In the 1990s, the World Wide Web has revolutionized the way in which knowledge seekers satisfy their thirst for knowledge. During the recent years, a technological and social paradigm shift called Web 2.0 attracted a lot of attention in the Internet community and is considered a major evolution of the web. New online applications make it easier for individuals to learn, using the vast information provided by the Internet and the collective intelligence of its users. The Encyclopedia of Life, a global repository for all kinds of information related to life on earth, builds upon the vision of Wikipedia and enhances it with Web 2.0 technologies and a concept for assuring high quality content. After a brief review of the development of the web as a learning resource, the authors of this paper present the concept of the Encyclopedia of Life as a knowledge pool for the domain of biology and compare it to the Wikipedia.

1. Learning with the Web 2.0
The Encyclopedia of Life
Anwar Us Saeed (TU-Graz)
Alexander Stocker (Know-Center)
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2. Overview
Web 2.0 and Learning
Web 2.0 Applications
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
Content
Stake-holders
Technologies
Learning with the EOL
Wikipedia vs EOL
2
Conclusion
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3. Web 2.0 and Learning
Web 2.0 describes change web is currently going through
Social phenomena, users interweave their social processes
with the web, new types of knowledge structures
Vast growth of web, emergence of new types of
collaborative technologies
Users change role from mainly consuming information to
actively participating in the creation of content
New Rising tools and technologies including content
syndication, semantic annotation, richer user interfaces are
tempting social interaction
Social entities act as ressource for collaborative knowledge
where web in total can be seen as a collaborative learning 3
environment
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4. Web 2.0 and Learning
Entry barriers of Web as learning medium
User interfaces
Access to knowledge pools
Collaborative Content Creation
Niche communities emerge, voluntariliy conducted knowledge
transfer
New types of interactions possible through folksonomies and
semantic annotation and social bookmarking
Finding users with similar interests
Self directed collaborative learning 4
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5. Web 2.0 Applications
Everybody knows...
Wikis (wikipedia.com)
Blogs (readwriteweb.com)
Social Bookmarking (del.icio.us, mrwong.com)
Social Networking (xing.com, myspace.com,
facebook.com)
Mash-Ups (housingmap.com)
...
Technologies have come to mature stage, where we
can think about the aggregation of knowledge at the
higher degree 5
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6. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
Desire to understand life forms on our planet is not new
Genome project; first species page in 1990
EOL will be a comprehensive knowledge repository for the
domain of life sciences (1.8 million species)
Wish from E.O. Wilson at Ted Conference
„I wish that we will work together to help create the key
tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's
biodiversity: the Encyclopedia of Life. ”
EOL will contain a summary of everything known about
the species’ genome, proteome, geographic distribution,
phylogenetic position, habitat, ecological relationships,
and, not least, its perceived practical importance for 6
humanity.
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7. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
EOL Vision can be realized now, because
Necessary consortium and Cornerstone Institutions
brought together(Sposors: John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation , Alfred P. Sloan Foundation )
Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Field Museum of Natural History
Harvard University
Marine Biological Laboratory
Missouri Botanical Garden
Smithsonian Institution
... and growing
Global serious concern about rapid detoriation of
ecological/ biodiversity system
Maturity of necessary technologies 7
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8. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL),
a gigantic effort
EOL plans to collect and gather data from diverse
ressources in one platform
Attemts to provide an environment/ platform for
fostering future research
Gathering data of future developments as feedback
from the scientists
Knowledge already known about species is available in
pieces in different forms and ressources
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9. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL),
a gigantic effort
To collect and present information which caters for the
vast and diverse group of stackholders ranging from a
school boy to hightech research institutions and
laboratories.
Affords flexible and end-user focused information
architecture which can be viewed in three blocks
Aggregation
Authentication
Atomization
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10. Aggregation
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
Whole structure of EOL linked by species name,
which is the only field common in all biological
databases
Aggregation will bring all the pieces of
information from diverse resources and will use
technologies ranging from OCR to the APIs of
data providers
Semantic Technologies are used for
disambiguation and reconsiliation of terms
while conducting machine based aggregation of
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data from diverse ressources
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11. Authentication
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
EOL will secure involvement of scientist and scientific
institutions that are established experts on each species
Semantic Wiki-like environment will be provided for the
scientists so that data on each topic can be validated by
the specialist of the respective field
Learner will have authoritative information
Scientist may use EOL for their research
EOL can shape the future of scientific publishing
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12. Atomization
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
Ontology based technologies structure
represent the data in customized forms
Novice and expert views on the species
pages
Modules for atomization are developed as open
source
APIs and data mining facilities will be provided
to the scientists and laboratories 12
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13. 13
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15. Learning with the
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
Four disrcete content representations engage
learners from school to expert level
Interfaces for mobile devices allow field
studies
Web Services
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16. Wikipedia vs EOL
„A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a
wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a
particular field, usually arranged alphabetically”
(dict ionary.com | A merican Heritage Dictionary)
Both claim to be Encyclopedias but differing in their goals
Wikipedia aims to be a widespread base of knowledge
EOL aims to be focused to gather all ressources in the
domain of biology, creating comprehensive base of
knowledge
Wikipedia covers breath of knowledge, articles are
numerous but often missing detailed level
In EOL articles will be on a consistently detailed level,
covering the depth of the topic and will be current 16
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17. Wikipedia vs EOL
Encyclopedia for everyone Encyclopedia for everyone
with partial content copyright
issues
Grown encyclopedia, using Content aggregated from
phenomenon of mass diverse established ressources
authoring to the area of
content creation
Content will be authenticated
Everybody may contribute by the scientists
to every subject regardless
of expertise in that field
Suitable for providing an Comprehensive knowledge
repository for all discovered
overview knowledge on biology
Usage for scientific purposes Can be future publishing 17
are limited, validity is platform for the scientific
lacking community http://www.kno w-center.at
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18. Wikipedia vs EOL
Lack of workflow for quality Well defined workflow for
assurance information quality assurance
Validation of content by
Quality of content experts
inconsistent and can be
easiliy vandalized
Lack of personalization Personalization features
features End Users are facilitated to
organize content in the form
Bulk of content has to be they want (myEOL)
browsed every time
Multimedia content is scarce Presentation in an esthetically
pleasing way with vast
multimedia support
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19. Wikipedia vs EOL
Lacks in current Set of technologies is very
technologies including broad ranging from OCR to
APIs and semantic wikis
tagging, content
syndication, ajax and
semantic technologies
Dump of whole Wikipedia EOL provides sophisticated
technologies for mining, reuse
and mash-up
No Semantic Technologies in Smart semantic search
Search mechanisms (taxonomic
intelligence)
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20. Conclusion
EOL is well planned and revolutionary using latest web
technologies
Services will be available on a global basis
Learners will profit from a comprehensive knowledge
pool
To make the content freely available to learners will be a
crucial milestone (copyright issues)
Success of EOL (wiki-like environments) depends on
critical mass of authors and articles which EOL has well
planned involving necessary stake-holders
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