into IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). It is an important factor to realize that the mention ed plan must only be used as a general guiding reference only. Therefore it can be customized according to the need. Etihad, the national airlines of United Arab Emirates will be chosen as the company where the Safety Management System action plan will be established. Now in the context of the company, a safety management system will be implemented in its overall infrastructure. This will ensure more safety and securities to the passengers availing Etihad Airways. The company is also focused on providing the best Arabic hospitality to the clients.

The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor Essay

The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor - Essay Example Jimmy Many Horses is an individual who owns problems galore to make his life miserable and humorous. His never-ending concerns are relationships, alcoholism, modern society versus traditional values and above all doomed lives. He regales the readers with his version of the history of his relationship with his wife, Norma. In the trials and tribulations of life, even when one is afflicted with the life-threatening disease like cancer, humor is the potential energy giver that lightens the burden of the painful and stressful hours and days of the patient, and those around him. My chosen aspect of this story is humor, humor, and more humor! That runs through each and every turn of the story. Detailed analysis and evidence has been provided in the ensuing paragraphs and at this stage, I need to make a special mention of the encounter of the couple with a policeman patrolling the highway and Sherman Alexie describes, â€Å"We watched him walk back to his cruiser, climb in, and drive off, breaking four or five laws as he flipped a U-turn, left 166 rubber, crossed the center line, broke the speed limit, and ran through a stop sign without lights and siren.† Amazing observation! Jimmy struggles to come to terms with his alcohol addiction and terminal cancer that will carry him to the grave undoubtedly. Yet he is jovial and is unconcerned about his health concerns. He asserts with confidence, â€Å"Listen . . . if I stole 1,000 horses, I’d give you 501 of them." This man Jimmy is not an ordinary human being. He is willing to laugh in a near death situation and he goes on with his tantrums in all seriousness. Norma finds it difficult to put up with his willful laughter dispositions and leaves him temporarily to join the powwow circuit.  

A career in Education Essay Example for Free

A career in Education Essay Being a teacher is a career that I have always desired to follow ever since I was a young girl. It was at the end of my elementary years when I first decided I wanted to become a teacher; I thought it was a cool job to have. When I was younger I use to think how cool it would be to be in control of the whole class, it was like being the boss. When I reached high school I decided that I wanted to become an elementary teacher. I started to realize how interested I was in learning about children and how much I loved being around them. This is when I knew that pursuing a career in teaching is what would make me the happiest. People have their own opinions on how they portray teachers. Some may see them as mean and controlling, while others might see them as guidance in their educational life. I feel teachers make a difference in the life and future of their students. Teachers are educators as well as advisors. They help and give guidance to students in their educational choices, and day to day life. TV sitcoms are what I feel have influenced these stereotypes upon teachers. On some TV sitcoms teachers are portrayed as older women that are mean and always out to sabotage the students life. Other sitcoms portray the teachers as young women that are sweet and caring. This is why some may stereotype teachers as annoying and always trying to tell you how to live your life, or as a kind and helpful teacher. See more:  Manifest Destiny essay When one becomes a teacher there are some good things and not so good things, just as any other job. The pros about becoming a teacher are that one is able to influence children to become the best that they can be and knowing that one made a difference in someones life. Another pro is having an opportunity to help children learn and get acquainted with new thoughts. Some other good qualities are that teachers have steady daytime hours with the weekend off. They have excellent vacation days and often quite longer than any other occupations. With having most of the summer off, it gives the teacher more time to spend with their family or do anything else that needs to get done. The cons would be when you have a problem child in your class. Teachers have to have patience and learn how to work with struggling students. Teaching can sometimes be a bit stressful at times because you have to work and help with everyones problems. Also, a teachers salary is  not very lucrative. The requirements for becoming a teacher are that you must have a bachelors degree from an accredited college or university. You must complete teacher training through an approved program. The programs are offered through colleges and universities, school districts, regional service centers, community colleges, and other entities. You must successfully complete the appropriate teacher certification tests for the subject and grade level you wish to teach. There are many different resources that will help pay for a teacher training program. There is the Teach for Texas program, which offers conditional grants to help some future teachers with expenses if those individuals agree to teach in Texas public schools for a specified period of time. The Teacher for America, offers cash awards that can be applied to past student loans or future educational costs for recent college graduates who commit to teaching in urban and rural public schools for two years. The Certified Educational Aide Exemption Program, is another program that Texas offers tuition exemptions for some educational aides seeking to become certified teachers. These are some of the programs and grants that are specifically designed to help individuals become teachers. The starting salary of a teacher varies, depending on the district they work for. Texas teacher starting salaries, for a teacher with a bachelors degree and no teaching experience is $43,216. The more experience they have the higher the pay will be. Also, if they teach in a district with a lot of students the pay will be higher. When becoming an elementary teacher the number one thing the teacher should posses is patience. They need to be able to communicate well with the parent, and have a good relationship with them. They need to ensure a high quality educational experience. The teacher must have a sense of humor because children can tend to say some crazy things at times. You will have to learn to just laugh about it and not take things to seriously. They must be kind and loving. Teachers need to have a happy attitude, because children can sense when you are not having a good day and it can affect the childrens learning environment. A great teacher creates a sense of community and belonging in the classroom. They have a variety of activities for the day that will keep a childs attention. The environment of the class should be welcoming and colorful. Children will feel more comfortable, and encouraged to do well in a friendly classroom. When working with children it is a good idea to put comments on their papers like great job. It shows them that they are doing well and should keep up the good work. Teachers will be responsible for preparing and delivering age-appropriate lessons, giving and grading tests and homework, working with children individually and as a class and maintaining an orderly and functional classroom environment. Other tasks may include meeting with parents to discuss their childs progress and working with parents and other staff members to track and assist children in making progress. Some additional tasks teacher can do are after school tutoring and taking children on fun and educational field trips. Becoming an elementary teacher is a career that I know will make me happy, and a goal I plan to accomplish. Since high school I have been taking classes that will give me some experience and help me pursue my career. During my senior year of high school I was in a class that would allow the student to be an assistant aide to a teacher. I was assigned to a first grade class and loved it. It was a good learning experience and gave me the opportunity to see what activities went on during the class. I learned a lot from the teacher and hope to carry on some of her good tactics in my future class. For me, becoming a teacher is a career I have always desired and plan to work hard for.

Astrophil and Stella Essay Example for Free

Astrophil and Stella Essay For the sake of the cause he also borrows ideas from other poets, but finally he realizes that the only way to tell his feelings is to write his own words from his own heart. The poet relies on the success of his chosen wooing process sincerely. There is a turn after the octave. The sestet starts with the word ‘‘But’’, which suggests some kind of change. In this part, three words, ‘‘Invention’’, ‘‘Nature’’ and ‘‘Study’’, are personifies by the poet. He presents ‘‘Nature’’ to the reader as the mother of ‘‘Invention’’ (‘‘Invention, Nature’s child’’ (Line 10)). With this personalization, these two words get qualities, and this refers to the naturalness of using imagination to create new ideas. These two things are necessary conditions of each other. The third personalized word is ‘‘Study’’. It appears as the stepmother of ‘‘Invention’’. Mother would never be in good terms with stepmother. One reason of it can be jealousy. The poet to act up to this fact gives the ability of breathing to ‘‘Study’’ in order to be able to blow ‘‘Invention’’ away. There is still no inspiration of the poet for writing his ideas and feelings. The personalizations serve the aim to have something that can be the reason of the poet’s inability to write. Around the end of the sonnet the poet shows us a picture of a woman who is ‘‘great with child’’(Line12). He compares his situation with the state of pregnancy. According to him, express his feelings and write down them can be as difficult as giving birth to a child. The pregnant mother has millions of troubles and struggles during the pregnancy such as the poet has during the procedure of writing ‘‘helpless in my throes’’ (Line 12). After all his attempts fails, in the last line his Muse calls him a ‘‘Fool’’ and advises him to ‘‘look in thy 2 heart and write’’. The word ’’Fool refers to the poet. He makes stupid mistakes when he tries to use others love poems to express his feelings. There is some irony in the words of the Muse. The poet should not think so much about his feelings and about how to write them down. He just has to write down what is come from his heart without thinking about it. I think, the testimony of the Muse’s words is that people have to trust in themselves and in their abilities. 3

The Importance Of Project Management Construction Essay

The Importance Of Project Management Construction Essay The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the importance of project management and the attributes the client should seek when selecting a project manager. By defining measureable objectives, project managers offer strategical qualities and direction to the desired milestones as well as to the completion of the entire project. The employment of their services allows for the organizing of information and activities including future risk assessment that leads to a quality product within the time and budget restraints. In addition to the purpose of a project manager, there are certain background attributes that would contribute to the success of a project such as managerial skill and technical expertise that are relevant to the clients goals. Introduction According to the Association for Project Management (APM), project management is identified as the process by which projects are defined, planned, monitored, controlled and delivered such that the agreed benefits are realised. A project manager is appointed by the client and serves as their representative throughout the entire progression period of the project, if permitted by the contractual agreement. It is the project managers responsibility to predict as many possible dangers and problems in time to plan, organize and control activities so that the project remains on schedule (Lock, 2007). Various risks can be avoided by planning strategically including defining measurable objectives at the start of the project so that those issues can be accounted for before reaching the construction phase. It is essential to incorporate a project manager because they are able to coordinate and organize information or activities, increase product quality, reduce risks, manage budgets, as well as complete the project under strenuous time restraints. In order for a project manager to bring these successful traits to a project they must possess an array of managerial and technical skills. This report will closely evaluate how defining measurable objectives, organisation, product quality, and budget management will improve the overall construction process as well as evaluating various attributes that project manager should have to effectively deliver a quality product. 1.0 Why hire a Project Manager? 1.1 Define Objectives Defining measureable objectives-the scope of the project-at the start of the project is crucial to any successful project. Scope Creep is one of the most common reasons why projects are unsuccessful whether it is due to schedule delays or drastic unexpected increases in budgets. For example, Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia had major increases in the original budget. The Federation Square opened in October 2002 with an original estimated budget at $100million but, due to poorly defined objectives, the budget has increased drastically to approximately $460million over the last 7 years. (VAGO, 2003) Scope creep, refers to tasks that are added to the initial reasons or scope of the project, which can occur both after the project as well as during the process. During the planning period, the engineer is not always certain of what the problems are before the construction phase. This is mostly due to the lack of research. If the construction phase commences as planned and there ar e utility lines unaccounted for, this would introduce complexity to the project as well as alter the original objectives. The lack of definition could throw the entire project off course from the original purpose of construction. The project manager hired will be able to take the necessary actions to combat these issues with the client. 1.2 Organise Information and Activities Construction projects are unique in the aspect that each project presents its own complexities. With any complex system, it is a requirement that information and activities be well organised which is one of the many reasons for commissioning a project manager. There are a variety of programs that aid the project manager in this area including Microsoft Office Project. Organization allows for optimal communication between the project manager and the key players that could take the form of graphs, charts, etc. This information keeps the involved parties aware of their preparation time before their services are needed. If a problem occurs, organization also allows the project manager to make quality decisions based upon the progression of the project in relation to the next milestone or deadline. In addition to organizing activities, labelling the distribution of funding is equally important. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) classifies these in the form of Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, which is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables (PMBOK, 2004). In regards to the budget, a WBS allows money to be distributed based upon its original intentions in a way that keeps the project manager up-to-date with the remaining funding. WBS is just another way to keep complex projects simple and easy to manage as well as keeping the client in the know. 1.3 Increase Product Quality Due to the economic crisis, many clients desire a high quality product associated with little cost. During the planning process, the project manager has the opportunity to research the services and products necessary to complete the project with the clients best interest in mind. Generally, most project errors occur during the construction process possibly due to unforeseen circumstances, field issues, and the work ethics of the contractors involved. Particularly in the US, based on a study done in 2006-2008 on the most common reasons why contractors fail in which performance and management issues were ranked in the top 5. Performance issues accounted for 36% of failures and management issues accounted for 29%. To assist in eliminating these problems, it is the responsibility of the project manager in conjunction with the construction manager to ensure that the structure is built with minimal errors and safety hazards. Through this checks and balance system, field issues can be succe ssfully managed with little to no effect on the schedule or future structural performance. 1.4 Manage Budget The budget is the primary skeletal system to a successful project. In any project, whether in the public or private sector, financial funding is essential. Without it, delays in financial support progress are inevitable. During the planning process, the project manager uses the WBS to assist in organizing and managing the funds as well as ensuring that there are funds allocated to future risks also known as the contingency. In a recent survey conducted by the National Audit Office (NAO), approximately 24% of delays in schedules were due to the incurred additional costs. This information conveys that the given budget was not managed properly or there were too many unforeseen risks involved. With the assistance of a project manager, such risks can be accounted for during the planning period to avoid schedule delays. 2.0 What attributes should be considered when hiring a Project Manger? 2.1 Managerial Skills When selecting a project manager, the client should not only be aware of how a project manager can enhance the overall performance of a project but also what skills to look for when employing their services. In order to produce a successful project the client should hire a project manager based on their leadership skills. Leadership skills consist of team building, problem solving, and communication skills, just to name a few. Project managers are faced with difficult situations throughout the course of the project which cannot be solved by themselves. The project manager must depend equally on all of the key players by building an effective and efficient team that may or may not be temporary and motivate them to the clients desired vision. With those difficult situations, quick and quality problem solving techniques are equally critical to the completion of the project. For instance, if there is an unpredicted pipe underneath the work site and there is change in the initial scope, t he project manager must be able to make a quality decision based upon the time and budget restraints. This issue can also be affected by the communication links between the key players. As stated earlier in this report, communication can be conveyed through organisation, charts, graphs, and schedules to keep the involved parties informed, especially the client(s). Leadership is just one attribute that covers an array of sub-skills that a project manager should possess to help determine the success of a project. 2.2 Technical Expertise In addition to the managerial attributes, technical expertise is also important to have when working with a clients vision. Technical expertise may include scope, cost, risk, contract, and construction management and helps to aid the clients knowledge beyond the initial concept of the structure. When managing the scope, the project manager must keep the primary vision in mind so that cost, contracts, and the construction process of even the most complex project remain simple. The project manager is able to make the client aware of the different risks that they might encounter before the project progresses past the conceptual phase as well as offer advice throughout the construction process. Again, these attributes are just a few that a project manager can contribute to a successful project and should be considered during the selection process. 3.0 Conclusion 3.1 Overall Conclusion In conclusion, defining measurable objectives, organisation of information and activities, increased product quality, budget management, and managerial and technical skills are all very important to a project that is classified a success by the client and the parties involved. The client should be increasingly mindful when employing the services of a project manager that, A leader is only as good as his followers. Without the stable foundation of any team or project, the product is bound to fail but if they are somehow incorporated from beginning to end, the temporary and longevity use of the product is sure to be met.