About WORLDATA

1. Introduction

Welcome to our website, which has been in operation since January 1996, one of the first of the Internet era.. As you will quickly realize as you browse the site, WORLDATA is very likely to be of considerable use to anyone who is interested in international affairs. It provides the user with easy access to a great quantity of precise and thoroughly researched data on the most important political, economic, social, and cultural variables for every sovereign country in the world.

WORLDATA is, above all, a scientific work. As such, it is intended primarily to meet the needs of academe. WORLDATA is designed for use in universities, in particular (by professors, researchers, and students), but is also an invaluable tool for institutions below the university level. Furthermore, WORLDATA is of use to those active in the political sphere (diplomats, Members of Parliament (MPs), and civil servants), as well as to libraries, research centers and institutes, the media (journalists) and to various organizations, both national and international, private and public, which are concerned with international issues. Indeed, WORLDATA is of value to anyone who is interested in the politics, economy, geography, history, culture, or sociology of the nations of the world.

In these times of telecommunications developments, information technology (IT), knowledge-based economy (KBE), and globalization of human concerns, this work is intented to answer the need for international information felt on the individual and institutional level. WORLDATA is exceptional both in content and format.

2. Content

With respect to content, for every sovereign country in the world (totalling 192 as of 1 January 2003), and for the world, WORLDATA presents data of the greatest importance pertaining to key political, economic, social, and cultural variables. WORLDATA is, first and foremost, a scientific work. As such, it is primarily intended to meet the needs of scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and has become an indispensable research tool for researchers in these fields since its inception as a draft project, in 1991, and formally in 1993. WORLDATA provides the user with sets of data which are generally only to be found at the expense of great labor, scattered among a variety of sources. The advantages of the WORLDATA method are thus considerable, and the savings which the user can make substantial, in research time, in labor that would otherwise be spent compiling information, and in resources spent on all sorts of publications. WORLDATA is also designed for use by the layperson, who will find in it a highly compact source of material, allowing him or her to become familiar with the most essential data on the state of our planet.

3. Format

As for its unique format, WORLDATA presents the data in a carefully standardized manner, such that viewing the data is made especially practical. This original method of displaying the required information makes it easy to identify it promptly. WORLDATA is an entirely homogeneous database, in that it allots identical data space to each variable and to each country. This enables the user to locate the desired data very rapidly, literally, at a glance. The user is thus dispensed with the kind of lengthy, painstaking, and often useless searching and reading that eat into precious research time. WORLDATA allows the user to access all of the data on all of the countries, in the desired order of presentation, in only a few seconds. Data can be retrieved by other programs and then processed according to the user's particular needs. WORLDATA allows the user easy access to the table of contents, bibliography (sources), index, search capabilities... All of this is instantly accessed at the touch of a few keys. Finally, the data are formatted according to the metric system methodology.

4. Conclusion

To sum up, WORLDATA has been developed in order to provide a large quantity of important information pertaining to each country in the world, in a simple, concise, and practical format allowing the user rapid access to the data. Insofar as the reader shares these concerns, WORLDATA is an indispensable research tool. No other publication provides as much information of this level of precision, with such ease and speed of access, and at such an affordable investment. All of these factors combine to create a unique product which is useful to anyone, specialist and layman alike, who is interested in knowing more about the world.

5. About the Author

Roberto Campagnolo holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, a Master's degree in Economics (International Economics), and a Ph.D. in Political Science (International Relations), which he earned at Laval University (Quebec City, Canada). He is an active researcher in International Affairs. His main areas of interest are general (national) and international economic and political theory, particularly the study of integration, institutions, and globalization.