Social Computing： Fundamentals and applic.pdfVIP

IEEE ISI 2008 Invited Talk (IV) Social Computing: Fundamentals and Applications Dr. Fei-Yue Wang Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Arizona (Extended Abstract) From ancient abacuses to modern computers, our desire for more power in computing and drive for its deep application seem endless. First we saw the emergence of scientific computing after ENIAC six decades ago, and then the tide of bio- and medical informatics in 1980s. Today, the wave of virtual worlds and the real force inside the Web have pushed us beyond the physical space to a new direction in computing: Social Computing. I. WHAT IS SOCIAL COMPUTING? What is social computing? In a sense, it is a new field with a long history. As shown in Figure 1, there have been two schools of thoughts in this area. The first one takes an information-technology centric approach, considers basically social computing as social software, and focuses at applying the knowledge from social studies to design and improve the efficiency and performance of software such as email, Internet, and other computer-supported collaborative works (CSCW). This is still the mainstream of social computing and its origin can be traced back to the beginning of modern computing, from Vannevar Bush’s Memex in his landmark paper “As We May Think ”, Douglas Engelbart’s NLS (oNLine System) and his vision in his bible “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework” that “integrate psychology and organizational development with all of these advances in computing technology”, to J.C.R. Licklider’s Man-Computer Symbiosis where computers were emphasized as devices of communication, not machines