Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group

Trip Report for the IIPC Building Better Crawlers Hackathon in London, UK.                            On September 22-23, 2016, I attended the IIPC Building Better Crawlers Hackathon ( #iipchack ) at the British Library in London, UK. Having been to London almost exactly 2 years ago for the Digital Libraries 2014 conference , I was excited to go back, but was more so anticipating collaborating with some folks I had long been in contact with during my tenure as a PhD student researcher at ODU. The event was a well-organized yet loosely scheduled meeting that resembled more of an "Unconference" than a Hackathon in that the discussion topics were defined as the event progressed rather than a larger portion being devoted to implementation (see the recent Archives Unleashed 1.0 and 2.0 trip reports ). The represented organizations were: British Library Bilbiotheque nationale de France (BnF) Internet Archive National Library of Denmark State and University Library of

From right to left, Dr. Nelson (my advisor), Yousof (my son), Yasmin (myself), Ahmed (my husband) August 26th marked my last day as a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science department at ODU , while September 26 marks my first day as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Data Curation for the Sciences and Social Sciences at UC Berkeley . I will lead research in the areas of software curation, data science, and digital research methods. I will be honored to work under the supervision of Dr. Erik Mitchell , the Associate University Librarian and Director of Digital Initiatives and Collaborative Services at the University of California, Berkeley. I will have an opportunity to collaborate with many institutions across UC Berkeley, including the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) research unit. It is amazing to see the light at the end of the long tunnel. Below, I talk about the long trail I took to reach my academic dream position. I'll recap the topic of my dissertation, then I&

Two Web Science & Digital Library ( WS-DL ) courses will be offered in Fall 2016:  CS 418/518 " Web Programming ", Tuesdays 4:20-7:00 pm (CRNs 16680 & 16681 ), will be offered by Dr. Justin F. Brunelle .  This will be an updated version of CS 418 last taught in Spring 2015 by Mat Kelly .  This class is currently full, but watch for openings. CS 734/834 " Introduction to Information Retrieval ", Thursdays 4:20-7:00 pm (CRNs 15028 & 15038 ) offered by Dr. Michael L. Nelson .  This will be an updated version of the same course most recently taught in Fall 2015 .  Note that Dr. Michele Weigle is not teaching this semester.  Obviously there is demand for CS 418/518, but if you're considering CS 734/834 you might be interested in this student's quote from a recent exit exam: [and] Dr. Nelson’s Information Retrieval course are the two which I feel have prepared me most for job interviews and work in the working world of computer science.

One of the most valuable experiences that I have in my life is being a Fulbright scholar. Before winning this scholarship, I was an employee at BPS-Statistics Indonesia . I started working there right after I received my B.S. in Computational Statistics from Institute of Statistics in Jakarta, Indonesia. I worked for 3 years when suddenly I felt like I was stuck in a comfort zone.  Science and knowledge, especially those related to technology, are growing very rapidly. There is a lo@WebSciDLt of new information out there, which I could not get if I did not get out of my office building. I need to upgrade my education for a better career in the future. I started applying for many scholarships to study abroad, got many rejections before finally I was invited to an interview for Fulbright. After a very long selection process (it took almost a year since I submitted my application), I was fortunate enough to have a Fulbright scholarship. Now, I am pursuing an M.S. in Computer

On June 16, 2016, the Library of Congress hosted a one day Symposium entitled  Saving the Web: The Ethics and Challenges of Preserving What's on the Internet . The Symposium came at the end of the  Archives Unleashed  2.0 Web Archive Datathon. The Datathon itself is covered in an earlier report . In addition to presenting the results of datathon projects, the wide variety of speakers at the symposium defended the need for preservation, discussed the special issues associated with preservation of data, and finally highlighted the importance and concepts surrounding the preservation of multimedia. Keynote by Vint Cerf The symposium opened with Dame Wendy Hall , Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and Kluge Chair in Science and Technology at the Library of Congress . She mentioned that the Internet has only been available for a few decades and we need to preserve its openness and freedom, because that openness and freedom are always in peril.  She u