Austria-Forum

The Austria-Forum is a German language online encyclopedia and database dedicated to all material related to Austria. It consists of three parts: Two of them — a lexicon on Austria and collection of various databases — are under supervision of an editorial team, while the third part is a community space open to all users.

The project

The website www.austria-lexikon.at

Austria-Forum. Das österreichische Wissensnetz

("Austria forum, the Austrian knowledge net"), was officially launched on October 9, 2009. The project was planned and realized by Hermann Maurer (professor at the Technical University Graz in Styria, Austria, from 1978 until his retirement in October 2009) by means of research projects.

Content

The Austria-Forum offers:

• The AEIOU Österreich Lexikon, a lexicon on Austria.
  This is the continuation of an online lexicon, originally supported by the Austrian government which, however, had no longer been maintained for some time.

• Wissensammlungen,
  a collection of databases, including biographies, collections of images, databases on topics such as Austria's butterflies.

• Community.
  The place for user contributions.

Concept

An editorial team of "expert" volunteers is responsible for the content, in particular for the second part. Articles in the first two parts are meant to be locked after approval by the editorial team and to remain citable, while updated articles may be added.

Any registered user may contribute to the community space or add comments to articles in the first two parts. For registration real name and email address are required, but one may choose a nickname which is shown in the forum. A registered user may edit his own contributions or comment, but not edit, those of other users. Contributions to the community space may be transferred (by editors) to one of other parts.

Technical issues

The website is based on software developed for this project.