From Wikipedia to Digital Universe

From Wikipedia to Digital UniverseFrom Wikipedia to Digital UniverseI just finished listening to part 1 and part 2 of the February 8th EdTech talk podcast with Larry Sanger (an original founder of wikipedia) who is now part of the DigitalUniverse.net project.  Sanger discusses the project’s plan to blend the power of a wiki with original content creation and editorial oversight by designated content managers, referred to as “stewards”.  The overall goal of the project is to make stewards responsible for managing the content of the “portals” (or content types) that will “span tens of thousands of subjects”.  Sanger makes the case that the Digital Universe is unique due to the:

  1. Funding / Business Model:  In a prior venture, Sanger attempted an ad driven revenue model that failed. This non-profit venture includes a partnership with ManyOne Networks (a for-profit company) referred to as the “Technology Platform Provider”.  In a nut shell, while most content will be available free of charge (there will be some subscription services) it is their hope to re-sell co-branded internet service (including DSL) with organizations that will “offer” the internet services to their membership.  The Big Question:  Are there enough loyal members of organizations (such as the Humane Society) that would prefer to purchase their internet service through the member organizations?
  2. Selection and Use of Stewards: High caliber stewards are to be “drawn from government, academia, the
    private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and other aspects of civil society”.  
  3. Dual Content Creation: Public wiki-like collaboration will be presented in a parallel fashion, but not directly integrated with the content created and managed by the stewards.

Overall, the conversation is interesting not only for the overview of DigitalUniverse.net, but also for the discussion regarding the place of wikis and other collaborative content in education (that comes in part 2 of the discussion).  Sanger articulates the difficulty in producing collaboratively written content and the importance of having a designated “editor” to provide a single voice.  For this alone, it is worth a listen.