As a WWW provider, African Studies at Penn is now developing multimedia projects that incorporate a mixture of text, video, sound, graphics, and links to other African resources on the Internet. These interactive documents, or hypertexts, facilitate a whole new way of presenting information, and a new forum for Africans communicating around the world. The African Studies WWW provides high quality information about Africa that can be used to enhance curriculum development, academic collaboration, and community awareness. World Fact Book, Embassy info., State Dept. travel advisories, flags, etc. A graduate student planning to do research in Senegal can identify sources of potential funding, find the current State Department travel advisory, locate other research being done in the region, contact the Senegalese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and even learn how to prepare Senegalese cuisine.
Users are from myriad academic, commercial, and private sector institutions worldwide.
The limited access to telecommunications resources by African institutions is reflected in usage statistics by client domain. For example, last February, usage broken down by country revealed that only .6 percent of total global usage was from African institutions. The African Studies WWW promotes interdisciplinary instruction and research in African languages and area studies by undertaking projects that relate information technology with African Studies. Without such a tool, African participation in WWW development would be limited to the small percentage of African countries that have full Internet connectivity. The African Studies WWW receives a direct file feed from a local FidoNet node in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, called Hornet.