WWW, ISWC and WebDB are the top Web conferences based on Microsoft Academic Search citation data.

Last week HCI researcher Antti Oulasvirta has an interesting post on ranking HCI conferences using the average citations per paper based on data from Microsoft Academic Search (MAS). Some of the results surprised him, including that the venerable CHI was not the top conference in this group. His ranking metric for conference significance is essentially the impact factor used for journals, a measure of the average number of citations a paper in a given journal receives in a time period. The IF metric has become widely used in the scholarly journal publication industry since it was defined by Eugene Garfield and first implemented by the company he founded, the Institute for Scientific Information.

Microsoft Academic Search provides citation and publication numbers for conferences in sixteen different subjects domains and a number of sub-domains for each. For computer science, there are 24 sub-domains including one for “World Wide Web” conferences. Following Oulasvirta, we ranked Web technology conferences using the average number of citations received in the last ten years. Starting with 68 Web technology conferences in the MAS collection (not a complete list, btw), I narrowed the set to those that had at least 100 papers in the past ten years and some papers in the past five. This resulted in 26 conferences, eliminating many series that only ran a few times or have stopped. Here are the results.

The results should only be taken as a rough estimate of conference impact. One reason is that IF is only a measure and does not take into account all aspects of scientific importance. For example, as computed here, all citations count equally, including those from high- and low-ranking sources. Another is that while Thompson-Reuters (nee ISI) journal citation data is carefully collected and curated, the Microsoft Academic Search data is the result of a largely automated process that starts with data from Bing. When I tried using the citation information from the past five years, for example, I noted that it reported 23 papers in the past five years for Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems. This is because the conference merged with User Modeling in 2009 to become User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization. Yet another shortcoming is that the MAS list of Web conferences in not complete, for example, omitting the popular ESWC, which has been running since 2004.

The original excel spreadsheet (with full conference names hidden in column B) and a PDF version are available.

Stanford is experimenting with an interesting idea — offering some of their most popular undergraduate computer science courses online for free and simultaneously with their regular offerings. An AI course was announced several weeks ago and now there are similar offerings for databases and machine learning. These are taught by first rate instructors (who are also top researchers!) and are the same courses that Stanford students take.

• “A bold experiment in distributed education, “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” will be offered free and online to students worldwide during the fall of 2011. The course will include feedback on progress and a statement of accomplishment. Taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, the curriculum draws from that used in Stanford’s introductory Artificial Intelligence course. The instructors will offer similar materials, assignments, and exams.”
• “A bold experiment in distributed education, “Introduction to Databases” will be offered free and online to students worldwide during the fall of 2011. Students will have access to lecture videos, receive regular feedback on progress, and receive answers to questions. When you successfully complete this class, you will also receive a statement of accomplishment. Taught by Professor Jennifer Widom, the curriculum draws from Stanford’s popular Introduction to Databases course.”
• “A bold experiment in distributed education, “Machine Learning” will be offered free and online to students worldwide during the fall of 2011. Students will have access to lecture videos, lecture notes, receive regular feedback on progress, and receive answers to questions. When you successfully complete the class, you will also receive a statement of accomplishment. Taught by Professor Andrew Ng, the curriculum draws from Stanford’s popular Machine Learning course.”

If successful, this might be a game changer. Two weeks after the online AI course was announced, 56,000 students had signed up! The approach might work for many disciplines, not just CS. The Kahn Academy is a related effort.

Universities should keep an eye on them and think about how to adapt if they are successful. Most of our students will probably benefit from taking our traditional courses. If so, we should be able to explain the benefits from taking them (and make sure we deliver those benefits). At the same time, we may want to leverage the online material from these courses in a synergistic way.

There has been an ongoing discussion on the publication culture with the computer science research community in CACM, carried out through a series of editorials, opinion pieces, articles and letters. It covers the usual topics — the best role of workshops, conferences and journals, reviewer responsibility, the effect of deadlines on publications, etc. All important issues.

Jonathan Grudin has an opinion piece in the current (Feb) CACM

Technology, conferences, and community. J. Grudin, 2011. Comm. of the ACM, 54, 2, 41-43.

He has also made available a list of the 16 recent CACM articles (with links) on the topic. It’s a list of papers worth reading.

Charles Croom, of Lockheed Martin will talk about "The State of Cyber Security 2011" at the UMBC Visionaries in IT Forum at 8:00am on Wednesday, February 23rd at the BWI Airport Marriott. The event is free but registration requested.

Croom joined Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions as Vice President of Cyber Security Solutions in October of 2008. In this capacity, he shapes the corporation’s cyber security strategy with insight from his 35 years of distinguished service, leadership, and technology experience from the U.S. Air Force. He co-chaired a National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee Task Force on “Strengthening Government and Private Sector Collaboration” which issued a May 2009 report recommending that the President direct the establishment of a Joint Coordinating Center. He currently serves on the Boards of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Internet Security Alliance (ISA).

Croom retired as a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General, Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the Commander of the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations in September 2008. While at DISA, he led a worldwide organization of more than 6,600 military and civilian personnel to serve the information technology and telecommunications needs of the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, and other Department of Defense stakeholders.

The North American electric power system has been called the world’s largest interconnected machine and is a key part of our national infrastructure. The power grid is evolving to better exploit modern information technology and become more integrated with our cyber infrastructure. This presents unprecedented opportunities for enhanced management and efficiency but also introduces vulnerabilities for intrusions, cascading disruptions, malicious attacks, inappropriate manipulations and other threats. Similar issues are foreseen for other cyber-physical infrastructure systems including industrial control systems, transportation, water, natural gas and waste disposal.

A one-day Smart Grid Cyber Security Conference will be held at UMBC on February 15, hosted by the UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department and Maryland Clean Energy Technology Incubator. The conference will be a comprehensive presentation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology regarding an Inter-agency Report 7628 (NISTIR 7628) named Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security which is a critically important document for guiding government, regulatory organizations, industry and academia on Smart Grid cybersecurity. This regional outreach conference is valuable to any organization that is planning, integrating, executing or developing cyber technology for the Smart Grid.

The conference is free, but participants are asked to register in advance to help us organize for the correct number of participants.

A full copy of the 600 page report is available here.

The DoD-sponsored JASON study group was asked to consider the question of whether there is a ‘science’ to cyber-security or if it is fundamentally empirical. They released an 88-page report last month, Science of Cyber-Security with the following abstract:

“JASON was requested by the DoD to examine the theory and practice of cyber-security, and evaluate whether there are underlying fundamental principles that would make it possible to adopt a more scientific approach, identify what is needed in creating a science of cyber-security, and recommend specific ways in which scientific methods can be applied. Our study identified several sub-?elds of computer science that are specifically relevant and also provides some recommendations on further developing the science of cyber-security.”

The report discusses to general technical approaches to putting cyber-security on a scientific foundation. The first is based on the standard collection of frameworks and tools grounded in logic and mathematics such as cryptography, game theory, model checking and software verification. The second is grounding cyber-security on a model based on an analog to immunology in biological systems.

It concludes with some observations, recommendations and responses to nine questions that were included in their charge. One interesting observation is that cyber-security, unlike the physical sciences, involves adversaries, so its foundation will use many different tools and methods. A recommendation is that the government establish cyber-security research centers in universities and other research organizations with a “long time horizon and periodic reviews of accomplishments”.

Dot Diva is a Web site designed to “create an exciting and positive image of computing for high school girls”. It’s a effort of the ‘New Image of Computing’ project sponsored by NSF, ACM and others. One of the project’s advisors is UMBC’s own Marie desJardins.

The project is trying to raise interest in computing majors and careers among high school students and undergraduates. One of the project themes is that studying computing doesn’t mean you have to abandon your other deep interests. You can use a strong computing background to further music, psychology, biology, medicine, linguistics, journalism or almost any pursuit.

It’s a good message that can help attract people to the computing fields.

The Tech Council of Maryland is the state’s largest technology trade association and has more than 500 members. It is sponsoring a series of meetings on cyber security:

“Understanding that the conversation about cyber security needs to continue among all stakeholders, the Tech Council of Maryland is moving its CyberMaryland Forum throughout the state. The Forum is open to anyone with an interest in the cyber security industry.”

The next CyberMaryland Form meeting will be held this coming Wednesday morning at UMBC:

“The next meeting of the CyberMaryland Forum will be held on Wednesday December 8, 2010 from 8:30 to 11:30 am at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Our content will cover the latest developments in the state’s initiative to be the “Epicenter for Information Security and Innovation”, the development of the UMBC/Northrop Grumman Cyber Incubator program to help grow fledgling cyber security companies and other hot topics in the cyber security industry. To learn more about the CyberMaryland Forum, contact Mark Glazer at 240-243-4045 or mglazer@techcouncilmd.com.

The Tech council encourages UMBC faculty, staff and students to participate and is waiving the registration fee for the UMBC community. The meeting will be held in the main conference room at UMBC’s South Campus Technology Center at 1450 South Rolling Road.

I always think of things I should have added in the hour after making a post. Sigh. Here goes…

The situation is perhaps not so different from mailing lists, Google groups or any number of similar systems. I can set up one of those and add people to them without their consent — even people who are are not my friends. Even people whom I don’t know and who don’t know me. Such email-oriented lists can also have public membership lists. The only check on this is that most mailing lists frameworks send a notice to people being added informing them of the action. But many frameworks allow the list owner to suppress such notifications.

But still, Facebook seems different, based on the how the rest of it is configured and on how people use it. I believe that a common expectation would be that if you are listed as a member of an open or private group, that you are a willing member.

When you get a notification that you are now a member of the Facebook group Crazy people who smell bad, you can leave the group immediately. llBut we have Facebook friends, many of them in fact, who only check in once a month or even less frequently. Notifications of their being added to a group will probably be missed.

Facebook should fix this by requiring that anyone added to a group confirm that they want to be in the group before they become members. After fixing it, there’s lots more that can be done to make Facebook groups a powerful way for assured information sharing.

Facebook has rolled out a new version of groups announced on the Facebook blog.

“Until now, Facebook has made it easy to share with all of your friends or with everyone, but there hasn’t been a simple way to create and maintain a space for sharing with the small communities of people in your life, like your roommates, classmates, co-workers and family.
…
Today we’re announcing a completely overhauled, brand new version of Groups. It’s a simple way to stay up to date with small groups of your friends and to share things with only them in a private space. The default setting is Closed, which means only members see what’s going on in a group.”

There are three kinds of groups: open, closed and secret. Open groups have public membership listings and public content. Private ones have public membership but public but private content. For secret groups, both the membership and content are private.

A key part of the idea is that the group members collectively define who is in the group, spreading the work of setting up and maintaining the group over many people.

But a serious issue with the new Facebook group framework is that a member can unilaterally add any of their friends to a group. No confirmation is required by the person being added. This was raised as an issue by Jason Calacanis.

The constraint that one can only add Facebook friend to a group he belongs to does offer some protection against ending up in unwanted groups (e.g., by spammers). But it could still lead to problems. I could, for example, create a closed group named Crazy people who smell bad and add all of my friends without their consent. Since the group is not secret like this one, anyone can see who is in the group. Worse yet, I could then leave the group. (By the way, let me know if you want to join any of these groups).

While this might just be an annoying prank, it could spin out of control — what might happen if one of your so called friends adds you to the new, closed “Al-Queda lovers” group?

The good news is that this should be easy to fix. After all, Facebook does require confirmation for the friend relation and has a mechanism for recommending that friends like pages or try apps. Either mechanism would work for inviting others to join groups.

We have started working with a new group-centric secure information sharing model being developed by Ravi Sandhu and others as a foundation for better access and privacy contols in social media systems. It seems like a great match.

See update.