KnowledgeWeb Project

The KnowledgeWeb Project is a learning web site about knowledge envisioned and supervised by James Burke and the James Burke Institute for Innovation in Education. It is a non-profit, all volunteer project.

The mission of the site is to present knowledge in a highly interconnected, holistic way. The goal is not only to inform about the scientists, artists, innovators and explorers of history but also to find the connections between them and impact they have had on modern life. Initially the Knowledge Web will have 2200 entries linked over 16,000 ways. Later it will grow to include a theoretically unlimited amount of information. In later phases data visualization technologies will allow users visual interaction with the contents of the site. The project is looking for volunteers (volunteers@k-web.org or " class="external">http://www.burkeweb.org/).

The project is similar to the Wikipedia in the sense that the goal is a massive collection of knowledge, but:

• KnowlegeWeb is designed to be an interactive teaching tool more than a reference tool
• One of the functions of the KnowledgeWeb allows a student to build his or her own James Burke's Connections show using a sort of "bread crumbs" feature which Wikipedia doesn't have.
• there are some sophisticated knowledge visualization tools in Knowledge Web: that ball with all the links on the upper-right-hand corner is a teaser of one of them.
• KnowledgeWeb is designed to be graphically intensive, and the content of Wikipedia at the moment is not.
• Burke and the KnowledgeWeb have a focus on the connections between people - who met whom, who worked for whom, who was friends with whom.
• The KnowledgeWeb does not have a Wiki philosophy - content will be created and controlled by designated experts.

External link :

• The KnowledgeWeb Project
• The site for volunteer registration and participants access
• The Web of Knowledge: Vision, Design, and Practice - an article about the KnowledgeWeb Project