h a l f b a k e r yThe word "How?" springs to mind at this point.
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Eduweb
The Search Engine that Guarantees Accurate Information | |
If you want information that you can rely on, turn to Eduweb. Eduweb is a search engine that will be sold to universities, schools across the nation, companies, and individuals who need accurate, thoroughly researched information. The foundation of Eduweb is a formal review board fueled by a staff of
full-time employees reviewing websites for scientifically proven claims. Because the websites that are offered by the search engine have already been reviewed for accuracy, the reader can be assured they are not reading bad information or misinformation.
The scope and potential for Eduweb is huge. The service would have to start small, e.g. Eduweb for Doctors, Eduweb for Educators, and use intial successes to grow.
Eduweb could be offered as either subscription service for frequent users or a pay-per-view service for one time lookups; the best plan of service would be determined by the customer.
Citizendium
http://www.citizendium.org/
An expert-based Wikipedia fork [nineteenthly, Jan 03 2007]
Thomas Kuhn
http://www.des.emor...u/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html
Non-hypotheticodeductive view of science [nineteenthly, Jan 03 2007]
Carl Popper
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
This bloke didn't believe in scientific proof either. Note that i'm not using Wikipedia. [nineteenthly, Jan 03 2007]
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No, don't like it at all, for two reasons. Firstly, if it costs money it's not accessible to people who can't afford to use it such as home educators. Secondly, who is to decide who the experts are? There are even problems with Wikipedia in this respect, and there are people who think that's too open. |
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Also, science doesn't prove claims, it corroborates them at best. Bad information and misinformation may just be out there anyway, and science is always going to change. Besides, why just science? |
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Sorry, a definite fishbone on this one. |
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Maybe I didn't explain it that clearly. Think "online encyclopedia" that uses the multitude of web resources on the internet. Along the lines of Wikipedia, but so much better because the media and variety of resources could so much richer. You'd filter out commerical websites that come up during a search. |
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There as to be some sort of standard for approving websites, and so I think scientifically proven resources would be most valid for this type of service (online resource center). Education, as a whole, would benefit from the pre-selected videos, diagrams, and tutorials. Individual students wouldn't have to spend hours researching for one good resource. One search on Eduweb and they are guaranteed a variety of resources for their report. |
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Side benefit: Keeps kids away from adult-rated websites since only approved web resources would be displayed. |
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[nineteenthly] How to determine accuracy? Experts would have to be consulted. How does one determine if the information in a textbook is accurate. Same process. |
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And yes, maintenence would be an issue. But, if users have the opportunity to submit dead links, I think the company could stay on top of it. Since a multitude of resources will be offered, a couple of dead links on any one topic would not kill the program. |
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[Ian Tindale] I am trying to prevent Google from becoming the only search engine ever used. That can't be good for us. More advertisments, less useful information. |
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There is a fork of Wikipedia which aims to be expert-based. My point about accuracy is epistemological. There is established scientific opinion but theories change and scientific opinion changes with them. Science also doesn't operate in a social vacuum and there are various social pressures which influence it. For instance, there is junk science produced in legal disputes, funding from groups with particular interests and career pressures from within scientific professions. Science doesn't prove things. The uncertainty of information on the internet is, in a way, more realistic than a doctrinal line. There are a lot of cranks of course, but in reality there is just established and entrenched information and information which is not well-established, for whatever reason. Who are the experts? How does one decide? |
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Paying for the information is really not good, because it would cost individuals money and poorly-funded institutions would have problems. MIT and the Open University, to take examples, have put their course materials online for free access. I have problems helping my patients because i can't afford to pay for some articles on medical websites. That's a disadvantage to them. I can understand that you might want to eliminate advertising as a possible source of bias, but some kind of partiality can't be avoided. There are other ways of funding than either advertising or paying for access, such as public funding (another source of possible bias of course) or charitable donations. |
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I am also concerned about Google's monopoly but this would only address the educational side of the problem. |
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