http://www.bbcnc.org.uk/online/oneworld/online_welcome.html (The Risc Disc Volume 2, 10/1995)
We'd like to welcome you to OneWorld Online. It's been a most exciting collaborative effort to set up - we hope the results are going to prove rewarding. How it grows and develops depends on the feedback we get, so do let us know what you think and what ideas you have for new features.
Our basic idea is to make available, free and worldwide, some of the best of the thinking, writing, picture-taking and broadcasting about global themes that is being produced. We're all in favour of media re-cycling, and so we depend on the goodwill of all those with an important story to tell who want to get it out to an even wider audience.
We won't be offering only one particular editorial line: but we will be filtering and arranging what is sent to us, so that you're not deluged with a flood of material. Of course, you won't agree with everything here - neither do we - but we hope it represents a spread of significant opinions and viewpoints on each topic. We will be careful to attribute everything fully, so you can make your own judgements about where each writer or producer is coming from. We really welcome corrections of any sort (or additional references or contacts that might be helpful to other people), so do please e-mail us when you spot mistakes or omissions.
Also in the future we will be adding audio and video. It's vital because of our particular interest in broadcasting - but, as you know, the problems of downloading time for dial-in users limit what we can do at the moment.
We hope you'll find OneWorld Online a friendly system- whether you're a techie or a technophobe.
If you're brand new to the Internet, don't worry. The OneWorld Online system is seriously easy to use. All you have to remember is this:
The first page on the system (the one you've just come from) is the One World top page. This is your home base. From this starting point, you can choose the path you want to travel along by pointing-and-clicking on any phrase that's underlined or coloured. It's that easy! In fact, you can even point-and-click on a photograph or symbol, if it's underlined or outlined in colour. (Don't worry if some underlined items suddenly change colour: that's just a reminder that you have already visited them.)
And if you change your mind about the path you're pursuing and want to get back to base, you don't have to re-trace all your steps. Just move down to the bottom of the document you're on and you'll find the symbol there for the One World Menu page. Point-and-click on it - and you'll be home again. In one bound, as the poet more or less said, you are free.
The easiest way to go one page back (if there's no link offered on the page) is to use the back arrow or command on your browser. If you follow links that take you outside OneWorld Online altogether onto other people's pages, you can get back by calling us up from your Go/Navigate/History button or command.
If there is a particular topic you want to find (e.g. "video") somewhere in a very long document, and you get bored with scrolling up and down searching for it, you might be able to reach it faster by using the "find" command in the menu bar across the top of your screen. Type in "video"- and if it is in that document, you should be whisked straight there.
Even if you're an old hand at the Internet, you may be pleasantly surprised - and sometimes shocked, or moved, or infuriated - by what you'll find here. There are a lot of very different ideas and opinions about global issues within these pages, since the Internet is the speediest and cheapest way to have 'conversations' across the planet. We don't always agree with the ideas expressed, and we're pretty certain you won't either.
But the future of billions of people depends on how we regard each other and the planet we live on. So it seemed to us absurd not to listen to - and join in - such an urgent and gripping conversation.
Do let us know what you think, about the pages and the issues in them.
You can contact OneWorld Online here if your browser supports mail:
e-mail address: oneworld@bbcnc.org.uk
The editorial team:
Anuradha Vittachi - Editor, OneWorld Online
Peter Armstrong - Director, One World Broadcasting Trust
Sue Martin - Online Designer
Franny Armstrong - Online Editorial Assistant
Hayley Maskell - Online Secretary
Nicky Turnbull - Online Input
How to Join OneWorld Online - and put on your own pages
OneWorld Online is dedicated to the memory of Tarzie Vittachi and James Grant: colleagues, friends and lifelong champions of the world's children.
OneWorld Online Home Page