Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Student Exchange Program Held
From GSST
A delegation of five graduate students of computer science at the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University (GSST) recently participated in the 2012 Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Student Exchange Program and had a two-week study tour in the University of Southampton, UK. The trip was a follow-up and return visit of the exchange program between the two universities starting 2011, when nine students from the University of Southampton visited GSST last November.
Welcome meeting in Southampton
Coordinated by the Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Lab at Shenzhen (http://weblab.sz.tsinghua.edu.cn ), the exchange program aims to serve as a platform for young researchers of both universities to exchange ideas on web techniques, analyzing tools and issues in the cutting-edge field of web science. A joint project “World-Impression: How Young Netizens View the World?” is specially designed for the program. In the project, Tsinghua and Southampton students worked together on web data collection, visualization and interpretation, and achieved rewarding results. Through the program, the students obtained opportunities to communicate with overseas peers, broadened their international horizons and experienced different culture and education system.
Instructed by Dr. Lei Zhang from Tsinghua, Dr. Thanassis Tiropanis and Dr. Les Carr from Southampton, students continued the joint project during their stay in UK. They proposed new data collection methods and include more extensive data source including Twitter and Weibo. More impressive visualization tools were employed to provide better summarizations and illustrations of netizens’ world view.
As part of the student exchange program, the delegation also visited Oxford Internet Institute, a research entity of Oxford University. Ideas were exchanged to further investigate the impact of the project and to promote collaborations among Tsinghua, Southampton, and Oxford in related research area.
Wendy Hall, DBE, FRS, FREng, professor of computer science and Dean of the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, and Prof. Nigel Shadbolt, FBCS, FREng, deputy head and professor of School of Computer Science joined the discussions of the students and pointed out the future direction for Web Science research collaboration between UK and China.
The close partnership between the Graduate School at Shenzhen and University of Southampton started in 2008 when the two institutions jointly set up Tsinghua-Southampton Web Science Laboratory in Shenzhen (WSL). As the only unit in Asia, WSL became a member in Web Science Trust (WSTNet) in 2010. Working with the members that feature Decentralized Information Group (DIG) at MIT and Oxford Internet Institute in the organization, WSL has joined and supported a series of joint research programs, events, and collaborations to foster development of Web Science in China and the globe. After the success of student exchange programs and bridged by WSL, the two universities will continue to arrange annual student exchange programs in the coming years, and also discuss to promote enrollment of overseas students at GSST through WSTNet networking and broaden the scope of collaboration.
