Encyclopedia of Earth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Encyclopedia of Earth is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is described as a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and other approved experts who collaborate and review each other’s work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are intended be useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public.[1]
The EoE is a component of the larger Earth Portal (part of the Digital Universe project), which is a constellation of subject-specific information portals that contain news services, structured metadata, a federated environmental search engine, and other information resources. The technology platform for the Encyclopedia of Earth was designed, built and maintained by ManyOne Networks. The EoE was launched in September 2006 with about 360 articles.
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[edit] Authoring and publishing process
Articles are written, edited, and published in a two step process:
- Content for the Encyclopedia is created, maintained, and governed by group of experts via a restricted access wiki that uses a modified version of Mediawiki.
- Upon completion, content is reviewed and approved by Topic Editors and then published to the free public site.
Content may be continuously revised and updated on the author's wiki, but revised articles require review and reapproval before revisions are displayed on the public site.
The Encyclopedia has a stated policy regarding neutrality and fairness[2] that requires articles, when touching upon any issue of controversy, to represent every different view on a subject that attracts a significant portion of adherents, with each such view and its arguments or evidence being expressed as fairly and sympathetically as possible. According to this neutrality policy, the Encyclopedia itself does not advocate positions on environmental issues.
[edit] Copyright policy
Content is governed by the Creative Commons license known as "Attribution-Share Alike". This license permits anyone to (1) copy, distribute, and display material, (2) revise, edit, remix, tweak, and build upon material, and to make commercial use of material, subject to these conditions:
- Attribution. Users must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
- Share Alike. If users alter, transform, or build upon this work, they may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to the "Attribution-Share Alike" license.
[edit] People
The authors and topic editors are made up of scientists, educators, and professionals within the environmental field. The qualifications of applicants are reviewed by the Environmental Information Coalition (EIC) Stewardship Committee, the governing body of the Earth Portal, before they are given access to the author's wiki. As of September 2006, the Stewardship Committee was comprised of Jim Lester (Houston Advanced Research Center), Peter Saundry (National Council for Science and the Environment), J. Emmett Duffy (College of William and Mary), Emily Monosson, Sidney Draggan, and Cutler Cleveland (Boston University).
The Editorial Staff as of September 19, 2006 consisted of Cutler J. Cleveland (Editor-in-Chief), Larry Sanger (Senior Editor for Policy and Governance), Ida Kubiszewski (Editorial Assistant), Alejandra Roman (Editorial Assistant), and Laura De Angelo (Editorial Assistant). Cleveland is a Professor of Geography and Environment at Boston University and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Energy (Elsevier Science, 2004), the Dictionary of Energy (Elsevier Science, 2005), and the journal Ecological Economics.
The International Advisory Board for the Encyclopedia is listed as Rita Colwell, Robert W. Corell, Robert Costanza, Mohamed H. A. Hassan, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Andrew J. Hoffman, Steve Hubbell, Simon A. Levin, Bonnie J. McCay, David W. Orr, Rajendra K. Pachauri, F. Sherwood Rowland, and B. L. Turner.
[edit] References
- ^ The Encyclopedia of Earth, Cutler J. Cleveland, Editor (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment).
- ^ "The Encyclopedia of Earth neutrality policy", Cutler J. Cleveland, Editor (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment).
