The Web has become such a force in commerce and culture that a group
of leading university researchers now deems it worthy of its own field
of study.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of
Southampton, in Britain, are starting a joint research program in Web
science. The MIT-Southampton partnership, the researchers emphasized, is
intended as a catalyst for Web science research at universities
worldwide.

Students of the future will no longer need to persue a Computer Science degree with an emphasis in Internet, but can earn a true Web Science degree, which "[goes] beyond algorithms and understand[s] the social dynamics of issues like
trust, responsibility, empathy and privacy in this vast networked space [of the internet]."

By Steve Lohr, The New York Times
/ Published: November 2, 2006

Check out the Publications and Events on the Web Science website for further information:  http://www.webscience.org/