About



The World Wide Web has brought a revolution into our society allowing anyone to have ‎access to an enormous amount of information and services available on the network ‎through simple interfaces.‎

The WAFI research group studies the web evolution and its technologies in all its forms:
‎guidelines, recommendations, software and tools.

Emphasis is on the application component of ‎the research, which aims to:
investigate problems, identify the best technological solutions, ‎design and develop software tools and user interfaces easy to use for everyone.‎

The WAFI group research interests include the construction and display of Linked ‎Data resources, the conservation and promotion of the cultural heritage, the statistical analysis and the trends on the social networks, the ‎techniques of extraction, manipulation and visualization of big data, ‎‎and eGovernment services with special attention to the aspects of QoS and ‎interoperability, the development of interfaces and applications to promote social inclusion and ‎‎accessibility for users with disabilities.‎

Research


Web of ‎‎Data

Research activity on linked data and open big data. Linked data defines the presenting, sharing, ‎and connecting of data, information and knowledge on the ‎Semantic Web.‎ Open big data is a set of data too large and complex to ‎be processed ‎with traditional data processing technics.‎

Accessibility and Usability

User interfaces allow us to interact with the web and access the information that it contains. Therefore, accessibility ‎(ability to access) and usability (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of the interaction) are crucial aspects in allowing universal access, including people with disabilities. Our research focuses on how to improve the user interaction with mobile and web interfaces, also designing and developing new accessible tools.

Social Media Analysis

We focus on the research and the implementation of software for data harvesting from social media and the analysis and visualization of these data. In particular, we study algorithms for the automatic detection of emerging issues, ‎the identification and extraction of significant increases of some parameters within the time ‎sequence observed.‎

Digital ‎Humanities

Digital Humanities is a field of research, teaching and creation joining computer sciences and ‎the humanities. It embraces a variety of topics, from the care of on-line collections to ‎the data mining of large cultural data sets. It currently includes material both ‎digitized and created in digital form, combining the methodologies of traditional humanities with tools provided by informatics and digital publishing.‎

Information Visualization

We focus on the studies of the visual representation of abstract data ‎and the production of designs and implementations of the so-called visualizations, artifacts ‎that acting as a visual cognitive ‎support, help humans to make decisions, learn and communicate.

Multilingual ‎Web

This research activity operates for the realization of web technologies, best practices ‎and implementation of tools to overcome the linguistic and cultural barrier experienced by users who are not English speakers‎.‎

‎‎E-Government Services

We work on the use of digital services provided by the government, with the aim of improving administrative procedures and enhancing governmental relationships with organizations, businesses and citizens.

W3C Activity

The World Wide Web Consortium W3C (W3C-IT)‎ develops and promotes ‎technologies for the best interoperability in the World Wide Web, acting as a forum for information, communications and activities. The WAFI group contributes to the W3C Italian office activities.

Education

The WAFI group teaches courses in the University of Pisa,
hosts students for stages and ‎supervises graduation thesis and PhD thesis.‎

Web Programming Lab

Web Tecnhologies Course at the university of Pisa

Visual Analytics Course

Visual Analytics Course at the University of Pisa

Team

Our team currently consists of over 20 people with different backgrounds (degrees in ‎Information Engineering, Information Sciences, Bioinformatics, Digital Humanities), with skills in research areas ‎like open source intelligence (OSINT), construction and visualization of Linked Data, promotion ‎of cultural heritage through the web, analysis of social media, techniques of extraction, ‎manipulation and visualization of big data, improvement to eGovernment services for better ‎QoS and interoperability, development of interfaces and applications allowing greater ‎accessibility for users with disabilities.‎