Digital Universe was a free online information service founded in 2006. The project aimed to create a "network of portals designed to provide high-quality information and services to the public". Subject matter experts were to have been responsible for reviewing and approving content; contributors were to have been both experts (researchers, scholars, educators) and the public. The project was founded in 2005 by Joe Firmage, CEO of ManyOne, with

Bernard Haisch Bernard Haisch is a German-born American astrophysicist who has done research in solar-stellar astrophysics and stochastic electrodynamics. He has developed with Alfonso Rueda a speculative theory that the non-zero lowest energy state of the vacu ...

as the president. It launched in early 2006.

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name and wrote much of Wikipedia's original govern ...

was a director, and helped with the launch of the project's

Encyclopedia of Earth The ''Encyclopedia of Earth'' (abbreviated ''EoE'') is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The ''Encyclopedia'' is described as a free, fully searchable collection of articles ...

. Sanger left in late 2006 to launch

Citizendium Citizendium ( ; "the citizens' compendium of everything") is an English language, English-language wiki-based free content, free online encyclopedia launched by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was first announced in Septem ...

Characteristics

Goals

In December 2005, when the project was announced, the founders' goal was to create a worldwide network of researchers, scholars, and educators, to become "the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

of the Web." While the public will be invited to contribute to some articles in the Digital Universe encyclopedia, they will be supervised by "stewards" whose role is to guarantee quality and accuracy of the articles. In addition, parts of the Digital Universe will be editable only by credentialed experts.

Multi-tiered system

The ''expert wiki'', is expected to be written and managed by experts.

"The Digital Universe in 2006"
Digital Universe Blog, January 20, 2006, accessed May 16, 2007 The ''public wiki'', will be editable by members of the educated public. However, according to Sanger, only registered users who have provided their

real name A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then ap ...

s will be permitted to edit this wiki. According to Sanger, an article rating system will be used for articles in the public wiki. Some of the 3-D graphical interface features will require the use of a

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

-based browser developed by ManyOne Networks, which they say will be made available free of charge. Some content will be available only to ManyOne subscribers.

Content

Around 2000 content pages existed as of August 2007. The Digital Universe claims the following featured portals: Earth, Energy, The Arctic, Texas Environment, U.S. Government, and

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gu ...

. The Salton Sea portal for example contains the following pages: Hydrology, Biology, Limnology, Ecological Issues, Values, Geography, Alternatives, and Cultural History. The Earth portal is working on an

(EoE), which will focus on the

natural environment The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses ...

and its interaction with society.Cutler Cleveland (Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Earth)
"More on the Wikipedia Alternative
, CNET News.com, reader posting, January 9, 2006 It will limit editing privileges to experts, by attributing all edits to their authors, by changes being published publicly only after approval and by using an expert-developed taxonomy for articles. EoE will use two parallel wikis, one "Stewarded", one "Public". The Stewarded wiki will be open only to "recognized scientific authorities" after their credentials have been reviewed.The Encyclopedia of Earth -- A Prospectus
accessed May 16, 2007 The EoE runs

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia Website, websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sit ...

wiki software. EoE is to use the

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 for its license.Frequently Asked Questions
", Earth Portal (dead link as of May 16, 2007; not available via archive.org) Over 400 articles had been written by experts by January 2006. In May 2006 it was reported that the EoE was due to be launched in June 2006.Laura Smith
"Digital Universe gets UK uni stars"
, ''Information World Review News'', 9 May 2006 A July 2006 article reported that the launch would be in fall 2006.John Boundreau

July 24, 2006, ''The Mercury News'', accessed July 24, 2006 (accessible vi
paid archive
as of May 2007) , the EoE's International Advisory Board included

Robert Costanza Robert Costanza (born September 14, 1950) is an American/Australian ecological economist and Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a ...

, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Rajendra K. Pachauri and

Frank Sherwood Rowland Frank Sherwood "Sherry" Rowland (June 28, 1927 – March 10, 2012) was an American Nobel laureate and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. His research was on atmospheric chemistry and chemical kinetics. His best ...

Development

Principals of the Digital Universe project include Joe Firmage, USWeb founder; astrophysicist

, president of the Digital Universe Foundation, and

. On 14 March 2006, the Digital Universe Foundation announced that

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...

, Founder and Chairman of the

Project, had joined the Digital Universe advisory board. In September 2006, Sanger announced that he had taken a "leave of absence" from Digital Universe "in order to set up a fully independent

Foundation".

Funding

In July 2006, the ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'' reported that "Digital Universe, a non-profit based in Scotts Valley, is part of a complicated three-organization structure. ManyOne Networks is the for-profit arm of the operation, backed with angel investors and private investor funding that is developing the Digital Universe software. Its profits are funneled to the ManyOne Foundation, set up in Canada for tax purposes and to give the project a less U.S.-centric feel. Eventually, the foundation will acquire ManyOne Networks by buying out the investors at a fixed rate of return, Haisch said. The Digital Universe Foundation controls the content that is published online. It will issue grants to academics and researchers to produce work for the Web site. The plan is to create a self-sustainable organization through a mix of grants and revenue from premium services, such as high-resolution images and video and e-mail, with prices ranging from $7.95 to $49.95." As of January 2006, US$10.5 million had been raised from investors and foundations for the Digital Universe project.Leslie Walker
"A Universe of Good Intentions, A World of Practical Hurdles"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'', January 19, 2006 ManyOne Networks plans to offer premium services for $7.95 a month and to sell Internet access. These revenues will be used in part to support the Digital Universe project. Firmage has stated that access to the basic Digital Universe content will always remain free and without advertisements.Dan Goodin
"Website aims to build non-profit research storehouse"
Associated Press, March 5, 2006 The stewardship program and other Digital Universe activities are the responsibility of the non-profit Digital Universe Foundation, headquartered in

Scotts Valley, California Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mounta ...

Reaction

In January 2006, the pilot version of Digital Universe was launched. This contained approximately 50 portals. Some visitors felt this version was confusing and difficult to navigate. Aaron Barlow, an associate professor at New York City College of Technology, wrote that "the problem with this, from a horizontal point of view, is that important work that really should be part of the education of the individual is moved to the "experts" who provide the gatekeeping. A ''neterate'' person should know how to negotiate the web for accurate information without need of a guide; providing guides may only prevent people from being fully able to manage the Web for themselves."

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Digital Universe
Online encyclopedias Internet properties established in 2006 21st-century encyclopedias American online encyclopedias