The launch of the beta-site marks one of the closing milestones before the website is released as a final version. This means that the website is not completely finished but is quite close in terms of material and technical functionality.

The most important part of beta testing is identifying and fixing ‘bugs’. A ‘bug’ is a case of the website’s not working properly so a website visitor gets incorrect or unexpected results, for example when loading a page or clicking on a hyperlink.

A beta trial is not a way of adding new features to the site. Rather, it gathers feedback from website visitors – often called end-users – on how well the website works before it is finally released. End-users often give feedback on the usability of the website too, which means how useful, easy and satisfying it is to use or learn how to use.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Beta site – what to expect

While you explore this beta website, you should bear in mind that you may come across one or more of the following:

• instability of the website and its features
• bugs or errors that happen on every page or every time you click on the same thing on different pages
• bugs that happen just once
• inconsistent experiences with the website, for example the same feature looks or behaves differently on various pages or at different times
• times when the website is unavailable
• bugs that you have reported already are not fixed.

Although such bugs and behaviours are normal on a beta site, they need to be recorded and reported to ensure there are no underlying problems. When you report a bug, the technical developers log it and begin working out how to fix it. While they are fixing bugs and testing the fixes, sometimes the website will not be online for you to look at. These periods are unavoidable but we will try to make sure this happens as little as possible.

How to feed back

Please use the feedback tabs around the site to let us know if you come across any bugs. Simply click on the red tab on the left of a page to open up the form, fill it in and send it to us.We need your email address so that if anything is unclear we can contact you for more details of the bug you have found.

Please note that all feedback is strictly confidential. If your bugs are not fixed quickly, don’t think that we haven’t received them or that we are ignoring them. All bugs are logged but it takes time to review them and then to fix them. Sometimes fixing one bug creates another, so it can be more time-consuming than expected to fix something that seems quite simple at first.

Finally, we’d like to thank you for your interest and support for this project, and look forward to hearing what you think about the website. Getting this far has taken a great deal of hard work from the JAINpedia team and a lot of other people but we’re very excited that you can now see what we’ve been developing.

We are pleased to announce that we shall be launching our JAINpedia beta site on Monday the 12^th of December 2011.

The website features digitised pages from Jain manuscripts, articles written by Professor Nalini Balbir and other academics from around the world, and much much more.

For those of you who can’t wait till the 12^th of December, we have a sneaky peak of website for you to enjoy…

Watch this video on YouTube.

Ahimsa Day celebrates the central Jain tenet of ‘non-violence’ as a means to peace, positivity and prosperity, encouraging MPs, Lords and Ministers to discuss how current world issues can be considered from an alternative ‘compassionate’ perspective.

The focus of this year’s Ahimsa Day was Climate Change and the Contemporary World, a theme on the minds of many people around the world who are seeing first-hand the catastrophic effects of global warming.
The keynote speaker for the evening was Mr Phil Wynn Owen, the Director General for International Climate Change & Energy Efficiency in the Department of Energy & Climate Change [DECC]. He reminded us that even though we in the United Kingdom, contribute to less than 2% of the world’s carbon dioxide omissions, it is our duty to set an example and find ways of helping other countries, within the EU and elsewhere, to reduce their emissions and take active measures to slow down the pace of Climate Change.

The inspiring speech about what we could do to make positive changes for the world of our children was followed by Dr Mehool Sanghrajka, Director of Education at the Institute of Jainology, who responded with the Jain view on Climate Change and the Contemporary World. He reminded us of two basic premises of Lord Mahavira’s 2500 year old philosophy, perhaps the greatest environmentalist theory in our history:

• The earth is a living entity and we are interdependent. We should respect the right of all life to exist, and learn to live in harmony with it rather than exploiting it.
• The earth has enough resources for all. It is accumulation by the few that is the cause of the scarcity. We should learn to live within what we need.

He explained that these two principles offer us all the solutions that we need to solve the problems that the world is facing, if we based our actions and thoughts on science rather than politics!
The evening’s programme ended with the presentation of the Ahimsa Award for 2011 to Mr Nitin Mehta of Croydon UK, for his selfless contribution to the causes of vegetarianism and compassion for animal life. As the founder of the Young Indian Vegetarians Society and an active resident of the Croydon Council, the Board of the Institute of Jainology were unanimous in their decision of awarding Nitin Mehta’s efforts in promoting Ahimsa in this way. The award was presented by Lady Dholakia on behalf of the Institute.

The celebrations of this year’s Ahimsa was another great success, and with an open invitation to hold a future Ahimsa Day at the House of Lords, we hope that we can continue to spread the message of Ahimsa even further!

Drop-in Design

Make your own manuscript

10.30–17.00, Lunchroom 1, Sackler Centre

Pick up a design challenge, hunt for ideas in the galleries, and then create your own fantastic manuscript using eco-friendly paper and lentils. 

Jain Storytelling

11.00, 13.00 & 15.00

South Asia Gallery

Join storyteller Seema Anand for an interactive tale about animals!

Jain Family Tours

12.00, 14.00 and 16.00

South Asia Gallery

The V&A is home to a world renowned collection of Jain manuscripts and objects. Join a free guided tour especially for families by Jainpedia volunteers.

This day of free events is presented by the V&A in partnership with Jainpedia and supported by the Jain Art Fund

Find out more at http://www.vam.ac.uk/families

This cultural gathering is the biggest event in the Oshwal Calendar, with an outdoor stage event and several stalls of food and activities. The Institute of Jainology, will be there showcasing their various publications and activities from the past year, including the JAINpedia project and its achievements. The ‘Mela’ opens at 12.00pm and closes at 8.00pm. Come and see us at Stall B31 and see what is happening at JAINpedia including some screenshots of the upcoming authoritative and elaborate website.

Harshad Sanghrajka at the Hindu Svayamsevak Sangh senior citizens' camp

With over 100 people at the event, JAINpedia received some good coverage, and all attendees were very interested in the project. The presentation resulted in several questions about Jainism and Hinduism.

A limited number of groups with a maximum of 6 people in each group will be able to compete.

Enter your group into the Treasure Hunt by contacting the JAINpedia team NOW!

Email Bansri Mehta at bansri.mehta@jainpedia.org and, if you’re quick enough to be one of the lucky teams, you will receive a set of requirements and instructions.

• story-telling sessions by highly acclaimed story-teller Seema Anand
• hourly tours of the JAINpedia display
• a drop-in craft workshop for children organised by the British Library
• a beautiful dance recital in the Bharat Natyam dance form, performed by founders of the Prakruti Dance School.

Here is the programme for the day:

Look out for our volunteers in their bright orange JAINpedia t-shirts and they can help you find your way to any of the above activities.

Join us for a fun-filled day for you and your family – we look forward to celebrating Mahavir Jayanti with all of you!

Consisting of around 40 striking objects from the library’s Jain collection, the display appears in the rotating Sacred Texts permanent exhibition in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery, also known as the Treasures Gallery of the British Library.

The illustrated pages are displayed in different sections – Worship and Meditation, Lives of the Jinas, the Jain Universe and Jain Stories.

As well as two rare palm-leaf folios from the Jita-kalpa-sutra, the exhibition contains paintings of scenes such as:

• worship of Sarasvatī
• Śāntinatha, the 16th Jina, in meditation
• worship of the Jina Pārśvanatha
• 14 auspicious dreams
• enlightenment of a Jina.

Entry to the British Library is free and you can look at the display along with other treasures of the library completely free seven days a week.

Events at the British Library

To complement the display a series of events to celebrate Mahavir Jayanthi will take place in April 2011. These events will include a family craft workshop, storytelling in the gallery and a lunch-time recital. There will also be a reception in March 2011. All events will be free and drop-in so you don’t need to book.

For further information about the events contact rajiv.anand@jainpedia.org

The British Library

The United Kingdom’s national library, the British Library is one of the leading global research libraries.  The British Library holds well over 150 million items, in most known languages from a multitude of cultures around the world. As well as visiting the landmark twentieth-century building in central London for free, you can also explore large parts of its collections online.

The British Library has very large holdings of Jain manuscripts, many sold or bequeathed by eminent scholars of the past. With such a large collection, choosing the cream of the illustrated pages for the display was a difficult task but the JAINpedia team is extremely pleased with the results. You can read full details of pages displayed in this exhibition on the forthcoming JAINpedia website.

We hope to see lots of you in the Treasures Gallery over the next few months.

The Institute of Jainology was very fortunate to host the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Jain temple in Potters Bar.  The event took place on Friday 7th May and was organised jointly with the Oshwal Association of the UK.

Rowan Williams outside the Jain temple

Dr Williams was given a guided tour of the temple and took great interest in its architecture and symbolism.

Approximately 300 guests from the Jain community, other faiths and the local Hertfordshire community listened to Dr Williams’s keynote speech after the tour.

Dr Williams is a most humble and learned man, and reflected on man’s enslavement of himself through his passions and therefore his need to enslave others.

I was delighted at the opportunity to present Jainpedia to him, which he found ‘fascinating’.

I hope that, through the interfaith dialogues we have undertaken, other faiths develop similar resources. We can then show the commonality in basic values and threads in religious thought that have existed throughout the ages.

More photos of the visit and further information can also be seen on the IoJ website.