Imagine flyer

{{{Psychology}}

Imagine:

An internet site containing a complete account of the psychology knowledge base with the following features:


 * Available at no cost
 * Unlimited in size.
 * Available freely to all people in the world with access to the internet
 * Located on a set of duplicating servers providing local backup facilities.
 * Written in a form that could be downloaded remotely and relocated if necessary.
 * Owned by no particular institution or interest group,
 * Managed and maintained by the collective efforts of academics, professionals and consumers involved in the field.
 * Where the information was constantly updated. Where if a research article were published in a journal the author would update the knowledge base to reflect the new evidence and provide a reference to the paper.
 * Where every significant study in psychology was referenced with links provided straight to a full copy of the text and/or the Athens database summary if this was not available.
 * Where electronic journals could be published with hypertext links to background information and the meanings of significant terms.
 * Where practitioners could aggregate self help materials, test reviews, case study reports, clinical protocols and policies and more.
 * Where academics could access lecture slide, lecture notes, student handouts and other support materials for each subject area within psychology
 * Where there was extensive linking between pages so that
 * Basic research areas were linked (e.g. genetic studies of depression with neurochemistry of depression, with neuroimaging etc)
 * These would be linked to practitioner pages to inform the development of treatments and maintain a dialogue between clinicians and researchers.
 * Where consumers could gain information to inform their treatment, provide ideas to researchers and practitioners and develop their own networks with the professionals in the field.
 * Provides a site that can be translated into the languages of the world (see Wikipedia). Through this, developing a truly international psychology.
 * Providing in effect a hypertext textbook freely available to all students and trainees in the field around the world.
 * That provides a conduit between science and society through which the advances funded by public money can be disseminated to those who have paid for it with their taxes.

In the past attempts to provide such a site have foundered because the size of the task was beyond the resources of any team that could be put together.

Now with the use of the software behind Wikipedia it is possible. This allows web pages to be updated by a scholarly community who can work together over a period of time to amass all the information. In effect this is the start of a further revolution in the knowledge economy that will require a cultural shift on our part.