A review of the PhD Symposium at #WebSci20 by Alison Tebbutt

The WebSci’20 PhD Symposium showcased a selection of the wide ranging Web Science topics that PhD students are currently researching.

Allison Noble focused on the role of music recommender systems, the challenges of defining genre and the implications for music creators and users.

Kholoud Al Ghamdi followed with her work devising a recommendation model for Wikidata, aimed at supporting both novice and experienced editors.

The political engagement of EU migrants will be explored by Michele Zadra in his proposed analysis of e-democracy initiatives undertaken by local Councils in England.

A novel approach using NLP to analyse narratives of cultural violence was the topic of Stephen Anning’s research, which aimed to propose a pipeline for measuring and detecting conflict and online abuse.

Raksha Pavagada Subbanarasimha’s computational model for online social discourse identified the role of latent narratives and discourse drivers as key elements in understanding how shared world views develop among social media users.

Co-chairs Hermant Purhit and Mark Weal and a panel of mentors provided feedback on individual presentations and a lively open discussion about the perils, pitfalls and pleasures of interdisciplinary doctoral research with presenters and audience.

Mon 6 July  14.00 – 18.00