Although the current search engines are very useful, we all know that they also have many limitations. What would the next-generation web search engines be like? Are they going to be centralized (like Google) or more decentralized such as of a peer-2-peer architecture? Will personalized search fly? Will "semantic web" work? There are many questions that nobody knows the answers to and that can be debated on.
The panelists on this panel will present their opinions about the limitations of the current search engines and what new feature/function the next-generation search engines will likely have to overcome the limitations. Each panelist will prepare in advance a 5-minute presentation, which will include (1) identifying at least one major limitation of the existing search engines; explain why this is a limitation. (2) proposing at least one *possible* idea to overcome this limitation; elaborate the idea with some detail; (3) stating what research topic you would fund if you were to spend $10M to fund research on web search engines.
People form communities. E.g., the people in the Department of Computer Science at UIUC form a community. People in a community exchange all kinds of information, and information goes through a "life cycle" consisting of "creation", "storage", "transformation", "transportation", and "consumption". So far, the two most useful ways of exchanging information are through web and email. However, the existing model of web publishing/searching and email inside an organization is essentially the same as outside the organization. How can we exploit the fact that the people involved are within an organization to provide better support for the *complete* life cycle of information? Can we have an integrated tool to support a user to publish information and consume information? How can we go beyond information access to support user tasks? For example, how can we better support people in writing a research paper? How can we improve the web site of an organization for outsiders? How can we improve the website of an organization for insiders?
The panelists on this panel will present their opinions about how we can provide better community information service, broadly including any support for information creation, storage, transformation, transportation, and consumption. Each panelist will prepare in advance a 5-minute presentation, which will include (1) observing one special characteristic of information access/consumption in a community, including things that can be done inside a community to serve people inside or outside the community; (2) proposing at least one idea to exploit such community characteristics to improve community information service for people inside/outside the community; (3) stating what research topic you would fund if you were to spend $10M to fund research on community information service.