The Development of ASHS HortBase—A Global Information System

Abstract

In 1997, the ASHS Board of Directors established ASHS HortBase as a Standing Committee of the Society. The ASHS HortBase Committee, a six-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, and publishing; and 3) Technology. 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 Extension, 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 to 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' dispersed servers disperses the major costs of the HortBase information system. Additional information on ASHS HortBase and the papers presented at the 4-h Colloquium on HortBase at ASHS-97 can be found at http://hortbase@ashs.org or contact me (greenjl@bcc.orst.edu, phone 541.737.5452, fax 541.737.3479).