Home / IB DP Computer Science Option C: Web science -: C.5 – Analysing the web HL Paper 2

IB DP Computer Science Option C: Web science -: C.5 – Analysing the web HL Paper 2

Questionhl

The World Wide Web can be represented as a web graph.
The World Wide Web has expanded significantly over the last 10 years. In June 2018 , there were an estimated 1600 million websites and 4100 million users. This is approximately twice the figures of January 2014.
The World Wide Web can be divided into the text web and the semantic web.
The development of technologies that underpin the World Wide Web has led to the growth of ambient intelligence and collective intelligence.
a. Describe how a web graph can be used to represent the connectivity of the World Wide Web.$[4]$
b. Explain why a user can still navigate from one web page to another web page in the same amount of time as previously, even though the number [4] of web pages is significantly larger.
c. Outline two reasons why there needs to be a balance between expressivity and usability on the semantic web.$[4]$
d. Identify two features of ambient intelligence.[2]
e. Evaluate the role of collective intelligence in the advancement of human knowledge.[6]

▶️Answer/Explanation

Ans:

a. )
In graph theory, a graph is a set of nodes (also called vertices) that can be connected through edges;
In a web graph each web page is represented by a vertex;
In a web graph each hyperlink is represented by a directed edge;
Therefore, the web graph provides a representation / model of the connectivity of the World Wide Web;
The direction of the edge is from the page with the hyperlink to the page that is the target of the hyperlink;
b. )
Although the growth in the number of web-pages on the World Wide Web has increased exponentially, the diameter of the World Wide Web increases linearly;
The increase in routing hubs may lead to a more efficient routing algorithm being used;
And in combination with the increasing speed of web-pages loading;
Means that despite the significant increase in the number of web-pages, despite there being an increase in the number of hops required to navigate from one web-page, there may be no discernable increase in time for this process to occur;
c. )
The semantic web is based on data and enables computer systems to understand the meaning of information and its relation to other pieces of information;

this increased usability is dependent on the ability of the different computers to process the intended meaning of content better; however, giving information more expressive power may come at an expense of usability; for example, a language such as RDF can be highly expressive power, but requires the user to specify relations of information to other information; in some cases, it may be beneficial to create shared databases (i.e. increase the usability); but, there may be other cases where the increased expressivity leads to a decrease in usability;

d. )

embedded, devices are integrated into their environment; context aware, these technologies can adapt to the needs of the user; machine learning, these technologies can learn from previous behaviors;

e. )
Collective intelligence is the intellectual by product of a group of people working together;
This ability to harness the benefits of collective intelligence have been made possible by the development of the internet;
Collective intelligence can be used for a variety of purposes, for example linked to social media (Facebook and Twitter), gaming sites (Online Multiplayer games), Scientific research (Large hadron Collider and Wikipedia;
Collective intelligence benefits from the open sharing of resources and may allow for a more rapid evolution of ideas than ‘traditional’ methods; Collective intelligence may not have a central authority, so the user created information may be considered to be factual when it is not; Collective intelligence may lead to a disruption in the way that knowledge is stored or classified, i.e. the development of folksonomies in place of ontologies;

The lack of a formal organizational structure may lead to the acquisition of the collective intelligence being potentially piecemeal or haphazard; There may be no owner of this additional knowledge, so it may not be stored or maintained in the most efficient manner;

Question 

An international organization, OBI, has three offices in Europe, see Figure 7

                                 

[Source: adapted (recoloured, cropped and annotated) Europe Map by Erin Dill 0, www.freevector.com.
Under copyright and CC 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)]

Office $A$ and Office B report to Office $C$, the head office.
Office A and Office B collaborate on many projects. Office $C$ is not involved in the collaboration between Office A and Office B.

OBI has projects that involve large numbers of contributors from all over the world. These projects are managed by OBI staff in Office A.
The contributors often include non-text based information.
a. Draw a directed graph based on the scenario. [2]
b. Describe the role of graph theory in determining the connectivity of the World Wide Web.[3]
c. Outline two issues that may arise from using a non-text based search.[4]
d. $O B I$ has decided to gather information for one project by utilizing collective intelligence. [5]
Evaluate this decision.

▶️Answer/Explanation

Ans:

a.)
Award [1] for bi-directional arrow between A & B.
Award [1] for uni-directional arrow between A & C as well as B & C.


b.)

Connectivity is a basic concept in Graph Theory. Graph theory can be used to model or analyse the nature of the connectivity on a selected area, the web;
In World Wide Web, each web page is represented by vertex/node;
The hyper links between web pages are represented by edges/lines in the graph;
Arrows would indicate the direction of the hyperlinks (1-way / 2-way);
In Graph Theory, a graph is said to be connected if there is a path between every pair of vertex. From every vertex to any other vertex, there should be some path to traverse. That is called the connectivity of a graph;
Similar concept is used in connectivity of World Wide Web, where each vertex representing a type of web page is connected to any other vertex representing other kind of web pages;

c.)
Multimedia are assigned meta-tags;
If the appropriate tag is not assigned, the media will not appear in the search;

Searched by image similarity;
Google search the web using the image inputted by the user;

Non-text based searches are more difficult;
Because there a no specific content to search for;

Fewer search engines support multimedia searches;
Therefore the search engine may not be as efficient;
d.)
Advantages of using collective intelligence [2 max]
Collective intelligence costs significantly less per unit / pro rata than hiring a professional;
A single task is being worked on simultaneously by numerous individuals so it can be completed much more rapidly than using a single person;
It allows access (maybe part time or at very short notice) to a large number of contributors for specific events or tasks;

Disadvantages of using collective intelligence [2 max]
It may be hard to ensure sufficient quality control occurs as collective intelligence is a very deregulated environment;
It may be hard to verify the originality of the work, or which work was originally completed by who;
There may be many ideas, but it may be difficult evaluate each idea thoroughly as there may be a lack of centralised planning and/or a lack of a clearly defined hierarchy;

Conclusions [1 max]
Collective intelligence can help organizations in solving a problem in certain contexts;
These may include where there is a need to provide information quickly such as a health related requirement, or where the final information is not critical to the wellbeing of others, for example a site such as Wikipedia;

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