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The Zen KnowledgeBase Research Project

Summary

Its aim is to port primary and secondary sources of and about Zen Buddhism to the electronic medium, to structure and link such sources in intelligent ways, and to make the result of these efforts available to all students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. The staff of the Zen KnowledgeBase project makes every effort to create a firm basis for future scholarship.

1. 1989-1991: Urs App's basic research, strategy development, study of available methods. First software products, beginning of input activities. 30-minute computer demo by Urs App entitled "Mujaku's Dream" (contained on the ZenBase CD 1).
2. 1991-1995: First massive data input phase; publication of various electronic products; research on structuring and tagging the data; basic research on Chinese character encoding, relationships of various codes, data quality issues, etc. The end of this phase is marked by the publication of the first CD-ROM, the ZenBase CD 1. Various printed products also appeared during this phase. Opening of the institute 's World Wide Web site.
3. 1995-1997: Second basic research phase; research and development of appropriate strategies and means to analyze and mark up structure and content of the data in TEI-conform ways. Development of data linking methods.
4. 1997-2000: Second massive data input and markup phase. Publication of the second CD-ROM.