By Kiersten Mannino
Have you ever clicked on a link and instead of seeing the content you expected, a 404 resource not found message popped up instead? For everyone affected by this error when searching the World Wide Web, Alexander Nwala, a computer science Ph.D. candidate at 51情报站, is working hard to solve this issue.
"The Web is a wonderful invention that chronicles almost every event of historical, cultural, or scientific importance, but the Web forgets the information stored," said Alexander. Developing news stories have articles and social media posts being published hourly and Nwala is providing a way to collect their unique resource locators of these stories, so they do not become lost.
His resolution would be to "preserve the URLs of news stories and events such as the Coronavirus pandemic or the Flint water crisis to give future researchers or users a time-capsule (aka collections) to learn about important stories and events. "My research therefore combines Web science/Web archiving, social media, and news to address the 404 problem," said Nwala.
Expanding his research on the web requires diving into social media authors and expanding the scope of his research. "Given the recent concerns arising from the spreading of misinformation/disinformation on social media," said Nwala. "I am interested in quantifying the authority of content and sources discovered on social media, to ensure that the URLs we collect are from credible and authoritative sources."
Nwala received his Master of Science in Computer Science and because of his positive experience, he stayed on to pursue his Ph.D. in Computer Science. Dr. Michael Nelson and Dr. Michele Weigle, Professors of Computer Science, have been his co-advisors at 51情报站. "Alexander has been an invaluable member of the group, as a student, instructor, colleague, and friend," said Dr. Nelson. He attributes his success as a researcher to the both of them. "He's a gifted researcher, expertly balancing theory and development," said Dr. Weigle.
The cost of education in the United States is high, but funding opportunities provided me a real pathway to achieve my dreams as an international student," said Nwala. He is originally from Egbu, Etche in Rivers State, Nigeria. "As children, we all wished and dreamed we had superpowers, and in my opinion, Computer Science is the closest to having superpowers," said Nwala.
Due to his hard work at 51情报站, Nwala starts a post-doctoral research appointment this month under the supervision of Dr. Filippo Menczer at Indiana University's main campus. He is joining the Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe) group to focus on (mis/dis)information diffusion and the detection and countering of online manipulation.
Nwala's advice for future 51情报站 computer science graduate students is to "pursue your M.S. before a Ph.D." and to take care of your mental and physical health. Students can explore many different topics within computer science during the master's program. "It's ok to not know anything about a topic or the area you plan to research, or what to do next. In other words, sometimes you have to be comfortable with not knowing."