Implementation Plan

1. Humanities and information studies on East Asian scripts

In the East Asian world, which is coterminous with the sphere of Chinese-characters, various scripts derived from, or closely related to, Chinese characters have been created and are used at present in addition to Chinese characters. This plan will promote humanities and information studies to approach such scripts and implement education on related knowledge and technologies.

In other words, this plan will make use of knowledge and technologies accumulated in Chinese-character-based information studies to establish a knowledge system that deals comprehensively with East Asian scripts including Kana, Hangeul, Quoc Ngu and other phonetic symbols in neighboring countries, that are closely related to Chinese characters in their histories, and as well as Xixia script and other ancient pseudo Chinese characters.

It should be noted in this context that the style and form of documents and text are also important elements of the knowledge system. This viewpoint, which does not exist in current data processing, is indispensable for complete cultural inheritance. Correct transmission of such information is a contemporary subject related to social systems, laws and economic activities, such as notarized documents, attestations for individuals and contracts.

This plan will also review the aforementioned knowledge system from the viewpoint of computerization, and contribute to the digitization of various literary and informational items in the East Asian world.

For this purpose, it will be necessary to study the knowledge systems of East Asian scripts and the introduction of multiple scripts and languages and their internationalization, as well as other computerization technologies. Since computerization technologies are ever-changing and continually developing, it is important to train experts who have the latest knowledge and the cooperation of those inside and outside the university.

2. Construction of a knowledgebase of Chinese-character-based documents

This plan concerns the construction of a Chinese-character-based literature knowledge-base essential to the promotion of high-level and multi-layer research into Chinese-character-based literature. The Chinese-character-based literature knowledge-base will enable access to all related items of information (text, images, maps, etc.) starting conceivably from a single technical term. Eventually, this will be 'a treasury of wisdom' for the East Asian information society in the 21st century. To realize this, the following shall be implemented:

1. creation of electronic texts of all East Asian literature using mark-up technology,
2. integration of metadata (bibliographic information) about literature,
3. organic integration and high-level digitization of all information about literature.

Knowledge and information about East Asia and the sphere of Chinese-characters, accumulated through past and future research, will be the basis of this knowledge-base and be completely contained within it.

The construction of the Chinese-character-based literature knowledge-base is an attempt to define what the new studies on East Asia should be and to describe Chinese-character-based culture in the 21st century when traditional knowledge of Chinese-character-based literary studies and the most advanced digitization technologies fuse into one. In addition, the development of the Chinese-character-based literature knowledge-base will have a large and pervasive effect on the activities of people who live within the Chinese-character-based cultural area.

3. Programs to train expert personnel for East Asian humanities and information studies

The purpose of this plan is to construct a high-quality education system that succeeds and develops the education and research of the past. In other words, it aims at establishing an educational field that supersedes humanities and information studies, and enhances the Chinese-character-based culture as a whole. Those who are expected to promote the projects under this plan have already implemented educational projects in East Asian studies for 14 years at the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, and the Graduate School of Letters, of Kyoto University, and at seminars on the 'Utilization of Computers for Oriental Studies' sponsored by the Multiple Language Information Research Committee, Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, of Kyoto University (previously the Mainframe Computer Center). Based on the results of such activities, and bearing in mind the necessity of university-wide approaches, this research center will implement the following programs:

• development and implementation of specialized high-level curricula in East Asian humanities and information studies for doctoral course students in relevant research sections (mainly Human and Environmental Studies, and Letters sections),
• promotion of special education to train expert personnel who are proficient in humanities and information studies at the intersectional base for East Asian humanities and information studies that will be organized at Kyoto University,
• Accept students from countries with Chinese-character-based culture (mainly East Asian countries) and implement intensive education to develop overall understanding of the Chinese-character-based information systems of different countries in East Asia which are similar to, but slightly different from each other, in order to enhance the position of Chinese-character-based culture as a whole in the world culture.

Those who should be educated are students in the following three categories:

1. students in doctoral courses (enrolled in Human and Environmental Studies, and Letters sections) and post-doctoral course,
2. students from East Asia and other regions,
3. students who will become librarians, museum curators, information processing engineers or other specialists.

The content of the education is broadly divided into the following two categories.

A. Education concerning the structure of East Asian languages and computer processing

1. Education about the phonemic systems and relations with the scripts of East Asian languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.)
2. Survey and study of the status of script usage and digitization of script information in East Asia
3. Education about the technologies for computer processing of the languages and scripts of East Asia

B. Education concerning the creation of a database for East Asian literature

1. Education for a basic knowledge of cataloguing East Asian literature and specialized dictionaries, and practical exercises in classifying methods for literature using the stock of books at the Documentation and Information Center for Chinese Studies, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University. Education also based on knowledge from lectures on Chinese books as implemented by the center.
2. Lectures on the basic mark-up techniques, indispensable in creating electronic texts of East Asian literature, and practical exercises using a computer.
3. Education to facilitate understanding of the creation of a database of East Asian literature and its qualitative transformation into a knowledge-base, and education on how to make the best use of it through informational studies.
4. Field studies at those international research institutes (such as the Academia Sinica, Chung Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, and Peking University Founder Group) which create databases.

The research center will enable the participants in the above education programs to attend other joint workshops, where they will receive practical education, create databases of documents used at the joint workshops and be trained as a transmitter of research information. Participants are all expected to make oral presentations in foreign languages at international conferences every year, to contribute their theses to international journals, and publish individual research results on the website of the research center for East Asian humanities and information studies, in order to improve their ability at information transmission.

In addition, COE special scholars and other young students will be designated as computer engineers and assigned to various researches, in order to carry out the following research plans together with existing staff:

• attempt virtual education through the Internet of East Asian humanities and information studies in practice at the information stations located in China, Korea, Taiwan and other important regions,
• run seminars on East Asian humanities and information studies (an expanded version of the above-mentioned seminar on the 'Utilization of the Computer for Oriental Studies'), during the summer vacation, in addition to regular curricula, in cooperation with the above-mentioned organizations, and provide lectures on the same contents as those of summer seminars in the tutorial session.

Together with research and education, the above three programs will be promoted by establishing a joint international research and education network for humanities and information studies encompassing the entire East Asian region under academic exchange agreements with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Peking University (China), Seoul National University (Korea), Academia Sinica (Taiwan) and other top-ranking research institutes, with the research center at Kyoto University (Japan). Thereupon, the research center will make opportunities for frequent exchanges of students and scholars, and invite opinions from their organizations, and also organize overseas bases for appropriate purposes.