vcehistory.info initially began in 2003 as a 'hobby' site but in the subsequent three years it has grown and developed into an extensive on-line resource with over 1000 separate pages, documents, images and files. There is now more written text and resources on vcehistory.info than you'll find in most textbooks (some of which cost plenty and make considerable amounts for their publishers). It is now one of the largest VCE-specific resource websites on the Internet. In 2007 and beyond I have decided, somewhat reluctantly, to restrict access to vcehistory.info for paid subscribers only. I have three reasons for doing so:
The first reason is financial. Over time, and particularly in 2006, the number of users accessing vcehistory.info and its resources has increased exponentially. The addition of material such as podcast lectures saw accesses jump markedly -- not just from VCE students but also from computers worldwide. More than 30,000 unique users accessed the vcehistory.info site in the last six months of 2006, most of these during the October-November period prior to the exam. While all this has been pleasing, it also increased web hosting and bandwidth costs. The vcehistory.info site in its entirely is over 400 megabytes in size and therefore requires a large hosting plan. Gigabytes of data are downloaded from vcehistory.info every week, from Australia and abroad. All this costs money: in 2006, the hosting and bandwidth fees were several hundred dollars in total. Despite the educational nature of vcehistory.info, this is unable to be claimed as a tax deduction. At this point I'm unwilling to continue sustaining these financial costs.
The second reason relates to the content of vcehistory.info, most of which has been written, created and compiled by myself. As the use of vcehistory.info has increased so too has its elevation in returns from search engine returns like Google and Yahoo; as vcehistory.info's pages turn up higher and higher in searches, so does use of the site from abroad, external links to its pages and bandwidth costs (see above). The Internet being what it is, some of vcehistory.info's content has found its way onto other sites, often without attribution or acknowledgement. The podcast lectures particularly have done the rounds on various websites and file-sharing programs. I would like to write more content and create more resources for vcehistory.info but I would also like some more control over who uses them, and on what terms.
The third and final reason is personal. For three years I've run vcehistory.info freely and readily; it has eaten up hundreds of hours of my time while helping thousands of teachers and students -- most of whom, to my disappointment, couldn't even bring themselves to offer a simple thank-you. My generosity is not a bottomless pit; I'm looking forward to helping more teachers and students in 2007 and beyond, however I think it is now fitting that they contribute something in return. The subscription amounts are reasonably priced and, given the range and the amount of resources to be found on vcehistory.info in 2007, subscription will be an excellent investment for students and teachers of VCE History (Revolutions).
Many thanks and good luck with your teaching or studies in 2007.
Steve
vcehistory.info creator