Copenhagen University Library

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Scholarpedia an Open Access peer reviewed
encyclopedia

• Bertil F. Dorch, editor
• The Royal Library / Copenhagen University Library
• Honorary associate professor
• The Niels Bohr Institute Copenhagen University

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Content

• Introduction Wiki culture
• Scholarpedia philosophy
• A working example of Open AccessThe Encyclopedia
  of Astrophysics

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Introduction Wiki culture

• We are living in a Web X culture (X
  2.something)
• Web gt 1 technology available to scholars (and
  nerds)
• Success criteria Easy, democratic, everything is
  online
• Its a wiki world
• Wikipedia 2001 (Jimmy Wales Larry Sanger)
• Rival Encyclopedia Britannica (e.g. Nature, 2005)
• Wikimedia Foundation 2003 (Florida ? CA 2008)
• MediaWiki software 2003
• Open Source, easy to use setup, uses PHP
  MySQL
• Wikipedia siblings Controlled wiki encyclopedias
• Negative spin on Wikipedia Abuse, reliability
  issues
• New wiki initiatives Citizendium, Enzclopedia
  etc.

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www.scholarpedia.org
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Scholarpedia philosophy

• Scholarpedia idea
• Build on successes of Wikipedia and correct
  problems
• Not only controlled content, but high quality
  content
• ? high profile authors leading experts or
  original authors
• Implementing academic standards Traditional
  new
• Peer review (by actual peers, rather than e.g.
  editors)
• Invitations and elections of authors earning
  scholar indices
• Short review articles (with outbound references)
  that are curated
• Wiki environment
• Easy for curators, editors, reviewers (referees)
• Semi-automatic
• Handling of invitations of authors and referees
• Handling of the review process (editing,
  discussing, approving)

• Nobel Laureates and Fields Medalists
• Leon Cooper contributes BCM Rule
• Gerald Edelman contributes Neural Darwinism
• Riccardo Giacconi contributes Cosmic X-ray
  Sources
• Donald A. Glaser contributes Bubble Chamber which
  he invented
• Clive Granger wrote the history part and reviewed
  Granger Causality
• Paul C. Lauterbur contributed MRI
• John C. Mather contributes Cosmic Background
  Explorer
• Rita Levi-Montalcini contributes Nerve Growth
  Factor
• Erwin Neher contributes Patch Clamp
• Myron S. Scholes contributes Black-Scholes
  Formula
• Charles Townes contributed Laser which he
  invented
• John Milnor contributed Attractor (Fields
  Medalist)
• Steve Smale contributed Smale Horseshoe (Fields
  Medalist)
• Terence Tao contributed Szemerédi's Theorem
  (Fields Medalist)
• and 45 articles with titles the name of their
  author

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Scholarpedia numbers

• Number of registered people gt 3,000
• Number of curators almost 1,000
• Number of reserved articles gt 1,000
• Number of finished articles 400
• Number of editors 23
• Number of Nobel Laureate authors 11
• Number of Encyclopedias 4
• Number of Editors-in-chief 1
• Number of USD on budget 0
• but sponsors are wanted

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Scholarpedia, physically

• Editor-in-chief and founder Dr. Eugene M.
  Izhikevich
• Curriculum Vitae
• 1967 Born in Moscow, Russia
• 1992 M.S. in Applied Mathematics, Lomonosov
  Moscow State University,
• 1996 Ph.D. in Mathematics, Michigan State
  University, Michigan
• 1996-2000 postdoc and then visiting professor,
  Department of Mathematics, Center for Systems
  Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe,
  Arizona
• 2000-2005 Associate Fellow in Theoretical
  Neurobiology, The Neurosciences Institute, San
  Diego, California
• 2005-present Senior Fellow in Theoretical
  Neurobiology, The Neurosciences Institute, San
  Diego, California

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Encyclopedia_of_Astrophysics
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The Scholarpedia Encyclopedia of Astrophysics

• Working example of Open Access !
• History
• Scholarpedia began in early 2006 (Encyclopedia of
  Comp. Neurosci.)
• Yours truely wrote article for The Encyclopedia
  of Dynamical Systems
• ? Category on Fluid Dynamics branched into
  Computational Astrophysics (Category Editor,
  early 2007)
• ? Encyclopedia of Computational Astrophysics? Na,
  better go directly to Astrophysics ( more an
  more sub-categories and sub editors)
• Overlap with Dynamical Systems (sharing articles)
• Examples of how it works, looks and feels
• Viewing an article (as an unregistered user)
• Registrering as a user (to contribute, not to
  read)
• From the authors point of view
• Editors point of view

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Example of a finished articles (short reviews)
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Example of a finished articles (short reviews)
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Example Registering as a user
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Example of editing an articles
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Example Managing referees and inviting authors
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The End

• Scholarpedia articles
• Dorch (2007) Magnetohydrodynamics. Scholarpedia,
  p.10322
• Izhikevich (2006) Main Page. Scholarpedia,
  p.1286
• OA peer reviewed media is easy to work with
• The software is for free and the editorial
  staff is for free
• ? Nothing comes entirely for free, though ?
• Looking for sponsors
• For increased computer capacity