ELECTRONIC CULTURAL ATLAS INITIATIVE IN TAIWAN

Shih Cheer Dean
Statement of Purpose

The preservation of Buddhist treasures has entered into the digital era by which once was oral, pattra and printing. Following the pioneers in our times, have been directed toward the information era of the 21st century, we are honored to digitized Buddhist Studies textual and cultural resources. Founded by Dr. Lewis Lancaster, the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), an association of scholars, a partnership of technical specialists and the scholarly community dedicated to the support of scholarship through technology, is promoting worldwide electronic access to quality research data. ECAI helps documenting a whole range of events that marks the changes and shiftings all over the world.

As Muller described, "[through ECAI] Lancaster's stimulating energies moved on from digitization of the basic set of canonical texts, to the development of a wide range of textual, graphic, multimedia, GIS-based, and other resources that spill far out beyond the confines of Buddhist studies, to the cultures of every region".[1] Thus, following its traditional mission of preserving Buddhist treasures, we are now in the position to call for another assembly.  Our goal is not just reserving a safe, long-lasting, convenient database but also identifying the next movement of the digital era.

ECAI creates an infrastructure for retrieving data over the Internet from servers located worldwide. Moreover, unlike traditional atlas, research data on ECAI is indexed by time and place using temporally-enabled Geographic Information Systems software. As Lancaster describes, such powerful software enables "user queries to retrieve display data in GIS layers on a map-based interface, allowing comparisons across discipline, region, and time.[2] Yuan Heng Graduated School of Buddhism is proud to be called to be the ECAI's headquarter in Taiwan.

Program like ECAI is necessary to better understand the history and development of Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan. Such history includes the transmission of Buddhism and Zhajiao to the island, the development of institutions that were or are island-wide in scope and function, the biographies of significant figures, the doctrinal negotiations that have helped shape the identity of Taiwanese Buddhism, and the diversified Buddhism, the Buddhist interactions with government authorities under the three regimes that have ruled the island during four periods: 1) The Ming and Qing Dynasty (1660-1895), 2) The Japanese Colonial Period (1895-1945), 3) The Nationalist Regime (1945-2000), and 4) Taiwanese Buddhism of 21st Century (2000- ), which have been important part of whole Buddhist World. With the assistance of an infrastructure like ECAI, the tradition of major regional Buddhism, Taiwanese Buddhism should be encapsulated, preserved and digitalized.

ECAI Taiwan team proposed to develop and conduct a program that shares the same goals and objectives as rest of the ECAI project members worldwide; such as (1) Building a Global Community, (2) Demonstrating Use of a Time and Space Interface, (3) Building Cultural Atlases, (4) Participating in Research and Development Initiatives, (5) Documenting our success and challenges, (6) Creating a Digital library.[3]

Approach

The digital information technology has shown its significance in preservation and illustration of Buddhist treasure. In the initial stage, we propose to create the Atlas of Taiwanese Religion first by building a Taiwanese Buddhist database which allows such data to be retrieved over the Internet from anywhere in the world. Guided by the ECAI and its paradigm of the historical atlas, research data of all Taiwanese Buddhist site and related branches is indexed by time (When), place (Where), event (What) and person (Who), using temporally-enabled Google Earth search platform and Geographic Information Systems software.

In the ECAi MetaData Relationship Chart below displays the fields of data which will be created in the database. Underline ones are required to be filled in for every location. Again, user queries retrieve and display data in GIS layers on a designed map-based interface, allowing comparisons across discipline, region, time and religion (others will be built after the completion of initial stage). We look forward to seeing these treasure presented in a new way.

ECAl MetaData Relationship Chart
Chart I: ECAI Meta-Data Relationship Chart

In order to create such database, this project would like first build a shared user interface to provide a friendly environment for our staff and volunteer to continue with the process of data entry in an efficient fashion. The following example clear indicates the importance of software development plays in this project. Initially, we have gathered 2,137 Buddhist sites from the World Buddhist Directories. Our first tasks was to input the names of the sites, locate them on Google Map, and record their longitude and longitudes. We were able to successfully "geo-registered" 2,137 Buddhist sites in the database within a week of timeframe after we've invested in the development of this platform. Prior to that, it is estimated to take roughly 20 volunteers six months to complete the same amount of records with other tools. Thus, it is quite clear that the investment in developing a customized platform for this project is necessary to help improve the accessibility information available to users and efficiency of our progress.

Address or Name Search Results:
Current searched results for querying
"Taipei City" are 230 entries; and "Yuen Hung Temple" are 3 entries.

Currently, this platform contains a search feature for users to make queries by Location Name, and Location Address. A testing pilot program has been posted to our official website www.taipeiaud.org , under the ECAI 查詢 tab now. As you can see, when searching for "Taipei City", we have a total of 239 results in the database. When searching for "Yuan Hung Temple", there are a total of three results.

As Harder stated, the greatest virtue of GIS is its analytical power.[4] With the meta-data information entered into the database, GIS allows the system to do spatial analysis that is different than traditional database. One example that such system might be helpful for better management of religious sites would be mapping out the concentration of services provided overlapping with other demographic information entered thus providing organization mangers to make better decisions regarding reaching out to more targeted clients in a more efficient manner. It is also our one of our goal to provide a shared global community with such resources open for public to access.

Program Logic Model

Table 1 is the logic model proposed for ECAI Taiwan program. We proposed to conduct the following activities in order to meet our program goals.

Primary Inputs consist the following:

Staff: Onsite paid staff dedicated fulltime on the project

Part-Time Staff: Onsite paid staff dedicated part-time on the project

Volunteers: Non-paid members of the program who will also be dedicated to this project at their free time

Time: Time spent on developing and maintaining the program

Money: Money spent on developing and maintaining the program

Research base: Researches conducted related to the program performance and development

Materials: Information to be digitized which covers a wide range of materials such as the Buddhist Directory, Books or other online referencing materials of Buddhist Sites, in the later stage local historic records will also be added. Moreover, we are also collaborating with Dr. Lancaster in digitizing the 25

Dynasty Histories with geographic and time data.

Equipments: Facility provided

Technology: Share database via the internet for data-entry and retrieving.

Partners: Partners shared same interests and goal with the program and would like to join and assist are encouraged and welcomed.

Primary Outputs include the following activities:

Recruitment:  to recruiting talents for developing and maintaining of the program

Workshop and Training:  to keep participants informed and updated with program goals

Awareness Campaign: to promote the concept of Geographic Information System, its importance, and how to utilize it

Community Partnership:  to find partners in the community to share the tasks of expanding ECAI database.

Regarding the Outcomes of our program, as they've been stated earlier, ECAI Taiwan will share the same goals with ECAI headquarter at Berkeley. Again, they are (1) Building a Global Community, (2) Demonstrating Use of a Time and Space Interface, (3) Building Cultural Atlases, (4) Participating in Research and Development Initiatives, (5) Documenting our success and challenges, (6) Creating a Digital library[5].

Table 1: Program Logic Model

Chart 2 below is a flow chart of the logic model proposed above along with projected timeline and anticipated participants we wish to draw. 

Chart 2: Program Logic Flow Chart 

Project Evaluation

ECAI Taiwan proposed to measure our progresses in achieving the programs' goals in the following ways:

By keeping a centralized database: Performance of data-entry progress will be compiled into monthly program reports.

By keeping backups locally and globally: Backup of our data will be stored locally as well as in an Excel file sending back to Howie Lan, our contact person with ECAI headquarter.

By keeping and editor's log: We will maintain an editor's log record to keep track of who entered the data and also the reviewer who review them for the second time

By conducting periodic meetings: Group meetings will be conducted as a way to keep our team members aware of most current updates of our program as well as maintaining their goals and expectations the same with program managers.

Budgeting

ECAI Taiwan sets apart 80% of our budget for mainly for the development and maintenance of our shared online information management services provided, and as well as the hiring of staffs for the data-entry and cleaning processes. Another portion of our budget will be dedicated to the awareness campaign of ECAI as we believe the more community is aware of this project, they will be in return help to contribute valuable information back to the community which will make our database more resourceful.

List of Key Staff Members

References:

Harder, Christian. ArcView GIS Means Business. Redlands, Cal.: Environmental System Research Institute, 1997.

Muller, Charles. Digital Editor's Preface to the Web Publication of the Descriptive Catalogue, http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/descriptive_catalogue/digeditor-preface.html (Oct. 2004).

Lancaster, Lewis. http://ieas.berkeley.edu/faculty/lancaster.html.
Attachments
ECAI Taiwan – Yuan Hung Temple Taipei Auditorium Members

[1] Charles Muller, Digital Editor's Preface to the Web Publication of the Descriptive Catalogue, http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/descriptive_catalogue/digeditor-preface.html (Oct. 2004).
[2] Lewis Lancaster, http://ieas.berkeley.edu/faculty/lancaster.html.
[3] http://ecai.org/about/aboutecai.html, (Retrieved on March 13, 2007).
[4] Christian Harder, Arc View GIS Means Business (Redlands: Environmental System Research Institute, 1997), p.9.
[5] http://ecai.org/about/aboutecai.html, (Retrieved on March 13, 2007)