[10567] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Schools and the NII
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Sun Feb 27 04:05:22 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 13:20:01 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray's message of Sun, 13 Feb 1994 9:20:44 -0700 (MST) <940213092044.21802633@BPA.ARIZONA.EDU>
>From: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu>
>For
>instance, I don't think my recommendation that DoEd ought to compete contracts
>to build a national encyclopedia is much different from arranging for a
>national site license from an existing encyclopedia provider.
No? Then, with all due respect, you are swimming in the wrong waters.
What ties the two thoughts together? The possible result and the
spending of money? That's pretty thin, few efforts are more work than
decent encyclopaedias. There's a reason most of them are on the order
of 100 years old and people don't just go jumping into the biz.
For one thing, where do you get your facts on the zillion little
things that need to go into an encyclopaedia?
This isn't a research paper or little reference in a book so the
comfortable little "fair use" quote/reference/summary won't apply in
many cases, owners of information (e.g. you want to make an entry on
koalas so you go get a book on koalas out of the library) won't be
real liberal about such things; you're reselling their work directly
even if just reworded, and they know it.
Seriously, I am not off on a tangent, understanding information and
how it comes to be and its context is a huge part of understanding
this entire field. Tossing off "oh we could just make our own
encyclopaedia" is a troubling remark.
>A creative
>program management team at Education could take existing encyclopedias one
>better just by structuring the contract process so that *all* vendors could
>contribute parts, and the differences in their perspectives would show
>through.
What's the gross income of the largest several encyclopaedia
producers? I think you'd find the amount of money they'd want for
something like this would be real close to their total and projected
livelihood.
>As far as state, local and federal goes, we ought to note that government
>*always* controls the content in the schools, you just get to pick your
>level. I would rather have a national program available as an alternative
>when the local board decides that the historical texts ought to downplay
>civil rights, or that teachers can't have access to frank discussions of
>current health issues.
>
>Just because DoEd has been only a tiny slice of the educational process in
>America doesn't require that it remain so, either.
Yeah, but if I'm real unhappy with my local school board's policies
it's a lot easier to move to the next town than it is to leave the
country.
I think all the points in your message are tossing off over 100 years
of thinking about exactly these issues, there's nothing really new
about networks that changes the game rules so much that the previous
thinking is so ignorable.
All I really see in your thread is the belief that for staggering
amounts of money this can all be solved, I'm not so sure. You also
might well end up with one lousy encyclopaedia and an even worse
school system than we have already. The ideas you propose have been
considered many times before. Have you ever read a book on the history
of education in the US? (My bachelor's from Cornell is in fact in
child psychology with work in education, I have even taught K12, so
yes I have read a few pages on the subject tho I'm hardly an expert.)
-Barry Shein
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