This is a response to your letter dated 1995-05-29 informing the discontinuation of Language and Society.
As you point out, more economical method of publication can be met by transferring the old and new articles to a database on the information superhighway. Various government departments and agencies already have a presence on the World-Wide Web on the Open Government site, including the Privacy Commission <http://info.ic.gc.ca/opengov/opc/privacy.html>. However, those sites are limited to information publishing and E-mailing by the readers.
There is a potential to go one step further and break the 1-way information flow paradigm and exploit the 2-way interaction between the government and citizens on the information superhighway. I believe that Official Language Commission is an ideal candidate for such a project. For example, a complaint can be reported on-line in a structured and organised form, with an option of visible or anonymous identification. Staff response can also be made visible or anonymous. There is a socio-economical benefits in exposing a problem in public rather than confining to pseudo-secret requiring Access to Information Act.
In effect, the World-Wide Web site would become an Official Languages Centre of Excellence. It would contain not only published and new articles but also Annual Reports, hyperlinks to other related organisation sites and news articles. Authors of articles would be able to make a direct on-line submission of articles, which would then be reviewed by the Commissioner who would retain control of making it public.
HyperInfo Canada Inc. is conducting Research and Development on the information superhighway applications. It is expected to establish a World-Wide Web site later this year. As soon as it is established, I will be in a position to offer a web space such as <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/Official_Languages/>. An interactive 2-way communication capability could be added on an experimental trial basis while the system would be developed and software would be written.
Alternatively, HyperInfo Canada Inc. can simply prepare the HTML files from your collection of articles and set them up at the web site of your choice.
This is simply an expression of interest. If you are interested, I will prepare a more formal proposal, possibly under Science and Technology Unsolicited Proposal Brokerage Service.
