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April 10, 2002 ENCYCOGOV was started in the summer of 1999 as an experiment to see whether it was possible to use the flexible nature of the internet to publish information about corporate governance in a way that could support and extend the more traditional means of publishing, such as publishing through refereed journals and printed books. At that time Encycogov only contained a few webpages and it did indeed look like an 'experiment'. Consequently the webtraffic was limited to about 3 to 10 visitors a day. Today Encycogov has come of age. It has been expanded with hundreds of new pages and it has undergone several redesigns that has made it more informative and functional than ever before. The result is that Encycogov now has more than 200 visitors a day and the traffic continues to grow. In addition Encycogov have been e-mailed numerous of times by people who simply want to applaud Encycogov for helping them to get hold on some of the issues that are relevant for studies in corporate governance. There is therefore no doubt in my mind anymore that the internet is a viable alternative to publish academic information about corporate governance (and possibly any other academic field as well). However, there is much more to be done and there are plenty of room for further improvements. Originally I imagined that Encycogov would evolve to become an internet community with several different authors contributing to the content of Encycogov. However, this idea has failed because I missed to see that most people need some tangible incentives to make an effort. Until now Encycogov has neither been able to offer money nor has it been able to increase the probability of getting promoted at academic institutions because internet publications, for the time being, are not associated with any academic merits comparable to the merits obtained when publishing in a refereed and esteemed journal. Nevertheless, I have plenty of ideas of how to overcome the problem of providing tangible incentives for contributing to the contents of Encycogov. The mission of Encycogov is to maintain its position as the leading web-based resource for useful and well-documented information about corporate governance. To achieve this mission it is believed to be essential to solve the problem of providing incentives for others to deliver content. This will be the focus of many of the forthcoming changes and improvements that the audience of Encycogov will experience.
Best regards Click to read previous letter of the Editor
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