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$*OREDO.QRZOHGJH0HGLXPDVD9LUWXDO&RPPXQLW\± 7KH1HW$FDGHP\&RQFHSW Petra Schubert, David-Michael Lincke, Beat F. Schmid Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8 CH-9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland E-Mail: [email protected]

$EVWUDFW solution of the above mentioned problems. As the plat- form follows a generic, template-driven design approach it 7DNLQJ XS WKH LGHDV RI WKH DQFLHQW *UHHN FRQFHSW RI can be applied to a vast variety of different research disci- $FDGHPLD WKH ´1HW$FDGHP\´ LV DLPLQJ DW SURYLGLQJ D plines. As of the time of this writing NetAcademies have NQRZOHGJHPHGLXPWRDLGLQWKHFUHDWLRQLQWHJUDWLRQUH been established for the fields of Business Media YLHZLQJDQGGLVVHPLQDWLRQRIGRPDLQVSHFLILFNQRZOHGJH (http://www.businessmedia.org), Knowledge Media LQWKHVFLHQWLILFFRPPXQLW\,QSXUVXLWRIWKHVHJRDOVLWLV (www.knowledgemedia.org) and Media Management WDNLQJ IXOO DGYDQWDJH RI WKH XQLTXH FKDUDFWHULVWLFV DQG (www.mediamanagement.org). The initiating institution is SRWHQWLDORIWKH,QWHUQHWPHGLXP 7KH 1HW$FDGHP\ LV DQ the Institute for Media and Communications Management H[LVWLQJZHELQIRUPDWLRQV\VWHP :,6 ZKLFKZDV GHYHO at the University of St Gallen. The NetAcademy is a non- RSHGLQRUGHUWRVXSSRUWWKHEXLOGLQJRIYLUWXDOVFLHQWLILF commercial research project partly funded by the FRPPXQLWLHVIRUGLIIHUHQWUHVHDUFKILHOGV Bertelsmann and Heinz Nixdorf Foundations. The inter- ,QWURGXFWLRQ national review board will consist of independent experts for the respective knowledge areas. Fostered by the rapid dissemination of products and services that are based or heavily rely on information +LVWRULFDO%DFNJURXQGDQG,QVWLWXWLRQDO technology in almost every area of daily life and due to &RQWH[W the immense increase in data storage capacity, the pro- First ideas of how the body of human knowledge could duction of information and knowledge has increased dra- be organized arose with the founding of schools for phi- matically over the last decades. Whereas in past centuries losophy in ancient Greece. For some centuries now, a sub- the phenomenon of universal scholars could be observed, stantial portion of the world's knowledge has been gener- today it is no longer possible within the capacity of one ated and analyzed in universities and academies and has single individual to keep pace with the ever accelerating been passed on to succeeding generations through those development of human knowledge [Bleicher 92, p. 32]. channels. The first institutionalized academy was founded These developments pose serious challenges for the man- 387 AD by the Greek philosopher Plato as a place of agement and organization of knowledge bases and aggra- knowledge disputation. Subsequently the concept of acad- vate the problem of finding the right information at the emy evolved into different directions. A development of right time. particular importance was the Berliner Akademie founded This effect is felt especially in academic research as in 1700 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The NetAcademy academic activity requires the search for specific and ac- concept intends to follow this approach contributing to its curate information in huge knowledge bases on a daily realization in a post-modern world and in the new digital basis. Furthermore, the multiplication of available infor- medium [Schmid-Isler 98]. mation sources in a global context exacerbates the prob- In the last few years the notion of a virtual university lem of being able to judge information on account of its has gained a lot of popularity [Heilmann 95, p. 3]. In current state of research and the degree to which it has some aspects this concept is closely related to the charac- been reviewed and agreed upon by the scientific commu- teristics of a NetAcademy. Just like a virtual university a nity. In this context a community approach helps to im- NetAcademy also aims at supporting and directing re- plement a higher degree of confidence in the system [cf. search by enabling and facilitating scientific discourse, Iacono/Weisband 97; Hagel/Armstong 96; Erickson 97]. dissemination of knowledge and qualification of scientific In this paper the 1HW$FDGHP\ community concept [Lincke work through reviewing processes. Unlike a virtual uni- et al. 97 and 98] will be presented and discussed. The versity, however, which like its traditional physical coun- project aims at the design of a system for the structuring, terpart still represents a private or state-funded corporate acquisition, mediation and dissemination of domain- entity, a NetAcademy stresses the goal of building a vir- specific scientific knowledge on the basis of a generic, tual reference knowledge medium for a certain domain of internet-based platform, thus adding a contribution to the knowledge to which a large number of researchers con- overcome the deficiencies of electronic documents as dis- tribute. Thus, the entity running the platform should be- cussed in recent literature, e.g.[Palmer 97], especially the come largely irrelevant. absence of contextual cues and markers to the origins of social meaning. Besides this, there are defined processes 7KH1HW$FDGHP\DVD.QRZOHGJH0HGLXP for the quality assurance of the contents generated within According to [Schmid 97; Schmid 98] the NetAca- the NetAcademy. demy, viewed as an electronic knowledge medium, con- /RJLFDO$UFKLWHFWXUH stitutes a new, interactive, and globally accessible infor- mation storage facility. Taking advantage of the Internet At its core an instance of a NetAcademy contains a as a telematic infrastructure it: knowledge base [Fig. 1]. The knowledge base stores facts and procedural knowledge, discussions, research papers, • Serves as a medium for GDWDVWRUDJH, in the same way and other information relevant to the domain. This body as the traditional carriers of information, books or pa- of knowledge can be subdivided into contents of a theo- per, in their organized form in a library. retical or practical nature (worlds). In the theory compo- • supports NQRZOHGJH JHQHUDWLRQ and the SURFHGXUDO nent the vocabulary employed by the scientific commu- DVSHFWV of information as it becomes visible in aca- nity, the accepted methods of scientific proof and axioms demic discussions or, in a more organized form, dur- are made explicit. Thus, taking advantage of the collabo- ing conferences or the dissemination of information in ration mechanisms and infrastructure provided by Net- academic journals and books. Academy a common living and widely accepted electronic handbook for a field of knowledge can be established and •  DXWRPDWLRQ RI SURFHVVHV supports the in the field of is easily extended and kept up to date by a globally dis- academic research as it has long been realized for business processes through use of database manage- $JHQWV ment systems and method bases. 7KHRU\ :RUOGV NetAcademy •Users Vocabulary, Subject Areas Management • Contributors • facilitates integration and coordination of the VFLHQWLILF Axioms etc. •Society • Roles FRPPXQLW\ in a specific field of knowledge •Processes

Another objective strives to design the information .QRZOHGJHÃ%DVH processes in such a way that the NetAcademy medium Classification, Translations Inference- and Update- will be gradually adjusted towards a consistent, non- Mechanisms contradictory organization and a completeness of knowl- Sub-Knowledge Bases KBi edge for a certain domain. In doing so the NetAcademy becomes a finalized machine whose results form a valid tributed group of contributing researchers. handbook of the knowledge within the respective knowl- edge area (domain) including coverage of ongoing re- )LJ/RJLFDODUFKLWHFWXUHRIWKH1$NQRZOHGJHPHGLXP search activities in that domain. The integration of vocabularies of different knowledge 'LJLWDO'RFXPHQWVLQWKH1HW$FDGHP\ sources requires standardization of vocabulary terms, Digital documents form the basic unit of information which can be carried out on a global or a local level. The within a knowledge medium. According to [Palmer 97] notion of a global data schema envisions some central re- “Digital documents and digital libraries provide new op- pository that, in terms of the knowledge medium, trans- portunities for defining and delivering information to stu- lates between the local vocabularies of the individual dents and researchers”. However, the NetAcademy goes knowledge bases to a global vocabulary (schema) which is beyond providing efficient and effective means of repre- again translated to the inquirer’s query vocabularies (ex- senting knowledge. One added value lies in its interactive ternal schemata). The drawback to this approach, as components which foster the collaborative community pointed out by [Boman 93] lies in the management of the processes within the system. Other added value lies in an global schema which seems to be unfeasible due to the explicit representation of semantic aspects of information. tremendous size it may achieve over time. Therefore, the By way of embedded collaboration processes and inter- NetAcademy pursues a bottom-up approach by importing faces it also serves as a tool for the interactive generation expressions from other vocabularies and implicitly incor- of knowledge among different globally distributed partici- porating standardization of terms into the integration pro- pants. This means that the NetAcademy platform makes cess thereby avoiding the disadvantages of a global ap- full use of the special characteristics of electronic docu- proach [Geyer et al. 96; Stanoevska/Hombrecher 98]. ments and combines them with the interaction facilities Another essential component represents the agents (as offered by the Internet thereby going beyond traditional defined and described in [Lechner/Schmid 98]), which concepts of digital libraries. The NetAcademy is a new consist of the scientific community for that particular do- form of knowledge medium which makes it possible to main, and provides them with an organized communica- tions platform. Agents are separable into different classes publications and discussion contributions. Furthermore, which are assigned roles granting them certain rights and they inform discussion participants about their "virtual" obligations within the NetAcademy. Furthermore proc- counterparts. esses can be defined laying out and enforcing procedures 'LVFXVVLRQV to be followed for certain actions, e.g. procedural details of reviewing processes that are triggered by a document Each discussion forum is implemented as a single submission or the enforcement of certain guidelines to be Notes database. There is a master discussion template followed in discussions. Ideally, these processes should be from which all discussion databases inherit their design structured in a way that development towards gradual and functionality. The discussion databases offer inter- completion of the knowledge in the domain is supported. faces to web users as well as to users of the Lotus Notes client. In general, the discussion sections are open to any ,PSOHPHQWDWLRQDQG7HFKQRORJ\ user willing to participate. Participants are required to The functionality supporting the community aspects of comply with certain guidelines (appropriate language and the NetAcademy are embedded into three main applica- topics, no personal attacks, no discrimination, etc.) but tions: Publications, Participants/Registration and Discus- there is no censorship and the correctness of information sions. Fig. 2 illustrates the links and integration between is not checked. Once a discussion evolves in such a way the three modules, and the technologies employed. that it develops new ideas or even research results, an ex- tract is drawn from it summarizing the main findings ,QWHUQDO $FFHVV 3DUWLFLSDQWV YLD 1RWHVÃFOLHQW &RQFOXVLRQVDQG)LUVW([SHULHQFHV One of the foremost goals of the NetAcademy is to en- 2UDFOH64/ able collaborative authoring leading to the generation of ,' 'DWDEDVH ,'ÃQXPEHU ,' new knowledge [cf. Yates et al. 97]. The NetAcademy editorial staff continuously updates and adds new infor- $FFHVV mation considered to be relevant. Online discussions and ([WHUQDO YLD 3DUWLFLSDQWV :HEÃEURZVHU well-defined processes for the submission of publications extend the collaborative authoring to a global community )LJ7KH1HW$FDGHP\FRPPXQLW\PRGXOHV of participants. The vision is that many different research- DQGWKHLULQWHUUHODWLRQV ers contribute a number of small pieces of information and research findings which - when combined – will eventu- • 3XEOLFDWLRQV ally amount to a significant addition to the established In order to provide powerful browsing, submission, body of knowledge. and search interfaces and to be able to optimally manage structured meta-information as well as unstructured The NetAcademy was opened in April 1997. So far documents (abstracts and full text of publications) and more than 120 participants have registered themselves in handle workflow processes (submission and review of at least one of the different NetAcademies (different re- new publications) the publications database application search fields). Over 500 publications have been submitted was implemented as a hybrid system combining a Lotus to the publications database. Activity in the discussion Notes/Domino object store and application with a rela- section, however, is still rather slow possibly indicating tional Oracle database backend. External participants en- that a critical mass of participants has not been reached ter their submissions into a web-entry form which initiates yet. a review process. In order to maintain a good level of $FNQRZOHGJHPHQWV quality, submissions to the publications section are subject to a strict reviewing process as is the case for articles The paper presents the work of a team of researchers at submitted to scholarly journals and academic conferences. the Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen. The original idea for the founda- The publications database is fully integrated with the tion of a global NetAcademy was developed by Professor participants and discussion databases. Thus, from every Beat Schmid, Director of the Institute and co-author of publication links are offered to other publications and dis- this paper. We are particularly indebted to Salome cussion posts by the same author as well as to her home Schmid-Isler (NetAcademy project leader), Katarina Sta- page in the participants database if available, which pro- noevska, and Ulrike Lechner who are responsible for the vides contact and further personal information. management and the further development of the contents • 3DUWLFLSDQWV and technical infrastructure. Registered NetAcademy participants have the option of maintaining a personal homepages in the NetAcademy. 5HIHUHQFHVDYDLODEOHXSRQUHTXHVWIURPDXWKRUV These pages serve multiple purposes. They provide in- formation on authors and offer links to the respective $*OREDO.QRZOHGJH0HGLXPDVD9LUWXDO&RPPXQLW\± 7KH1HW$FDGHP\&RQFHSW Petra Schubert, David-Michael Lincke, Beat F. Schmid Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8 CH-9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland E-Mail: [email protected]

$EVWUDFW solution of the above mentioned problems. As the plat- form follows a generic, template-driven design approach it 7DNLQJ XS WKH LGHDV RI WKH DQFLHQW *UHHN FRQFHSW RI can be applied to a vast variety of different research disci- $FDGHPLD WKH ´1HW$FDGHP\´ LV DLPLQJ DW SURYLGLQJ D plines. As of the time of this writing NetAcademies have NQRZOHGJHPHGLXPWRDLGLQWKHFUHDWLRQLQWHJUDWLRQUH been established for the fields of Business Media YLHZLQJDQGGLVVHPLQDWLRQRIGRPDLQVSHFLILFNQRZOHGJH (http://www.businessmedia.org), Knowledge Media LQWKHVFLHQWLILFFRPPXQLW\,QSXUVXLWRIWKHVHJRDOVLWLV (www.knowledgemedia.org) and Media Management WDNLQJ IXOO DGYDQWDJH RI WKH XQLTXH FKDUDFWHULVWLFV DQG (www.mediamanagement.org). The initiating institution is SRWHQWLDORIWKH,QWHUQHWPHGLXP 7KH 1HW$FDGHP\ LV DQ the Institute for Media and Communications Management H[LVWLQJZHELQIRUPDWLRQV\VWHP :,6 ZKLFKZDV GHYHO at the University of St Gallen. The NetAcademy is a non- RSHGLQRUGHUWRVXSSRUWWKHEXLOGLQJRIYLUWXDOVFLHQWLILF commercial research project partly funded by the FRPPXQLWLHVIRUGLIIHUHQWUHVHDUFKILHOGV Bertelsmann and Heinz Nixdorf Foundations. The inter- ,QWURGXFWLRQ national review board will consist of independent experts for the respective knowledge areas. Fostered by the rapid dissemination of products and services that are based or heavily rely on information +LVWRULFDO%DFNJURXQGDQG,QVWLWXWLRQDO technology in almost every area of daily life and due to &RQWH[W the immense increase in data storage capacity, the pro- First ideas of how the body of human knowledge could duction of information and knowledge has increased dra- be organized arose with the founding of schools for phi- matically over the last decades. Whereas in past centuries losophy in ancient Greece. For some centuries now, a sub- the phenomenon of universal scholars could be observed, stantial portion of the world's knowledge has been gener- today it is no longer possible within the capacity of one ated and analyzed in universities and academies and has single individual to keep pace with the ever accelerating been passed on to succeeding generations through those development of human knowledge [Bleicher 92, p. 32]. channels. The first institutionalized academy was founded These developments pose serious challenges for the man- 387 AD by the Greek philosopher Plato as a place of agement and organization of knowledge bases and aggra- knowledge disputation. Subsequently the concept of acad- vate the problem of finding the right information at the emy evolved into different directions. A development of right time. particular importance was the Berliner Akademie founded This effect is felt especially in academic research as in 1700 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The NetAcademy academic activity requires the search for specific and ac- concept intends to follow this approach contributing to its curate information in huge knowledge bases on a daily realization in a post-modern world and in the new digital basis. Furthermore, the multiplication of available infor- medium [Schmid-Isler 98]. mation sources in a global context exacerbates the prob- In the last few years the notion of a virtual university lem of being able to judge information on account of its has gained a lot of popularity [Heilmann 95, p. 3]. In current state of research and the degree to which it has some aspects this concept is closely related to the charac- been reviewed and agreed upon by the scientific commu- teristics of a NetAcademy. Just like a virtual university a nity. In this context a community approach helps to im- NetAcademy also aims at supporting and directing re- plement a higher degree of confidence in the system [cf. search by enabling and facilitating scientific discourse, Iacono/Weisband 97; Hagel/Armstong 96; Erickson 97]. dissemination of knowledge and qualification of scientific In this paper the 1HW$FDGHP\ community concept [Lincke work through reviewing processes. Unlike a virtual uni- et al. 97 and 98] will be presented and discussed. The versity, however, which like its traditional physical coun- project aims at the design of a system for the structuring, terpart still represents a private or state-funded corporate acquisition, mediation and dissemination of domain- entity, a NetAcademy stresses the goal of building a vir- specific scientific knowledge on the basis of a generic, tual reference knowledge medium for a certain domain of internet-based platform, thus adding a contribution to the knowledge to which a large number of researchers con- overcome the deficiencies of electronic documents as dis- tribute. Thus, the entity running the platform should be- cussed in recent literature, e.g.[Palmer 97], especially the come largely irrelevant. absence of contextual cues and markers to the origins of social meaning. Besides this, there are defined processes 7KH1HW$FDGHP\DVD.QRZOHGJH0HGLXP for the quality assurance of the contents generated within According to [Schmid 97; Schmid 98] the NetAca- the NetAcademy. demy, viewed as an electronic knowledge medium, con- /RJLFDO$UFKLWHFWXUH stitutes a new, interactive, and globally accessible infor- mation storage facility. Taking advantage of the Internet At its core an instance of a NetAcademy contains a as a telematic infrastructure it: knowledge base [Fig. 1]. The knowledge base stores facts and procedural knowledge, discussions, research papers, • Serves as a medium for GDWDVWRUDJH, in the same way and other information relevant to the domain. This body as the traditional carriers of information, books or pa- of knowledge can be subdivided into contents of a theo- per, in their organized form in a library. retical or practical nature (worlds). In the theory compo- • supports NQRZOHGJH JHQHUDWLRQ and the SURFHGXUDO nent the vocabulary employed by the scientific commu- DVSHFWV of information as it becomes visible in aca- nity, the accepted methods of scientific proof and axioms demic discussions or, in a more organized form, dur- are made explicit. Thus, taking advantage of the collabo- ing conferences or the dissemination of information in ration mechanisms and infrastructure provided by Net- academic journals and books. Academy a common living and widely accepted electronic handbook for a field of knowledge can be established and •  DXWRPDWLRQ RI SURFHVVHV supports the in the field of is easily extended and kept up to date by a globally dis- academic research as it has long been realized for business processes through use of database manage- $JHQWV ment systems and method bases. 7KHRU\ :RUOGV NetAcademy •Users Vocabulary, Subject Areas Management • Contributors • facilitates integration and coordination of the VFLHQWLILF Axioms etc. •Society • Roles FRPPXQLW\ in a specific field of knowledge •Processes

Another objective strives to design the information .QRZOHGJHÃ%DVH processes in such a way that the NetAcademy medium Classification, Translations Inference- and Update- will be gradually adjusted towards a consistent, non- Mechanisms contradictory organization and a completeness of knowl- Sub-Knowledge Bases KBi edge for a certain domain. In doing so the NetAcademy becomes a finalized machine whose results form a valid tributed group of contributing researchers. handbook of the knowledge within the respective knowl- edge area (domain) including coverage of ongoing re- )LJ/RJLFDODUFKLWHFWXUHRIWKH1$NQRZOHGJHPHGLXP search activities in that domain. The integration of vocabularies of different knowledge 'LJLWDO'RFXPHQWVLQWKH1HW$FDGHP\ sources requires standardization of vocabulary terms, Digital documents form the basic unit of information which can be carried out on a global or a local level. The within a knowledge medium. According to [Palmer 97] notion of a global data schema envisions some central re- “Digital documents and digital libraries provide new op- pository that, in terms of the knowledge medium, trans- portunities for defining and delivering information to stu- lates between the local vocabularies of the individual dents and researchers”. However, the NetAcademy goes knowledge bases to a global vocabulary (schema) which is beyond providing efficient and effective means of repre- again translated to the inquirer’s query vocabularies (ex- senting knowledge. One added value lies in its interactive ternal schemata). The drawback to this approach, as components which foster the collaborative community pointed out by [Boman 93] lies in the management of the processes within the system. Other added value lies in an global schema which seems to be unfeasible due to the explicit representation of semantic aspects of information. tremendous size it may achieve over time. Therefore, the By way of embedded collaboration processes and inter- NetAcademy pursues a bottom-up approach by importing faces it also serves as a tool for the interactive generation expressions from other vocabularies and implicitly incor- of knowledge among different globally distributed partici- porating standardization of terms into the integration pro- pants. This means that the NetAcademy platform makes cess thereby avoiding the disadvantages of a global ap- full use of the special characteristics of electronic docu- proach [Geyer et al. 96; Stanoevska/Hombrecher 98]. ments and combines them with the interaction facilities Another essential component represents the agents (as offered by the Internet thereby going beyond traditional defined and described in [Lechner/Schmid 98]), which concepts of digital libraries. The NetAcademy is a new consist of the scientific community for that particular do- form of knowledge medium which makes it possible to main, and provides them with an organized communica- tions platform. Agents are separable into different classes publications and discussion contributions. Furthermore, which are assigned roles granting them certain rights and they inform discussion participants about their "virtual" obligations within the NetAcademy. Furthermore proc- counterparts. esses can be defined laying out and enforcing procedures 'LVFXVVLRQV to be followed for certain actions, e.g. procedural details of reviewing processes that are triggered by a document Each discussion forum is implemented as a single submission or the enforcement of certain guidelines to be Notes database. There is a master discussion template followed in discussions. Ideally, these processes should be from which all discussion databases inherit their design structured in a way that development towards gradual and functionality. The discussion databases offer inter- completion of the knowledge in the domain is supported. faces to web users as well as to users of the Lotus Notes client. In general, the discussion sections are open to any ,PSOHPHQWDWLRQDQG7HFKQRORJ\ user willing to participate. Participants are required to The functionality supporting the community aspects of comply with certain guidelines (appropriate language and the NetAcademy are embedded into three main applica- topics, no personal attacks, no discrimination, etc.) but tions: Publications, Participants/Registration and Discus- there is no censorship and the correctness of information sions. Fig. 2 illustrates the links and integration between is not checked. Once a discussion evolves in such a way the three modules, and the technologies employed. that it develops new ideas or even research results, an ex- tract is drawn from it summarizing the main findings ,QWHUQDO $FFHVV 3DUWLFLSDQWV YLD 1RWHVÃFOLHQW &RQFOXVLRQVDQG)LUVW([SHULHQFHV One of the foremost goals of the NetAcademy is to en- 2UDFOH64/ able collaborative authoring leading to the generation of ,' 'DWDEDVH ,'ÃQXPEHU ,' new knowledge [cf. Yates et al. 97]. The NetAcademy editorial staff continuously updates and adds new infor- $FFHVV mation considered to be relevant. Online discussions and ([WHUQDO YLD 3DUWLFLSDQWV :HEÃEURZVHU well-defined processes for the submission of publications extend the collaborative authoring to a global community )LJ7KH1HW$FDGHP\FRPPXQLW\PRGXOHV of participants. The vision is that many different research- DQGWKHLULQWHUUHODWLRQV ers contribute a number of small pieces of information and research findings which - when combined – will eventu- • 3XEOLFDWLRQV ally amount to a significant addition to the established In order to provide powerful browsing, submission, body of knowledge. and search interfaces and to be able to optimally manage structured meta-information as well as unstructured The NetAcademy was opened in April 1997. So far documents (abstracts and full text of publications) and more than 120 participants have registered themselves in handle workflow processes (submission and review of at least one of the different NetAcademies (different re- new publications) the publications database application search fields). Over 500 publications have been submitted was implemented as a hybrid system combining a Lotus to the publications database. Activity in the discussion Notes/Domino object store and application with a rela- section, however, is still rather slow possibly indicating tional Oracle database backend. External participants en- that a critical mass of participants has not been reached ter their submissions into a web-entry form which initiates yet. a review process. In order to maintain a good level of $FNQRZOHGJHPHQWV quality, submissions to the publications section are subject to a strict reviewing process as is the case for articles The paper presents the work of a team of researchers at submitted to scholarly journals and academic conferences. the Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen. The original idea for the founda- The publications database is fully integrated with the tion of a global NetAcademy was developed by Professor participants and discussion databases. Thus, from every Beat Schmid, Director of the Institute and co-author of publication links are offered to other publications and dis- this paper. We are particularly indebted to Salome cussion posts by the same author as well as to her home Schmid-Isler (NetAcademy project leader), Katarina Sta- page in the participants database if available, which pro- noevska, and Ulrike Lechner who are responsible for the vides contact and further personal information. management and the further development of the contents • 3DUWLFLSDQWV and technical infrastructure. Registered NetAcademy participants have the option of maintaining a personal homepages in the NetAcademy. 5HIHUHQFHVDYDLODEOHXSRQUHTXHVWIURPDXWKRUV These pages serve multiple purposes. They provide in- formation on authors and offer links to the respective