The main tank, brimful with ideas. Enjoy them, discuss them, take them. - Of course, this is also the #1 place for new submissions!
By John Montgomery
#553
I propose that the national government expend public funds to sponsor scientific research by creating a comprehensive Academic Papers Database. Many journals and data warehouses exist to contain academic papers, but a central data repository would have numerous advantages.

1) Undergraduate students who produce papers for college could have their papers permanantly inducted into the database when submitted for grading in electronic form. Thereafter, University Professors all over the country could execute a text comparison search against papaers already in the database to detect plagarism.

2) Graduate researchers and specialists could search a single Internet source for their research rather than many.

3) The data warehouse would serve as a repository of human knowledge that could be easily archived in permanant (optical) form as a time capsule of the 21st century.

4) We could better share work with other nations and between scientists with a central resource.

5) The government may need to restrict access to certain types of information in order to protect from terrorist attacks. A central warehouse for information can be made secure, but uncontrolled stockpiles of information on nuclear physics, bio-terrorism, explosive chemistry, et cetera could be exploited by the wrong people.

6) Centralized data containment can become a source of public revenue by charging for access time to the database. Naturally, the price would be kept low due to the efficiency of centralized management. Rather than belong to 10 scholarly journals that impose high fees, a researcher can use the comprehensive Academic Papers Archive for one low price.

7) Library science can grow to its fullest potential only when all of the information in human civilization is availible for review by a single administrative organization. The science of classification to facilitate searches requires the broadest possible flexibility to permit interdisciplinary sciences to emerge and grow.

8) Outdated information that is no longer current or valid can be rejected when all the data for a given subject is under central review. Modern research proceeds as fast as individuals can get information about the subject and how it changes ; if the turn around time for experimental ideas improves, science will discover new knoweldge faster.

9) The paper volume of scientific information doubles every decade. To slow this explosion of scholarly effort, we must ensure that people can know what is currently open for investigation all over the world in all fields. That way duplicated effort will be done to verify or disprove results, but never "overdone" by more researchers than are necessary to complete a given task.

10) Textbooks about the subjects of knoweldge can be written once the database gets formed ; a comprehensive database could lead to text books that are the most comprehensive, balanced, and fair treatments of the subjects that can be made.

Reward: I'ld like to be able to surf the Academic Papers Archive to read the latest research in all fields of interest!
By Derek
#1087
well if you check out turnitin.com, they have an anti-plagarism thing where you submit a paper, it is compared to the rest of the class, as well as their database of ones from the internet, to detect plaigarism. That is sort of like your idea, but still different. Your idea is great, and it looks like it might be starting to come true.
By URANUS_DAATH
#1136
There is no dought in my mind. That a interactive globe KNOWLEDGE DATA BASE should be created such a thing would have
massive ramifications on the world... But I must adress knowledge as a hole as well what we consider to be knowledge. The knowledge
our world prestly possess is that, that has been learnerd through book by teacher from tv, radio, computer & life all of these things are the conduets through which all the worlds knowledge flows...
Scientifically knowledge is gained by learning and learning is a activity of the brain... So the question is how dose the brain learn???
As it stands the brain works via neuro chemical reactions caused by
sensory stemulie entreupeting enviormental conditions.
Now all this is great but the fact stands that knowledge or learning
is metaphoric for neuro chemical reactions even our crude symbolic
metaphoric langages are just that metaphor... The way the world learns, even comunicates is crude when consitering that the enviormental conditions i.e. sensory stemulie are nothing more than matter like constructs of energy in wave patterns at diffrent frequencies. If the world ever gave a *beep* about knowledge or learning they would study which frequencies caused such neuro chemical activety and we'ed all get a lot smarter :-D
By Bluecube
#2750
Expansion of idea of academic papers database idea

National government makes Library of Congress available for free to all people of globe. Also available for free are comprehensive English training for all major languages. Also available is free education ciriculum any and all subjects at all grade levels. On-line quizes and testing would verify level of competence. Degrees could be granted.

Universities could have their lectures available on line for a fee, learning would go beyond multiple choice quizes, subjects such as writing would be taught better. Graduate school would definitely remain viable due to research.

People around globe would have instant access to education. Market economy would grow by leaps and bounds. U.S. image would grow in world.

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By lamine
#2903
Hi John,

I am currently doing my research on something like that. The idea is to use XML vocabulary in the databases (which can contain anything from academic papers to a list of spare parts). Each database would then have separate vocabularies, and files stating which section of a vocabulary on one PC corresponds to another section of a vocabulary on another PC are kept on computers. It's part of the idea of having a "semantic web".

There are actually various projects like the one you proposed funded by several governments on this worldwide, (US, UK, Finland, France, Algeria, Israel etc...) but basically almost nobody wants to impose a common vocabulary (or a common gateway access to databases), hence all the efforts are pointed to harmonizing databases vocabulary. I am trying to see if it can be done without using common vocabularies. XML is the best candidate for this, since it is a subset of SGML while still being a superset of HTML (perfect for today's web)
By PASSAGES
#5338
To me such a world platform database already exist ~ the internet. However, as we are aware, there is no governing body for this world database. Someone asked me once - who manages the Internet? I imagine the nearest answer is the servers, but again, what I think he is trying to ask is who ensures the authenticity of information. As it stands, we are not sure if the 'facts' are real or mere imaginations. Users hardly reply to 'free gifts', 'real payoffs', 'real dates', 'real message'!! Keeping vigilant, cross verification is getting more and more tideous as information on the internet explodes. Furthermore when it comes to sociological, political, economic debates, the amount of argument is unbounded.

Although I can see the merits of a 'giga database', I also think that the more critical issue is really a body to manage the information, and keep the facts straight. Today's issue is more an issue of discipline and management of infomation, than technology.
By MaddieDT
#5864
I would love to see something like this implemented. Even with false information on the web, the source or citation for the information in the database should be included where it would be then up to the user to determine the validity of the articles/papers. Along with the citation, could be a reference for the type of article as to whether it came from a peer-reviewed scientific journal, a governmental website, or someone's personal webpage. When searching the database, there can be an option to search for these various types of papers to weed out what may be someone's opion while being able to readily access recently published scientific papers. ;-D
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