About Us
The Web and Internet Science (WAIS) group researches large scale systems, exemplified by the Web and Internet, that combine computational, data and human components.
WAIS brings together expertise in:
| Data Science | Human Accessibility of Information |
| Semantic Web, Linked and Open Data | Hypertext Communication and Narratives |
| Social Networks | Educational Systems |
| Social Machines and Crowd Sourcing | Internet of Things and Cyberphysical Systems |
| Information Provenance | Open Access, Open Science and Open Systems |
WAIS hosts a number of pan-university initiatives and participates in a variety of other related activities:
- Web Science Institute (WSI) coordinates and realizes multi-disciplinary education, research, and innovation activities around Web Science across Departments and Faculties at Southampton.
- CyberSecurity Network of Excellence, established by GCHQ and led by Prof Vladimiro Sassone
- Web Science Doctoral Training Centre runs an interdisciplinary cohort-based 4-year iPhD for 10-15 students per year and is hosted by WAIS.
- Research Software Group is hosted by WAIS and provides software engineering expertise to enable novel research across the University
- EPrints Services, originally established in September 2006, is a commercial enterprise that offers services based on open access and open data software developed in WAIS.
We are at the core of several global education, research, and enterprise networks and engage with the wider community to address some of the greatest economic and societal challenges facing the World Wide Web today. These include
- Web Science Trust Network of Laboratories, which brings together research labs around the world who specialize in Web Science.
- Open Data Institute is a non-profit company funded by Technology Strategy Board. Its goal is to fully release the potential of open data on both economical and social levels, and enable open data to generate demands, create opptunitities for new types of businesses. WAIS is a founding partner of the ODI.
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a international community that develop and distribute royal-free standards related to World Wide Web. W3C aims to continously drive the growth of Web and improve the security, trustness and privacy of the Web. The members of WAIS group have been actively participated in the standarisation work of W3C.
- European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) is a non-profit orgainisation to forster the colloboration with in research communities in Europe and increase the communications between the research and industrial sectors.