Hi there! Welcome to xplris!
xplris is first and foremost a learning and education platform.
It is about providing people of all ages, from any place on the globe, with interactive tools to learn about any historic topic of their choice in a captivating manner. Exploring the globe on a timescale of centuries. Witnessing the expansion of empires and their fall. Discovering the formation of trade routes between different parts of the world. Following the flow of knowledge that took place. Observing age-old abstract philosophical concepts change through millennia. Any point in space and time can be zoomed in on to observe how these large scale processes have influenced the development of our society on a local level.
xplris is also about developing a non-biased approach to history learning (and education in general), and encouraging a productive conversation between people of different opinions.
From cave paintings and fossils discovered by archeologists, to mechanical and technological inventions, formation of trade routes, contracts being signed by political parties, scientific discoveries and many more - our history contains an almost limitless number of facts. Any historical event can be described from different perspectives, and each story might have its own merit. We believe that storytelling is vital for human development and should have a place in our society. But the nature of storytelling is to chose a certain starting point and lead the reader through a certain path. That choice of path invariably has to introduce a bias. It might be the choice to mention some facts and exclude others (consciously or out of ignorance), or the choice to use a language that favors one side over the other, or just the mere choice to structure the story in a certain chronological order. Sometimes these choices are necessary. For instance, when describing the general arc of some process, one might choose to mention only the most "important" facts. Going into details would distract the reader from the bigger picture. But while some choices are appropriate in some circumstances, they lead to the reader learning about a topic only from a certain single perspective.
Alongside learning about history from stories, exposure to what was left out from a particular narrative path is vital to forming a holistic picture of the past. Stories should engage people, pique their interest. From there, independent exploration should result. Some aspects of the story may be incomplete, some facts may be contested. xplris wants to provide a single point of contact with all historical facts in their full interconnected complexity. We forego narratives and visualize data about people, places, and events along with their connections. We highlight contradictions in sources where appropriate and point out issues of reliability of information regardless of their origin. Anyone can make their voice heard and anyone can learn from that plurality of voices on their own terms. Independent exploration is key to forming a deep understanding.
And finally, xplris is also a research platform.
Primary sources are of pivotal importance to historical research. Working with artifacts, texts, and images, however, makes large scale analysis difficult. Since the data presented to users on xplris is collected as a graph of historical entities with values and connections backed up by original source material, this opens up the possibility for researching connections across many scales of time, space, and relationships. We want to provide researchers in different fields both from academia and the general public with the option to analyze the data on the platform to learn something that was not possible before. With enough data we can use tools such as machine learning, network analysis and more to form new meaningful connections.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us!
