Articles
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HORTBASE, A GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
ASHS HortBase Committee, a 6-member standing committee and chair, is charged to implement and maintain ASHS HortBase.
The members of the ASHS HortBase committee will be chair and chair-elect of the three HortBase Task Forces: 1) Finance and Marketing; 2) Standards – authoring, reviewing, publishing; and, 3) Technology.
Implementation details are at http://www.forages.css.orst.edu/HortBase/ Approved/index.html.
ASHS HortBase is a dispersed, dynamic horticultural information system (network) on the WWW comprised of peer-reviewed, concise, interlinked information modules to meet the information needs of instructors and students, gardeners and growers.
A strong advantage and distinguishing characteristic of ASHS HortBase is our dynamic pool of potential authors, reviewers and users (ASHS Extn, Industry and Teaching membership) to continually evolve and update the peer-reviewed information in HortBase.
We have the scholastic international standing to provide peer review and validation of the information and recognition to the authors -coupled with the marketing to stimulate wide-use of their information modules.
ASHS HortBase is a dispersed system (dispersed development and server costs). The "dispersed cost" for information file development and updating and delivery on the respective authors’ servers disperses the major costs of the HortBase information system.
Additional information on ASHS HortBase and the papers presented at the 4-hour colloquium on HortBase at the 1997 ASHS Annual Conference can be found at http://www.forages.css.orst.edu/HortBase/ and in HortTechnology 8(3):290–324.