Web Science is concerned with the full scope of socio-technical relationships that are engaged in the World Wide Web. It is based on the notion that understanding the Web involves not only an analysis of its architecture and applications, but also insight into the people, organizations, policies, and economics that are affected by and subsumed within it. As such Web Science, and thus this conference, is inherently interdisciplinary and integrates computer and information sciences, sociology, economics, political science, law, management, language and communication, geography and psychology. This conference is unique in the manner in which it brings these disciplines together in creative and critical dialogue and we invite papers from all these disciplines and those which cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Following the success of WebSci’09 in Athens and WebSci10 in Raleigh we are seeking papers that demonstrate the development, scope, and relevance of the emerging field of Web Science. Possible topics for submissions include:

On-line lives: individuals and organizations shopping, dating, learning, networking
Trust and privacy
Evolving technologies – new search technologies, linked data, new Web languages and/or protocols, and emerging application areas
The pro-human web in an unequal world: access, inequalities and agendas for change
Web futures: possibilities critiques and challenges
The web and the state: nationalism, politics. democracy
Governance control and power
Knowledge, education, and scholarship – the potential and effects of crowdsourcing and long tails
Intellectual property and the Commons
The dark side of the Web – such as cybercrime, pornography and terrorism

Important Dates

Submission deadline for 2-page abstracts: 28 February 2011
Notification of acceptance: 21 March 2011