http://www.morningstar.org/pilot.html (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)

Joining Morning Star Technical Services in Internet Publishing

The Morning Star Technical Services has embarked on an electronic publishing experiment. Morning Star is working with a number of information providers on two year pilot project to bring existing information sources into the highly networked world of the public Internet. The goal of this experiment is to explore ways that the evolving information super-highway could be effectively used to share and distribute information between Christians, with a particular focus on Christian workers serving where the gospel has not yet been widely heard. This pilot project would also explore what new services might be possible using the new medium of electronic publishing. Morning Star Technical Services is looking for a number of churches, para-churches, mission agencies, and Christian publishers that would like to take part in this publishing experiment.

Benefits of Participating

A question that many ask is why should they participate in this pilot project? There are a variety of reasons why an organization might wish to be involved in this project:

A leadership role in electronic publishing. Groups involved in this projects may set standards which will be used for many years to come as well as providing leadership for organization which will follow them.
An opportunity to explore a new and exciting new medium which is already being used for the gospel.
A low cost entry into the electronic publishing world. Morning Star Technical Services will provide free assistance, as well as making a number of computing resources available at no cost to those organizations participating in this project.
A new avenue to share materials which would build up the body.

Models for Participation

There are three models which describe how an organization could be involved in this pilot project. It is up to you to decide the level of involvement and oversight that you wish to exercise in this project.

Raw Data Provided

You might wish to provide data to be freely distributed in this pilot project. It would be up to you to select what data you would like to share. Representatives of Morning Star Technical Services would work with you to design an acceptable form that the distributed data would take. An agreement would be drafting which would specify how the data provided by you would be used and what sort of oversight you would exercise over the electronic publishing.

Selecting to provide raw data to Morning Star Technical Services would require very little of your organization's precious resources. Morning Star Technical Services would provide the expertise to convert the data you provide into a form that could be used for electronic publishing. Morning Star Technical Services would also provide the computing resources required to service the data you provide. Morning Star Technical Services would transfer the converted data, as well as share whatever technology they have developed with you whenever you had an interest and adequate resources to publish electronically yourselves.

Prepared Material Serviced by Morning Star

Another option that you might select is to prepare whatever data you wish to publish electronically yourselves. If desired, Morning Star Technical Services would provide technical consulting to assist you in converting your existing data. Once you prepare the material you wish to publish, Morning Star Technical Services would provide the computing resources required to publish it electronically.

You would avoid significant expense by letting Morning Star Technical Services provide Internet access to the material you prepare. Preparing your own material for publishing could be done using hardware you already own. The software needed to prepare your data for electronic publishing is either freely available, or extremely low cost. The one resource that would be required would be personnel time. It would take time to learn about current electronic publishing technology. Is is the best option for most organizations since it provides the maximum learning opportunity for the lowest cost.

You Designing and Providing Data Electronically

You could decide to enter the electronic publishing world full force by not only converting existing data into a form which is compatible with electronic publishing, but by publishing the data yourself. This would require additional computing resources and considerable staff time and expertise.

Costs

The cost to you will depend on the level of involvement selected. The lowest level of direct involvement, releasing raw data, would cost nothing, and could possibly save you money since information that you are currently shipping at a loss would be distributed at no cost.

If you decided to prepare data for electronic publishing, your existing hardware would most likely be adequate. Less than $100 would cover any software expenses. Staff time requirements are hard to calculate.

Publishing the data yourself could be quite expensive. First, a computer of sufficient computational power would be required. This computer would cost somewhere between $3000-6000. Next, you would need a permanent link to the public Internet. This would cost at least $200/month. Finally, you would need to develop technical expertise to keep these computing resources running efficiently. This will require a great deal of work for most organizations since most organizations use Macintoshes or PCs. Ideally, these sorts of services should run on a modern operating system design to run services such as UNIX. While there are freely and cheaply available versions of UNIX, most organizations would need to spend a lot of time training staff to manage a UNIX server.

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