1. Purposes
   1. To register and concentrate in the same place all Chinese nationals who studied or gained academic experience (visiting professors or researchers) in the US since the 19th century (about 40,000 for the modern period), in order to...
   2. ...to facilitate the identification of US returned students...
   3. ...with enhanced research possibilities geared towards data-rich history
2. Data
   1. Multiple names (disambiguation)
   2. Birth date/place
   3. Family
      1. parents
      2. brothers/sisters
      3. uncles
      4. spouse
      5. children
   4. Education
      1. institution, city, country
      2. level, degree, discipline
      3. mentor, thesis supervisor
   5. Professional career
      1. positions
      2. institutions (name, type, sector)
      3. city, country
   6. Other affiliations
      1. political parties
      2. clubs, associations
   7. Events?
   8. Works/publications
      1. genre, title
      2. co-author, (co)editor, translator
      3. publisher
   9. Death (date, place)
   10. Wealth?
       1. Family property
       2. Personal salaries
       3. Real Estate
       4. Other assets?
3. Three major waves
   1. 1. 1872-1881: the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM)
   2. 2. 1909-1937: Bower Indemnity waves
   3. 3. 1938-1956: War and Postwar waves
4. Four main population groups
   1. Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) (1872-81)
   2. Boxer Indemnity I & II
   3. Provincial Scholarships Fellows
   4. Freelance, self-funded students
5. Resources
   1. Primary sources
      1. Students journals & guides
         1. Chinese Students Alliance (CSA) Directories
         2. Chinese Students' Monthly (CSM)
         3. Chinese Students Christian Alliance Monthly and Directories
      2. Research monographs & articles
         1. Guide to Doctoral Dissertations (Yuan Tong-li, 1961)
         2. LaFargue, CFH (1942)
         3. Meng, 1931
      3. Archives
         1. Chinese Ministry of Education
         2. US Board of Education
         3. China Foundation Archives (& Publications)
         4. US universities archives
            1. Columbia U
            2. Harvard
            3. MIT
            4. ...
         5. Chinese universities archives & publications (directories)
            1. St John’s (Shanghai)
            2. Qinghua (Beijing)
         6. Personal papers (Hoover, Columbia)
      4. Local newspapers
         1. US newspapers (training phase in the US)
         2. Chinese & English-language press in China
      5. Chinese Who's Who
   2. Second-hand (scholarship)
      1. Rhoads 2011
      2. Ye 2001
      3. ...
   3. Digital/Online
      1. Lee-Campbell DB (CUSD-OS)
      2. ENP-China (MCBDB)
      3. Chinese Engineers Relational Database (CERD)
      4. CEM Connections
      5. China comes to MIT
      6. Wikipedia/Weibo
      7. ...
      8. Databases
      9. General Websites
6. Functionalities
   1. Multifaceted search
   2. Data export
   3. Analysis & Visualization
      1. SNA
      2. GIS
      3. Basic statistics
      4. Multiple Correspondance Analysis (MCA)
      5. Time sequence analysis
      6. Timelines
   4. Links to original documents