Wiki Spotting: Encyclopedia of Earth

October 12, 2006 Blog No Comments

I recently stumbled across this interesting online resource that leverages the flexibility and power of wiki technology to facilitate publication of a scholarly online journal. It’s called the Encyclopedia of Earth “a new electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other’s work. The articles are written in non-technical language and will be useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public.”

According to the publishers: “Content for the Encyclopedia is created, maintained, and governed by this community of experts via a specially adapted “wiki” – an online tool that allows experts to collectively add and edit web content. Unlike other, well-known wikis, such as Wikipedia, access is restricted to approved experts and all content is reviewed and approved by Topic Editors prior to being published from the wiki to this public site. Revisions to existing articles are also done on the author’s wiki, and when approved they become the current version at the public site. This process produces a constantly evolving, continuously updated reference.”