PLEASE NOTE: This resource was originally part of a structured repository on this website. It is now part of a small collection of resources awaiting updating and/or expansion before being relocated to the i2Insights blog and repository.
Purpose: To provide a comprehensive overview of the systems and cybernetics fields, by defining concepts and bringing together key, but currently scattered, references about them.
Description: The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics is both a hard copy book (the second edition was published by De Gruyter Saur in 2004) and a searchable online database. There are more than 3,800 entries. Topics include abstraction, complexity, decision hierarchy, emergence, feedback, gap analysis, hierarchy, interdependence, non-linear dynamics, path dependence, root definition, stakeholder analysis, and worldview. Each concept is explained using key references and entries are linked to each other.
In the second edition each entry is categorised using one or more of:
- General information
- Methodology or model
- Epistemology, ontology and semantics
- Human sciences
- Discipline oriented
The online encyclopedia is in its third edition. It was compiled by the late Charles Francois. In 2018 the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science took over its administration. It is currently not available online, but the second edition is available on a staging server at http://systemspedia.bcsss.org.
Website: http://systemspedia.org/ (currently unavailable - see above)
Related tools on this website: N/A
Related tools on the i2Insights blog: N/A
Related topics on Wikipedia:
Posted: December 2012
Last modified: July 2020
