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.

Hello Everyone,

UMBC CyberSecurity Professionals

I am currently forming study groups for:  

- Chem101, Math106 Math150, Math151 & ENES 101 

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In Dr Suess’ cartoon “Horton Hears a Who” the kindly elephant Horton is known for saying:

“a person’s a person,no matter how small“

Now there are some in America that want to make that cartoon quote a law

A so-called “Personhood Amendment” was a recent ballot initiative that would have amended Mississippi’s state constitution to declare that personhood begins at fertilization.

This measure would – as proponents intended – cause legal conflict with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that protected a woman’s right to reproductive choice.

However, concerns were also raised about what a personhood amendment would mean for certain kinds of birth control, for women who have miscarriages, and for in-vitro fertilization.

Apparently these concerns resonated with Mississippi voters who rejected the ballot initiative by over 55 percent.  However, the personhood movement is still alive and spreading.

Virginia: Introduced on November 21st by state Republican Delegate Robert Marshall.  Attempts to include language that protects “a woman for indirectly harming her unborn child” and fertility treatments.  As Colorlines eloquently puts it, “Phew. That’s a relief. Not.”

Georgia: State Democrat Delegate Rick Crawford and Georgia Right To Life President Dan Becker are working on the language of a Georgia personhood bill that would avoid the vagueness that they think was the downfall of Mississippi’s attempt (you know, ignoring the fact that perhaps voters just didn’t think constitutionally prioritizing a bundle of cells over a woman’s life was the smartest move).  As reported by the Huffington Post,

Becker said Georgia’s latest version of personhood would only ban the methods of birth control, stem cell research and in vitro fertilization that would kill a zygote.

As if the use of the word zygote wasn’t hint enough…

Wisconsin: Republican state legislators are attempting to amend the state constitution to protect all the zygotes by changing the clause stating that “all people are born equally free and independent” to “all people are equally free and independent.”  That whole birthing thing is really just a technicality.

Colorado: Personhood USA has filed to amend include that the right to life ““applies equally to all innocent persons” and “the intentional killing of any innocent person is prohibited.”  The organization says that this amendment clarifies any confusion about their intentions.  Obviously they intend to prohibit abortion and legalize revenge killings.  Duh.

At least 8 other states have introduced similar propositions and 3 bill have been introduced in Congress.  The political fad of 2012 seems like it might be personhood.  Let’s hope voters across the country have the same sense as those of Mississippi.

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