To the best of my recollection, WORMS was launched sometime on April 2nd, 1995. Given the history of the WWW and its rate of change, WORMS is an old site. In fact, it is one of the oldest OR/MS web sites in this Universe.
It should be noted that there has not been any change in the basic layout and design of the site since the launch.
In short, a major revamp is long overdue.
The timing of the face lift was forced on us by two factors. Firstly, the University of Melbourne have recently introduced a new policy and guidelines concerning design and layout of web sites of individual staff members, departments, faculties, projects, etc. We thus had to modify the site to comply with the new regulations. Secondly, our Department changed the URL of its web site and consequently it became necessary to change the links accordingly.
Needless to say, the changes are not just cosmetic/stylelistic modifications. They reflect the fact that over the past five years there has been a tremendous expansion in the number and types of WWW services provided by the large national OR societies and IFORS.
On the other hand, we should stress that WORMS original mission remains in tact. That is, the idea is not to simply build and maintain a large collection of links to other sites but rather to provide substantial added-value to existing resources and - more importantly - develop innovative OR/MS oriented resources and services.
A good example is the tutOR project.
For the benefit of visitors who are still nostalgic about the old site we kept a copy of the original front page.
I wish you a safe and enjoyable visit!
Moshe Sniedovich
WORMS Chief Spider
January 15, 2000