UF Prospectus 8 Concluding remarks

Half a century ago the digital computer appeared on the market and computer science was developed to create the experts and the expertise that was needed for programming and using this new medium.

The Web now requires an analogous yet different development.

The Web too can be 'programmed' because it involves programmable machines and intelligent human actors. And yet this 'programming' is different, because the Web is a lot more than a single computer. The Web invites us to 'program' on the scale of the Web. The corresponding 'instructions' involve both people acts and machine acts. And the corresponding 'programs' can be large societal processes. An example of such 'program' we have seen in this article is a new way of creating and communicating knowledge within a community.

Since this new 'programming' involves a plethora of questions, some of which are technical and some of which are not, it should not be done by engineers alone. A collaboration of a variety of experts is required, and the results must be exposed to carefully implemented democratic checks and balances. We propose knowledge federation as a form of organization that is suitable for this new type of 'programming.'

The global issues give the task of re-creating some of our key societal processes a sense of urgency.

We have introduced the knowledge federation as a form of social organization of knowledge creation and communication, and as a project whose task is to develop this manner of working. As we have just seen, by working on this task, we shall also develop new ways of working together that are suitable for Web research and development.

Back to article main page