Copenhagen University Library

Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Scholarpedia: an Open Access peer reviewed encyclopedia

Bertil F. Dorch, editor

The Royal Library / Copenhagen University LibraryHonorary associate professor

The Niels Bohr InstituteCopenhagen University

Copenhagen University Library

Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Content

•Introduction: Wiki culture

•Scholarpedia philosophy

•A working example of Open AccessThe Encyclopedia of Astrophysics

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Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Introduction: Wiki cultureWe are living in a Web X culture (X ~ 2.something)

•Web > 1 technology available to scholars (and nerds) •Success criteria: Easy, democratic, everything is online

It’s 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.

Copenhagen University Library

Seminar on Open Access 2007

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www.scholarpedia.org

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Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Scholarpedia philosophyScholarpedia 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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Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Scholarpedia numbers

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

Copenhagen University Library

Seminar on Open Access 2007

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Scholarpedia, physicallyEditor-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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Seminar on Open Access 2007

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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 author’s point of view• Editor’s 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 EndScholarpedia articlesDorch (2007) Magnetohydrodynamics. Scholarpedia, p.10322Izhikevich (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