The Encyclopedia of the States strives to be an authoritative digital resource of current
and accurate geographically based information about the United States for the general
public. As an effective and practical source of statistical, cultural, and historical
knowledge, the Encyclopedia will:
In this way, the Encyclopedia of the States will be a valued, often utilized and trusted
reference tool.
INTRODUCTION
Our method of creating the design document for the Encyclopedia of the States (EotS)
has led us to parcel up this draft into four sections: the mission statement (above),
encyclopedic issues, technological and interface issues, and business and
management issues. This division conceptually reflects our creative process in putting this
project together.
ENCYCLOPEDIC ISSUES: AUTHORITY/AUDIENCE/SCOPE
We, as the editorial board for the Encyclopedia of the States, make our decisions by committee and believe our group to hold its own definitive authority. Ultimately, we shall ensure the creation of an authoritative source by being a group of six educated, open-minded and able individuals from varying backgrounds. The editorial board of EotS' commitment to truthfulness motivates us to include as many points of view that can fit within the scope of our project. We want to be mindful of the diverse attitudes and assumptions held by our potential audience. We also want to include facts and points of interest that will reflect the interests of a diverse audience. Our editorial board will also work to keep our encyclopedia free of content that is overtly offensive to particular groups of people. While the above will always remain goals for us, we do acknowledge the exclusion of some points of view. In this vein we will remain receptive to criticism on the basis of authority and other aspects of our project. One of the advantages of using this format for our encyclopedia is that we will be able to revise and expand daily. We will use this advantage to consider our users and their needs.
Our target audience is the "average user," by which we mean that we want to design an encyclopedia that will appeal to the bulk of adult users. In order to appeal to the broadest base possible, we will maintain an eighth grade reading level, thereby remaining accessible to older children as well. Similarly, we want to design an interface that will be accessible to users with minimal computer skills, while including enough bells and whistles to appeal to the more savvy web crawler.
An overriding principle of our encyclopedia is that the content we select and let our users manipulate must be useful to them. This encyclopedia is a source of information about individual states and cities contained therein. The purpose is to provide access to information that is needed by someone for some purpose. We see the EotS as an excellent opportunity to depict the areas of our country in their full cultural complexity, rather than merely portraying the dominant or high-profile aspects. We will provide brief information (including population, state agencies and political offices, and identifying features such as state birds, flowers, etc.) on each state. We will then delve into more complete descriptions on individual cities within each state. These city descriptions will reflect a sampling of life within a particular state. To this end we will include census data, historical and cultural facts, maps, weather and fun facts about each city we examine. For each state we will include at least four cities, most likely the two largest, the state capitol, and one included for historical or cultural value. These are minimum guidelines which we reserve the right to deviate if warranted by state size or significance.
One of our core principles lies in the idea that we can create a more authoritative geographical source than already exists on the WWW by exercising creative control over what we present. We therefore plan to be a self-contained resource with no use of links to outside sites on the WWW which we cannot control the exception being references to URLS in a bibliographic list. At any given moment, some sites on the Web are changing their URLs, closing down, or moving to a new host. With such rapid change we do not want to devote too much time to the task of maintaining links. Our purpose here is to provide content.
It is clear that the task of researching and writing about the historical, cultural, societal
and other aspects of the different areas we plan to cover would require a Herculean effort
for the six members of our editorial board. We therefore will create a staff devoted to the
principles and beliefs of the Ann Arbor 6. The immense span of information we intend to
include requires the employment, temporary or long term, of researchers, artists, and
techies. These researchers will be organized geographically and supervised by members
of the editorial board. Also the editorial board will be responsible for the final synthesis
of materials and the manner in which it is presented. This structure of organization will
ensure authoritative control over the encyclopedia. Issues of our staff organization and
formation are covered more extensively in the business and management section of this
document.
CONTENT
The content included in our encyclopedia will be pithy, short, sweet, and succinct. While conveying valuable and important information, the users should be presented with information that is clear and concise as well as useful and entertaining.
For the purposes of this project, we will approach "history" at each content level as historical facts. Our decision to do this is based on two considerations. First, presenting a comprehensive history of each state and city goes far beyond the scope of our project. Writing history is a complex, political and highly contested project. Users who are interested in this type of material would be better served by other sources which give more attention to these details. Secondly, users are more likely to turn to the EotS for practical and current information.
Users will also be able to click on an icon for each page specifying the originating source, update information, and referring the user to other relevant and useful sources. In this way, the issue of linking to other pages will be dealt with in much the same context as a print bibliographic source.
The US template should resemble the state template as much as possible for the purpose of consistency and familiarization of the user with the format of the EotS. The national template will not include coverage at the level of specificity of the city or state templates. Information about the American people such as population, ethnic makeup, and general statistics will be on this page. There will not be any national history on this page except for the possibility of a bibliography that will lead users to additional sources for further study. Special regions, such as the District of Columbia, will be included within the state listings.
State Menu
General Information
This page will include general state information such as the state governor, seal, license
plate, flag state song, fish, date of statehood,bird, ...
Video clips, audio, and other non-textual information will also be included on this page.
Government
Picture of the capitol building
Current political office holders with contact information
Brief description of the offices, departments and their functions with contact info
Cities - a list of the available city pages
Regions of Interest
State and national parks
Landmarks
Outstanding natural features
Demographic Information
An interface to use the in creating a customizable spreadsheet or listing of Census figures
and other statistical estimates contained in EotS files.
Commerce
Main industries of the state -- Farming, Timber, Mining, Auto Manufacturing...
Historical Facts
Short interesting historical entries
Famous people
Major events
Fun Facts
Because the Encyclopedia of the States is designed to be used as a general tool for ready- reference and fact-based information about the United States, the technology implemented in its design must serve to promote and enhance its effectiveness as such. For the EotS, technological tools will facilitate rapid retrieval of ready-reference-type information as well as in-depth articles examining more detailed aspects of life in the United States. With this in mind, the following points are vital to successful creation of the EotS:
To solidify the presence of the EotS as a unified, self-contained resource, each page will have a recognizable consistent appearance. This will be created by using a series of templates for creation of instructional, navigational, and featured content pages. These templates will each share a minimum set of features which are instantly recognizable by users. This set of features should include:
These directives and notices will be relatively small an unobtrusive. Their presence will serve to frame the content in the physical context of the EotS and to provide the basic functions necessary to complete or begin new information searches. The primary effect of these templates ideally will be to give users a sense of 'place', a palpable sense of a solid, tangible location on the WWW which will enhance users' trust and willingness to return to our fine source.
To see how this looks, follow the provided link to the EotS prototype. If you like, set a bookmark first so you can quickly return to this document.
Within the EotS, there are a few reasons for the creation of a 'return to' tool. First, in a large WWW resource, it is often easy to become disoriented, losing all sense of location within the organization of information. The ability to hyperlink from one part of a resource to another may disorient users accustomed to following a linear path to information. Second, the EotS may utilize the familiarity of most users with traditional print-based encyclopedias. Anyone who has ever used a well-organized print resource with indexes, alphabetized contents, separate volumes with separate styles of content, and classic linear presentation is likely to instantly lose all sense of active choice in direction when encountering a WWW- based hypertext encyclopedia. The 'RETURN TO CONTENTS' link seeks to remedy this problem.
In addition to use of hyperlinks for navigation, the EotS will be designed to aid both the manipulation of the resource as a general reference tool and the manipulation of content or data to allow 'customizability' in the presentation of information.
To aid informational navigation, interactive programs will allow users to work with raw data and transform it to a context that is representative of their needs. For instance, a user wanting to know how incomes in the city of Detroit compare to those in Ann Arbor will not have to be content with simply comparing plain vanilla printouts of census reports. Rather than call a single set of data within an existing report, the EotS will provide the user with the ability to transform and restructure that data into a variety of presentations. As popular spreadsheet and database software allow various formats of report and graph representation of data, the EotS users will be able to make charts, graphs, tables, and reports tailored to their needs.
Here is how this functions within the EotS. Parsing tools within the EotS engine will break down statistical information such as that included in census reports. The EotS will then separate this data into chunks capable of being manipulated by functions of programs delivered over the network to the individual users. Users will be able, through a simple form or a series of narrowing choices of options (depending on complexity of desired study), to perform comparisons of geographical regions and receive the results in whatever format they want. An extended example follows:
A woman, Beatrice, nearing retirement in Tennessee wants to move to the northwest part of the country so she doesn't have to fly (she hates flying) to go skiing in the winter. She has the money for the move and a nice cottage on the water, but is extremely concerned about general climate because of her finicky rare bird. For this example, we can call the bird 'Raphael.' Raphael cannot live in an area where the average temperature drops much below 10 degrees Fahrenheit with any regularity--he's just not himself. Thus Beatrice cannot move to a location where her Raphael will be unhappy. But how will she be able to decide where to move? Do any of the northwestern states have a temperate enough climate for Raphael without being more than a half day's drive from some killer hills? To find the answer to these questions, Beatrice would have to pour through encyclopedias and almanacs, ask many friends, and still maybe not find the best place without a series of actual visits.
Using the EotS, Beatrice and Raphael would be able to produce a comparison study of climates. She could call on the data contained in the EotS to compare several major cities in the northwest which meet certain guidelines to find the best place (or at least a number of specific places to consider) for her and Raphael. To illustrate, Beatrice, could tell the EotS:
I want to live in a city with less than 50,000 people but a high literacy rate somewhere near the northern Rockies (within 200 miles) but where the average temperature in wintertime stays above 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Show me eight to ten cities that might work. And oh yes, there must be lakes nearby.
Filtering through meteorological statistics, geographic data, and census data, the EotS would produce a comparison of eight to ten cities which might fit her needs, in a report she could read on her terminal within a few moments. If the report is too long to print and read through, she could ask the EotS for a tabular version instead for quick reference. The EotS would be more than happy to oblige. To support such complicated tasks, the EotS will be structured in a dynamic, hyperhierarchical pattern. The users will not see this complicated structure--they will be presented with a friendly 'storefront' upon arriving at the EotS, and will only be confronted with any sort of detail when referencing the EotS' powerful built-in applications. The main user interface will be simple, with several ways to get at the information they desire, whether they are looking for detailed reports or just want to browse America. The following links demonstrate these ideas (again, you can set a bookmark to return directly to this page):
The initial stage of development will require an investment in high-tech hardware and a state-of-the-art telecommunications network. Through our partnership, adequate funds will be accessible for necessary equipment purchases. The specific system equipment requirements are not available at this stage. Even if we could state all of the system's requirements, there are many details about the system that we can only discover once we are well into the implementation phase. With technology changing as fast as it is, it is likely that the system we choose will be surpassed in at least one technical feature before the EotS is complete.
Platform migrations will not be a problem as we will be using Java or a Java-like program which is independent of the underlying hardware. A program written in the Java language will run in any Java-enabled Web browser or standalone viewer. Currently, Java is in transition from alpha to beta testing with a commercial version to be released in the near future. The beta version, which can be used with Netscape 2.0, can be obtained either with a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser or by anonymous ftp. It is accessible to the general public and we will provide instructions at our site on how to download all necessary software for EotS.
One of the major advantages and disadvantages of the electronic environment is the ability to easily update information. To maintain the integrity of the encyclopedia, a member of the editorial staff will conduct a periodic updating process in conjunction with the appropriate geographic team leader. A systems program will run to check the integrity of each link and record the location of unavailable links for repair. Whenever possible, link modifications will be done automatically by the systems software.
A key component of the development process will be user feedback. Multiple users with different needs and skill levels will test out the initial products providing information about the time to learn basic commands, the speed with which basic tasks can be executed, the amount of errors that occur during use, and the retention of strategies and commands needed to navigate EotS. This user response study will allow the editorial staff to discover if the encyclopedia is conveying information effectively to the users. We need to be able to gauge the effectiveness of new features.
EotS also allows the opportunity for users to offer feedback directly from the Encyclopedia. Feedback 'mailto's, or hypertext links to an email form, are provided off the main EotS contents page as well as on the about the AA6 page. These feedback links look like the following (a working link):
To serve the dynamic needs of the EotS, we have developed a hierarchical structure for all EotS records. The server which feeds documents at the web site will rely on this structure to fuel the search and subject-based retrieval functions described above. By structuring the files in a rigid fashion, we can use both filenames and the directory pathnames of the files themselves as indicators of a file's basic properties.
This structure looks (roughly) like this:
MAIN EotS DIRECTORY
| | | |
| | | |
/ / contents, \
/ /instructions, \
/ / about EotS \
/ / \
/ | \
/ \ \
STATES SUBJECTS SEARCH
(all 50 states) (dem., geog.) (forms)
|||||||||||| ||| ||
separate dirs programs search tools
for each state which manipulate which retrieve
| data in files files within STATES
(e.g.) Michigan within STATES
/ / | \ \
cities / | \ people
/ | / gen. \
/ / / info gov
| | census
/ \ \
gov \ \
/ \
census / \
events \
people
To best demonstrate how we will take advantage of this structure, consider the following URL:
As you can see this URL, whose components represent the unix pathname of a record about Dennis Archer, Mayor of Detroit, gives a lot of descriptive information which we can use to determine the file's content value. We can use a search engine to parse the pathname to determine:
Similarly the data in census reports can be separated based on its file's pathname, and compared to data in files with similar pathnames to perform queries in the subject section of the EotS.
The most important feature of this overall structure is that a user will
be able to get to the information they want through a variety of paths.
Although they will likely be constantly jumping from one directory to
another as they browse
through the EotS, these jumps will be invisible. Files in one area
will point to those in
another, and random-access searches can draw from or lead users directly
back to the data itself. In this way the EotS serves both ready
reference and browsing needs.
MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS ISSUES
A survey of the market today shows that the development and marketing of multimedia products is at record levels. Encyclopedias, guide books, and reference works in the CD- ROM market have experienced a 109% increase from 1994.[1] Products are rapidly flooding the market. Technological advances and consumer demand are pushing more and more publishers into the networked environment as an alternative to the CD-ROM format. A similar flood of offerings are now becoming available on the Web. The relatively small startup cost means that this environment is rich with opportunities where one can either make a lot of money or lose a lot of money. Whether projecting into the future, when our encyclopedia is developed, or examining the current Web offerings, the plethora of products creates a highly competitive atmosphere for distribution and marketing. As Byron Preiss, who established Byron Preiss Multimedia with Simon & Schuster in 1992, says, "Everything is going electronic."[4]
Users can be overwhelmed by the abundance of choice and the lack of product information. Our solution is to team up with an established company in the geographic or demographic information industry, e.g. Pro CD Inc.[5] or ScanUS [6]. Partnerships are a popular way of entering the electronic environment as a means of testing the waters and reducing potential risk. Pro CD, a leading publisher of electronic directory information, produces CD-ROM products targeted at homes and businesses. Users can identify listings either through specific fields, such as state and zip code, or by selecting locations on a map. ScanUS, on the other hand, produces software for geographic market analysis utilizing census data and other demographic information. Both companies have yet to provide a Web-based product and may be amenable to forming a partnership. For our publishing partner, using the internet would result in a reduced investment in software development for different platforms and upgrades. Their product and name would also reach the largest possible audience in the quickest possible way. For Ann Arbor 6, this decision should increase our product's brand name recognition and, hopefully, influence consumers to select our product. An experienced partner will make it easier for our encyclopedia to reach the targeted audience and facilitate the creation of a higher level product.
A publishing partner will bring to the project a known brand name, specialized expertise in critical aspects of management and marketing, and financial support. Although autonomy would be ideal, the Ann Arbor 6 admittedly lack expertise and means in these areas. The primary responsibility of our partner will be supervision of the commercial side of the encyclopedia. This involves decisions on advertising, marketing, and pricing. In return, the Ann Arbor 6 will act as the editorial board for EotS . Our primary responsibility will be the complete supervision of EotS design, content, and implementation. The pressure that a partner exerts means supporting and evolving the encyclopedia as rapidly as technology will allow. All major decisions regarding overall focus and purpose will be made by the Ann Arbor 6 in conjunction with our partner about the content priorities of EotS.
The encyclopedia will conceivably be a large body of documentation created by teams of authors and technicians at scattered locations. These teams will be funded by our business partner. Teams will cover certain geographic areas which could be a single state (MI), groups of states (west coast), or a region of interest (Grand Canyon). Each team will include artists and/or technicians skilled in computerized visualization tools and the latest technology. In the beginning, we will focus narrowly on a few key states. After the completion of these preliminary state entries for the encyclopedia, the number of staff and necessary equipment will be assessed and a projected long-term budget for completion of all the states will be prepared. This budget will hopefully be grounded on a realistic assessment of what we can deliver. The leaders of each group would be retained on long-term assignments to maintain the currency of the encyclopedia's content, while other staff will be released at the end of short-term contracts.
The temporary staff will consist primarily of freelance writers, especially those in the travel industry. In many ways travel writers are an ideal part-time workforce. Many are extremely familiar with particular regions of the United States and can be considered "experts" in those regions. At the same time, we will also accept submissions for entries from individuals describing their own towns while reserving the right to reject or edit those entries as needed.
The editorial board, in addition to addressing the quality and consistency of the work in the encyclopedia, will provide central coordination and appropriate tools for these teams. A coordinated guide, maintained by the editorial board, outlining the methodology for composing articles will be given to each team. The guide would include:
The editorial board will also provide the teams with the appropriate technical services (scanners, cameras, etc.), and link each groups' work into the overall structure of the encyclopedia. Some material may be ready for immediate insertion into the encyclopedia while multimedia material may require an additional conversion process. It will take a large amount of work to integrate different mediums into a quality document, presenting both a conceptual and technical challenge. The editorial staff, with the help of a team of technicians, will make all necessary cosmetic changes including restructuring and rewriting to standardize the look of each entry. Another key task will be to communicate with the teams to ensure a clear understanding of the working methodology exists. Any disagreements that arise will be resolved by Ann Arbor 6 in consultation with our partner.
During the creation of the encyclopedia, a publishing package will be used which allows simultaneous development of the encyclopedia in both the electronic publishing format and a home usage format (CD-ROM or some similar product of the future) to maximize the market impact of EotS. The extra time and cost of file conversion will be avoided because uniform page layouts, heading hierarchies, and images will be in transferable formats. We will have the ability to market the encyclopedia in a manner that allows a more immediate profit return. As individual states are ready, they can be packaged and marketed as a subsidiary products of EotS with a few features disabled that will be available in the complete encyclopedia, e.g. the search engine would be limited and less powerful.
A major drawback of CD-ROMs has been the inability to efficiently update their contents. Our solution to this problem will be to offer home users the ability to update EotS similar to Microsoft's hybrid approach to updating Encarta. The update records will be downloaded via a special command button located on the first page of the EotS CD- ROM Home version. This will enable the user to download the most current updates either on a monthly basis or daily. Users will be asked to enter their billing and telecommunications preferences. These updates will be free for a year, as we build up the content of the encyclopedia, and thereafter users will pay some undetermined fee for updates.
We will also use a product called CD-MAX. It is basically encryption software that meters, bills and can help protect copyrighted CD information. EotS could potentially offer "pay-as-you-go" CD-ROM services in addition to those on the Web. According to CD-MAX,
"CD-MAX customizes an encryption and metering strategy. The CD-MAX technology is then integrated with your usual development and pre-mastering processes. The encrypted elements are compiled with the search and retrieval engine, a master is prepared and discs are pressed as before. A brief customer set-up program is added onto the disc or supplied on a separate diskette. This software installs security codes and usage- tracking capability onto the customer's hard drive...for transparent access, automatic usage tracking and copyright protection." [7]
The existence of products marketed by our partner and other companies offers the opportunity for an eventual plug-and-play enterprise. The name, plug-and-play, has evolved because adding a compatible device or function to an existing system requires nothing more than plugging it in. The system components are based on established interfaces and accommodate different devices independent of specific operating systems and hardware. Hardware complexity is reduced and flexibility in hardware choice is increased since there are specific design guidelines and standard interfaces between system components.
In choosing a set of plug-and-play applications, users can start with our encyclopedia and customize a solution to suit their specific information needs. By adding these products into EotS the overall usability of the encyclopedia will be enhanced. Such products are currently starting to appear in the Web environment. Netscape 2.0 has the Plug-in interface which replaces the process of associating data types with viewers and substitutes instead, a process of acquiring plug-in products and putting them in the appropriate directory. A quote from Netscape showing other possibilities for Plug-in's:
"More than 40 independent software vendors are already working on
converting their applications. Many are run-time players for diverse MIME
types, including document formats, animation, video, and 3-D. But viewers
are just the beginning: There will also be full-blown applications for database
management, mainframe terminal emulation, and even personal-information
organizers."
One can imagine many desirable features, such as a personal geographic information organizer that acts as a notebook or scratch-pad for taking notes during a trip through the encyclopedia. Results could be compiled in the notebook as the user progresses from state to state or city to city for use in a later paper or database. Also saving URLs on this page would be useful for anyone paying a per-minute charge for internet access or for anyone needing to minimize online time. Multitasking retrieval is another possibility. Hardware compatibility could be the biggest challenge in this endeavor.
Traditionally computer security has been a problem of physically securing equipment or a central facility. Locking up the disks, guarding the location, and screening the users were acceptable security measures. Today, as computer systems have become networked and accessed by a wider user community, providing computer security has become a bigger issue. With a growing number of tools available to assist in unauthorized network access any service on a network can be vulnerable to unauthorized use. This can potentially be a large source of unrecoverable revenue.
Some unauthorized use will result from customers not knowing what they are using, rather than outright piracy. Software management tools will be used in order to develop an effective strategy to counteract all types of unauthorized use. Management software currently exists to monitor and restrict the number of users or clients who may access and execute an electronic service on the Web. EotS will incorporate this feature with some added benefits. The monitoring feature will enable EotS to charge users only for actual use of EotS and generate reports which can identify necessary changes. Reports can be generated covering such items as the number of users waiting to use an application at a given time, the number of users accessing an application at a given time, the client they are accessing them from, and the actual cost of software in use at any given time.
Experience shows the networked environment is very leaky in regard to intellectual property and copyright.[3] EotS can be both appropriately and inappropriately copied and distributed on a massive scale at a single keystroke. The measures listed above, as well as authentication, encryption, license enforcement, accounting, and billing, etc., can seemingly be used to render a given item of intellectual property as secure as possible in the Web environment.
Copyright is still an issue, if not a bigger one, in the networked environment. The EotS will consist of multi-authored documents, factual information, and multimedia clips. In all categories AA6 and our partner will hold the copyright to EotS' presentation of information. Although factual information cannot be copyrighted, the manner of EotS' presentation is copyrightable and will be vigorously enforced. In using other materials EotS will obtain copyright permission and pay royalty fees when it is deemed to be necessary.
With regard to the encyclopedia itself, Ann Arbor 6 needs to be very careful regarding contractual obligations involving updates, enhancements, or new versions. What is the difference between each? Arbitrary choice of what constitutes each must be decided .
This copyright poicy statement is marked as interim because the editorial board expects to learn from experience the effectiveness of the various provisions. An annual review will be conducted to revise the policy as needed to deal with new circumstances and to accomodate new innovations.
Copyright (c) 1995, The Ann Arbor 6, Inc. and partner (to be named later)
The Encyclopedia of the States, EotS(TM) software.
All Rights Reserved.
The Ann Arbor 6 grants to the licensee a non-exclusive license to use the EotS for academic, research and general information purposes only, without fee. Licensee may distribute the print copies of limited portions to third parties provided that the copyright notice and this statement appears on all copies and that no charge is associated with such copies. Licensee agrees that the copyright notice and this statement will appear on all copies of the EotS, or portions thereof. The Ann Arbor 6 retains exclusive ownership of the EotS. Licensee may make derivative copies of EotS, provided that such derivatives can only be used for the purposes specified in the license grant above, and further provided that no modifications are made to the published interfaces. Any Licensee wishing to make commercial use of EotS should contact Ann Arbor 6 to negotiate an appropriate license arrangement for the commercial use.
THE ANN ARBOR 6 MAKES NO WARRANTIES ABOUT NON-INFRINGEMENT OR THE SUITABILITY OF THE EotS, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, FOR FITNESS IN A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR APPLICATION. ANN ARBOR 6 SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES SUFFERED BY LICENSEE AS A RESULT OF USING, MODIFYING OR DISTRIBUTING EotS OR ANY DERIVATIVES OF IT.
By using or copying this Software, Licensee agrees to abide by the intellectual property laws, and all other applicable laws of the US, and the terms of this license. The Ann Arbor 6 shall have the right to terminate this license immediately by written notice upon Licensee's breach of, or non-compliance with, any of its terms. Licensee may be held legally responsible for any infringement that is caused or encouraged by Licensee's failure to abide by the terms of this license.
Inevitably, users want to know the bottom line--how much does this cost? Our answer to that questions is "it depends". Without viable usage data, it is difficult to negotiate a price. Pricing products available in the electronic environment can be problematic. Development costs, administrative costs, and competition in the marketplace as well as unauthorized use have to be factored into any pricing decision.
Providing products and services to users in a manner that fits their needs requires a commitment to an ongoing licensing process. User expectations and technology requirements change over time and we must be responsive to those changes. A sustained change in use level will produce a corresponding change in the licensing agreement so that costs correspond to actual use. Our partner will help in working out the details as they will undoubtedly already have extensive experience in this area. However, educational discounts and quantity discounts will be available.
The current primary network licenses available are concurrent use, site, enterprise, and node.[2] A concurrent use license authorizes a specified number of users to access and execute licensed software at any time. (This is probably the way to go here) Site licenses authorize use at a single site. Because of the growth in virtual computing environments, site licenses are less popular. Node licenses are also becoming less appropriate because the licensed software may be used only on a specified workstation which a user must log on to in order to access and execute the application. Node licenses may be acceptable for home users of the EotS however. The software network management tools described above may allow for some flexibility in the licensing arrangement as security is tighter.
As developers of EotS we need to be aware of emerging technologies in order to develop a commercially viable product not only for today, but for the future as well. There has been a dramatic increase in the capabilities of technology in the past few years which will only continue to grow. For example, a few short years ago a computer with 640 kilobytes of RAM and a 10 Megabyte hard drive was considered adequate. Today, as computers access and manipulate multiple files, images, sound, graphics, and video, the speed and power of personal computers has grown exponentially. The capabilities of the software have also become more sophisticated. The emergence of new operating systems, networks, and system independent standards point the way to exciting new developments for the EotS which, although they cannot be realized today, are certainly more possible than ever at some point in the future. Below is a short list of these future possibilities for the EotS:
We could create an intelligent dialogue with users by utilizing human language as an easily understood means of locating relevant geographic or demographic information.
Virtual reality could transport users into a computer-generated world to simulate an actual tour of each state and city. Users could pull down menus and guide maps with a wave of their hand to lead them through this virtual representation. Specific icons or signs could be included at certain locations to indicate the presence of related video footage or a photo documentary for viewing about that site. VR would provide new ways to represent and communicate both the reality of the present day cities and their historical development. Graphically depicting the various activities and demographics of each region would provide the means to assimilate many different types of abstract information into a truly interactive teaching and learning experience. The states and their cities could be seen more clearly as evolving and dynamic.
Due to limited resources initially, there is a limited number of cities
listed from each state. EotS would like to provide full coverage of all
of the cities within each state with a population larger than 10,000D. We
can also envision moving beyond the United States and covering other
areas of the world, for example, an encyclopedia of Europe.
SUMMARY
Encyclopedia of the States (EotS) is a unique electronic resource for those interested in learning more about geography, social sciences, economics, history, and more including a customizable demographic database. A new perspective of the U.S. can be gained through topographical political, population, and climate information. EotS includes video, audio, and animation. Truly national in scope, EotS will provide invaluable coverage of the fifty states in addition to providing bibliographic references to important books, articles, and URLs covering the United States.
From initial long pontifications on post-modernism and encyclopedias as being one of the final vestiges of modernism, to a self-contained resource, shag rugs, linear pathways, and the halls of Montezuma, our group sure has learned a lot. For the most part, the EotS lived up to our initial conceptions of what an encyclopedia should be, although those conceptions belie their inherent generality at this stage of the game. This document will briefly run down these expectations and how they have been met or altered during the course of 12 weeks of intense design work.
Our scope and emphasis are well defined and the EotS provides comprehensiveness within the areas it seeks to cover. The heavy authority of the editorial board of the EotS (a.k.a. the aa6) assures (to a reasonable extent) the content will be accurate, authoritative, and current, and we have provided for these areas to be actively covered in business plan. The fact that it is a self-contained resource allows us to be certain of our content and consistent style. We have provided a bibliography for sources we actually used in putting together our prototype, and the design document calls for bibliographies of both print and on-line sources to enhance understanding of certain areas. On the organization front, we have provided several different ways to search the EotS, with indexing, cross-referencing and keyword searching capabilities. Also the EotS has a clear and easy to use interface, and it also makes use of web-based features such as sound bites, graphics, clickable maps, etc. All in all upon retrospective inspection of our initial encyclopedic standards, the EotS holds up quite well.
This project has helped us to evaluate the issues surrounding the creation of a web-based encyclopedias from the three different angles of "core knowledge." From organization, we were forced to make difficult decisions on how our information would be laid out in a useful and user-friendly fashion. From a reference perspective we were able to decide what makes this source useful and for what reasons. And finally from the searching angle we were confronted with issues on how to make information findable within our source. Clearly the project enabled our group to deal concretely with issues discussed conceptually during core classtimes.