Cosmopedia: tomorrow's world of learning

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 2004

The Internet is evolving into a vast encyclopedia connecting up all human knowledge, trend watcher Parker Rossman told the World Future Society, Bethesda, Md. This colossal "Cosmopedia" will bring together different media and local data from everywhere, and it can do so with technology that already exists.

"The Cosmopedia will link museums, documents, writings, and re search," he maintains. Among its expected features: knowledge in all forms will be woven together, including animation, motion pictures, music, and sound; users can check the exact meaning of every word in a comprehensive dictionary, or have words automatically translated into another language; information about every important figure in history will be available and linked; and genealogical records, personal reminiscences, and local history will be readily accessible to far-off places.

Since all this can be done with today's technologies, Rossman predicts low user fees and very cost-effective updates. One university professor has proposed using highly qualified retired scholars and scientists to work on updating online encyclopedia articles regularly. Graduate-level papers, scholarly journal articles, and monographs all would be mined as Cosmopedia resources.