contributed articles

Doi: 10.1145/1364782.1364798

The Web must be studied as an entity in its own right to ensure it keeps flourishing and prevent unanticipated social effects.

BY JameS henDLeR, niGeL ShaDBoLt, WenDY haLL,
tim BeRneRS-Lee, anD DanieL WeitzneR

Web Science:

an interdisciplinary

approach to

understanding

the Web

DESPITE THE WEB’S great success as a technology and the significant amount of computing infrastructure on which it is built, it remains, as an entity, surprisingly unstudied. here, we look at some of the technical and social challenges that must be overcome to model the Web as a whole, keep it growing, and understand its continuing social impact. A systems approach, in the sense of “systems biology,” is needed if we are to be able to understand and engineer the future Web.