CD Encyclopedia Rating Table -- SuperKids Educational Software Review .

SuperKids Educational Software Review. The Parents and Teachers Guide to Childrens Software

CD Encyclopedia

The Big Picture

SuperKids' review teams looked at three traditional CD Encyclopedia packages, plus one for younger children, for this comparison. All of them were rated as good or better, although for differing reasons.

Grolier's 1995 Multimedia Encyclopedia had the best results in our kids' research trial, finding good answers on two of their three questions, and a partial third answer. Grolier's also has the most advanced search engine. On the down side, some of our reviewers felt that the user interface and colored icons were a bit confusing.
Compton's 1995 Interactive Encyclopedia was close to Grolier's in the kids' trial, finding information for all three questions. Compton's has the easiest to use user interface and display.
Microsoft Encarta 1995 found information helpful to the kids' research on two out of the three questions. Encarta has the cleanest "look" of the three, through use of pull-down menus instead of icons.

We also took a look at another piece of software that our reviewers thought might be mistakenly purchased by some parents as an encyclopledia, My First Encyclopedia, from Knowledge Adventure. This is NOT a traditional "use it to look something up" encyclopedia -- it is more like a fun, multimedia textbook.

Reviews of the 1997 editions of Compton's, Encarta, and Grolier's are available at: http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/encyclo2/sw_sum1.shtml

	Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1995	1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia	Microsoft Encarta '95	My First Encyclopedia
Ease of Install	* *	* * *	* * * * *	* *
Ease of Use	* * * *	* * * *	* * * *	* * * * *
Manual Utility	* * *	* * *	* * *	* *
Research Trial	* * * *	* * * *	* * *	n/a
SUPERKIDS RATING	* * * *	* * * *	* * * *	* * * *
Buyers Guide (1996 versions)	PC Mac	PC Mac	PC Mac	PC
Buyers Guide (1997 versions)	PC Mac	PC Mac	PC Mac

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