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Corps to launch online encyclopedia

So long Wikipedia. Say hello to Corpspedia.

A new informational Web site about the Corps, specifically for Marines, will soon be tested by troops at the School of Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

“Right now, it’s focusing on infantry skills,” said Capt. Mike Regner, Corpspedia project officer at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va.

When students at SOI-West tap into the new site in July, they’ll have access to more than 150 topics, including weapons systems, offensive and defensive tactics, heli-borne operations, close air support, crew-served weapons, Combat Hunter and land navigation.

The idea sprang out of Regner’s assignment to find out why Marines are having trouble with land navigation. The light bulb turned on as soon as he entered ‘land navigation’ into the Google search engine in November 2007.

“In the process of doing all that, I had that ‘ah-ha’ moment,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the Marine Corps had its own Google? Marines are already doing this, but they’re doing it out in Wikipedia. They’re doing it in other places. There’s finally an alternative.”

Corpspedia will be like a much smaller version of Wikipedia, which offers an encyclopedia of user-updated information in dozens of languages and via millions of links. The program can grow to thousands of topics, Regner said, and will include graphics and pictures.

“If you’re the instructor at the school, you already have the information together at that point,” Regner said. “You already have the pictures on your PowerPoints. You already have the references listed at the bottom. You just don’t have an arena. You don’t have a podium. It fills that gap.”

The bulk of Corpspedia’s content will likely consist of training materials, he said.

But the site’s content, accessed only through Navy-Marine Corps intranet accounts, will ultimately be left up to its users. Every topic site will have a five-star rating from “does not answer questions” to “answered all of my questions.”

“Corpspedia grows based on what the Marines are asking for,” Regner said.

For example, if the site does not contain information about the Corps’ latest tattoo regs, but there are a lot of requests on that topic, that information can be added.

Unlike Wikipedia, where the information on a topic may be altered by anyone who uses the site, Corpspedia topics will be managed by designated subject matter experts. Regner said he doesn’t want Marines throwing in their own “we did it this way” scenarios.

“That could get dangerous in the Marine Corps,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is put down vetted information in here. We don’t want this to become an alternative to the right way of doing things.”