Project Objectives

Some of the goals of this project:

A) Substantive Promotion of the Humanities.
The first objective of the project is to craft an educational approach to knowledge that broadens current usage of educational technologies to include values important to the humanities, such as a search for knowledge based on exploring contexts, the notion of history as truth, the importance of cross-cultural understanding, and the changing nature of social responsibility in an increasingly smaller world.

B) Encouraging the Sharing and Progress of Knowledge.
The second objective focuses on the idea that a Web-based interactive database will highlight the relationship between teaching and research and their mutually reinforcing potential to advance our store of knowledge. The sharing of data and results has the potential to advance the notion of sharing as an esteemed value. Currently, because of the limitations of individual research, like access to archives or language difficulties, many scholars do not conduct their research or formulate their ideas using a breadth of data. By organizing a collaborative database, we eliminate the need for constant duplication of effort and allow analysis to be based on a broad factual foundation. Of course, the benefits to research are obvious. The development of the Chinese Biographical Database will have a synergistic effect on the store of humanities knowledge in areas of both content and analysis.

C) Moving Educational Technology into Active Learning Modalities.
Currently, much of the behavior of Web viewing is passive. This is also true for educational materials that seem to stress reading uploaded lectures and texts. Part of this phenomenon results because many Web sites are modeled on commercial principles, to sell products. For advanced students, the database will introduce interaction beyond email and discussion threads or visually attractive games. The questions that need to be asked are: Where is the depth of content? Where is the interaction? This is a compelling and under-recognized area of educational technology where scholars cannot defer their responsibility to passive viewing or video games that purport to teach. What they are not teaching is the real dynamics and potentials of broader interactions that can be learned by actively using knowledge on a Web site for critical analytical activities.

D) Conservation of Knowledge.
Historians will be taken more seriously by society if they behave more seriously about the conservation of historical knowledge. In the fourth objective, the Chinese Biographical Database will not only expand but also conserve an important body of knowledge. As different analytical methods evolve, and greater facility with computers and statistics enter the profession, the database will serve as an important repository for scholars.

Copyright © 1998 M. Levine. All rights reserved.
Revised: September 06, 2001.