The Web was originally invented with the physics community in mind, but rapidly expanded to include other scientific disciplines, in particular the health care and life sciences. By the mid 1990s the Web was already being used to share data by biomedical professionals and bioinformaticians. The Web continues to be immensely important to these fields, however use cases have expanded considerably. Researchers are now looking to share extremely large data sets on the Web, extract insights from vast numbers of papers cross sub-disciplines, and use social networking tools to identify potential collaborators, aggregate data and engage in scientific discussion. Furthermore, individuals are beginning to store their medical records online, and some are sharing their genetic makeup in a bid to find others with a similar profile. These use cases are pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible with the Web. This workshop will present how scientists are currently using the Web, and discuss the functionality that is required to make the Web an ideal platform for both cutting edge scientific collaboration and for managing health care and life science related data.
