History of the Open Dictionary

This appendix describes the origin of the Open Dictionary as the logical end result of a series of on-line publishing developments. These developments can be characterized by the following successive questions:

1. How do I convert my documents to HTML format for Web publishing?
2. How do I link my documents to each other?
3. How do I find and provide links to excellent resources on the Web?
4. How can I efficiently pool my link collection with those of other colleagues in my field?

Let's visit each question in turn. The sequence of solutions adopted by the present author led to the Open Dictionary.

1. How do I convert my documents to HTML format for Web publishing?

   This is not a problem for most authors since, at this point, there are many ways to convert documents to HTML format. For example, many word processors now have an option to ``Save As'' HTML. Also, other formats have utilities for converting them to HTML format.

2. How do I link my documents to each other?

   This is a harder problem. Any educator with a large body of tutorial materials will naturally want to link occurrences of terms in more advanced materials to their coverage in more elementary materials. For example, if an on-line tutorial has been written on topic A, it is desirable to install a link to that tutorial everyplace topic A is mentioned in other on-line documents. A complete, self-contained curriculum can hope to reach the point that every ``buzz word'' in the on-line tutorials is linked to a tutorial devoted to that buzz word. This goal is even more realistic when the entire Web is available.

   The typical solution to the problem of inter-linking one's own documents is manually entering links, and manually changing them as documents are reorganized or renamed. A bit of experience with this task quickly leads one to the conclusion that link installation and maintenance should be largely automated.

   To automate link installation, it is useful to develop a ``dictionary'' mapping linkable phrases to desired URLs, e.g.,

       KEY = Taylor Series
       URL = ../Analysis/Taylor_Series.html
   
       KEY = Reimann Integration
       URL = ../CalculusI/Reimann_Integration.html
   

   An author can use some program to detect occurrences of terms such as ``Taylor series'' and install links from the dictionary.¹ Since the author maintains the dictionary, he or she has complete control over what is linked and where the link leads.

3. How do I find and provide links to excellent resources on the Web?

   In addition to local links, authors need links to Web resources as well. For this purpose, the usual process is web surfing, collecting links, manually entering links in documents, and manually checking and repairing them when they go bad. This too can benefit from a large degree of automation.

4. How can I efficiently pool my link collection with those of other colleagues in my field?

   Most authors belong to a community of educators or researchers in a particular area; since Web resources can be effortlessly shared around the world, educators can divide the labor of creating great on-line materials. In particular, an author no longer needs to write a particular tutorial at all if a great one is already freely available on the Web. Given the MIT OpenCourseware initiative and other existing resources, it appears certain that many such resources will be available. To serve this purpose, a shared dictionary is desirable.

   The Open Dictionary addresses problems 2-4 above.