The recent discussions about PCP on the World-Wide Web illustrate some
major features of the web.
We asked several groups maintaining indices of psychological activities on
the Web to put in links to the PCP page here so that other psychologists
world-wide could find it.
We also put in links to the index pages at other sites so that someone coming
into the PCP page could find other psychological material.
When Jim came into the PCP page here he jumped to Stanford through one of
these links, navigated their site, found a link to JCP and jumped back
here to the material Robert had supplied.
This distribution of linked material is one of the most important features
of World-Wide Web -- many individuals and communities each managing their
own information on the web but cross-linked so that the whole is very much
greater than the sum of its parts.
**Accessing the Web**
We've had a number of requests for info on how to access World-Wide Web.
It's not as simple as email because you need a higher-quality connection
to the Internet that gives you reasonable speed TCP/IP access. If you
are coming in over a modem, this means a 14,400 baud maudem through a
PPP or SLIP connection. The speed is important because the web supports
images and these tend to be larger data structures than text.
The browser to use currently is Netscape from Netscape Corporation. It
is available for Macs, PCs and Unix systems, and is used by over 80% of WWW
users. It is free for educational and personal use, and $39 for other use.
The ftp site are:
ftp.netscape.com
ftp2.netscape.com
The address of the PCP site here is:
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/PCP
It has all the email to this list linked through hypertext, information on
the Barcelona and NAPCN96 conferences, JCP, etc. Let us know if you put
any PCP material up on the Internet so that we put in a link to it.
**Repertory Grid Elicitation and Analysis on the Web**
There is also a link to WebGrid, a repertory grid elicitation, modeling
and comparison service operating on the web. This is an implementation of
RepGrid operating as an HTTP server on the web. You go through a normal
elicitation based on triads, breaking matches, and so on, and get the FOCUS,
PrinCom and Socio analyses back as graphics.
All the grid data is stored in the web documents, so that you can save them
on your own computer, use the data locally, and continue the elicitation and
processing by reloading the locally stored file.
You can annotate elements with HTML text so that comments, images and sounds
can be used in the elicitation. These can be stored on your local machine or
anywhere on the Internet.
We have been running WebGrid for courses here this semester on a rather slow
old Mac that no-one wanted, but we have now moved it to a sparkling new
Power Mac that should be capable of supporting general use.
Mildred will be describing the system and its applications at Barcelona.
**Electronic Journals**
Re the discussion on electronic journals, there is increasing publication
on the Internet, and a growing number of electronic journals. Universal
access is still a problem, and the best solution currently seems to be dual
publication with the electronic version free and the paper version low in
cost. JAIR, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research from Morgan
Kauffman is a good example with strong refereeing, rapid publication, free
Internet access and a paper version at $39 a year.
However, increasingly also authors are just bypassing the current systems
and putting their work up for access through ftp and WWW. It is fast and simple,
reaches a large population, and allows multi-media materials, simulations,
access to raw data, and so on, to be incorporated.
We are "living in interesting times" - both a curse and a blessing!
Brian and Mildred
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