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Regardless of whether the Proceedings are functionally useful in a
year or a century from now, the process of its creation and development
has been a tremendously valuable experience. At a time in the history
of communications when technology is having a real-time impact on how
people express themselves, we have had an opportunity to examine in
detail the practical issues behind digital publishing and integrated
network environments.
The Organic Mathematics Project (OMP) was directed towards the
exploration of the emerging network and information technologies within
the context of mathematics. Numerous groups around the world are
engaged in enhancing the specific aspects of the information highway
and its associated processes for transporting data. However relatively
few are actively integrating and adapting the raw technological
building blocks to suit particular fields of endeavour such as
Mathematics. In our case, we incorporated several different mechanisms
into a single coherent environment which supports the contributions and
interactions between mathematics researchers inclined towards
experimental mathematics.
Many things which seemed self-evident theoretically became
problematical in application. Issues related to copyright which had
been carefully avoided in advance came back to hold up publication.
The limitations of the software necessitated taking some shortcuts (or
even dropping whole concepts). The requests of the authors, who
couldn't know clearly what was possible and what was not, often drove
development in unexpected directions. Issues of compatibility severely
limited the graphic potential of presentation. And of course time was
limited.
What was left after all was done was a much clearer sense of what
was possible. And what will be possible in the near future. Not suprisingly,
the hype surrounding the Internet and the World Wide Web is intense. But
there is little evidence to support the conjecture and the speculation about
what it really is and what it is good/bad for. Especially with regard to very
important issues surrounding publishing, education, scientific communication and
virtual research environments. Our experience with these Proceedings
has provided valuable feedback for subsequent steps toward an effective
integrated on-line environment.
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Next: What Next?
Up: What is Organic Mathematics?
Previous: The Future of
omp@cecm.sfu.ca