Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, April 04, 2006

More on the Digital Universe

Ken Korman, Exploring the Digital Universe, eLearningScotland, April 4, 2006. Excerpt:
It's no surprise that the Digital Universe is scarcely mentioned in the press-or in conversation-without the word "Wikipedia" trailing closely behind. This happens not only because "the contrast with Wikipedia turned out to be a valid one," as Digital Universe Foundation president Bernard Haisch now points out, but because Larry Sanger, the Digital Universe's director of distributed content, was a co-founder of Wikipedia, and actually found his way to the Digital Universe after Haisch read Sanger's now-famous online essay, "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism." But the Digital Universe family tree extends back farther than the relatively recent Wikipedia....Sanger recalls that "the culture of Nupedia [which used rigorous editorial review of submissions] dominated Wikipedia for the first nine months to a year" but that things then started to change. Wikipedia's worldwide network of contributors had been "relatively respectful toward experts, but it became more of a free-for-all," something many would come to view as an extreme, if worthwhile, experiment in the democratization of the Web. Disdain for subject-matter expertise seemed to grow exponentially among Wikipedia contributors, and Sanger, in frustration, cut all ties with Wikipedia in 2003....[Joe] Firmage's vision for the Digital Universe not only encompassed Sanger's belief in content largely created, and carefully reviewed, by qualified experts, but also identified a larger need to restore depth and meaning to the Web itself....[T]he ultimate benefactor [of Digital Universe] would be the public, which would finally have free and open access to the kind of high-quality content originally envisioned by many for the Web....[Haisch] described a kind of hybrid approach in which the public contributes to the main encyclopedia by developing content in a private workspace overseen by [subject-matter experts], who eventually decide which pages are published on the live site. This process will undoubtedly undergo further development, but the goal will be to maintain openness for those who really want to contribute while achieving a level of quality for which the Digital Universe hopes to be known...."We're really trying to start a movement," Sanger explains. "Up until recently, the Web has been dominated by corporations on one hand, and by an essentially immature hacker culture on the other. I would like to see professionals and intellectuals getting together... for purposes of essentially teaching the world." Teaching the world is a big job. But the Digital Universe seems as likely a venue as any for idealism to make a welcome comeback on the Web.