Scholarpedia
| Eugene M. Izhikevich (2006), Scholarpedia, 1(2):1. | doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.1 | revision #123861 [link to/cite this article] |
Scholarpedia is a peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world.
Scholarpedia feels and looks like Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Indeed, both are powered by the same program -- MediaWiki. Both allow visitors to read and modify articles simply by clicking on the edit this article link.
However, Scholarpedia differs from Wikipedia in some very important ways:
- Each article is authored by the top expert who is sponsored by two existing curators.
- Each article is peer-reviewed and validated by two independent curators.
- Upon validation, the author of the article becomes its curator.
- Any registered user can modify and improve the article. However, the modification needs to be approved by a team of article contributors before it appears in the final approved version. Upon approval, the user joins the team of article contributors.
- Article Contributors are assigned a Curator Index that reflects their contribution to the article and allows them to evaluate revisions to the article. The sum of Curator Indices across articles forms the Scholarpedia Index and endows users with certain privileges.
- When an article curator resigns or is no longer available, a team of contributors elects the world’s best expert to become the curator. Their votes are weighted by their Curator Ranks (to be implemented in 2012).
Herein also lies the greatest difference between Scholarpedia and traditional print media: although the initial authorship and review are similar to a print journal so that Scholarpedia articles could be cited, articles are not frozen and outdated, but dynamic, subject to an ongoing process of improvement moderated by their curators. This allows Scholarpedia to be up-to-date, yet maintain the highest quality of content.
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Aims and policy
Scholarpedia does not publish "research" or "position" papers, but rather "living reviews" that will be maintained by the future generation of experts via the process of curatorship. The (ambitious) goal of Scholarpedia is that of being an understandable and useful encyclopedic reference for scholars of different levels.
To ensure these requirements, the ideal article of Scholarpedia
- is written in "Scientific American" or slightly more advanced style, as appropriate at least for advanced undergraduate students of that area or of graduate students in adjacent areas;
- satisfies Einstein's criterion to "make it as simple as possible, but no simpler".
Scholarpedia is a fully open access publication:
- no fee or subscription is required to access its content; that is, articles are free for everyone;
- no publication charges are imposed on authors.
Each article in Scholarpedia has its own copyright policy, freely selected by the authors from the choices:
Article sponsorship and validation
To contribute an article to Scholarpedia, you need to be the top expert in your field, well known to existing curators of Scholarpedia, as you will need sponsorship from two curators of Scholarpedia (until 2012, only one sponsorship is needed). Their names appear at the bottom of the article, validating your expertise.
Alternatively, you can co-author an article with the top expert, so that the entire author team gets sponsorship of two existing curators.
The sponsorship gives you an exclusive right to the title of your article for two months, so you can finish writing it and get it peer-reviewed and accepted by two independent reviewers. At least one of the reviewers should be the original sponsor. Names of reviewers who accept your article are explicitly acknowledged, so their reputation validates the article content.
If the article is not accepted within the two-month period, or if it is rejected by any of the sponsors or reviewers (rejection is anonymous), you will lose your exclusivity to the article title, so others can write it.
Your name will appear at the top of the article as its author, so your reputation validates the article content.
Article maintenance
Upon acceptance, you will become the article’s curator and you can sponsor and review other articles. The sponsors and reviewers of your article become the article's contributors.
As a curator, you have total control over the article content. Any registered user can modify your article, however, the modification is not shown to the public until it is approved by you or by at least two of the article's contributors and not rejected by any other contributors. In the case of disagreement among contributors, your decision prevails.
Users whose modifications are approved join the team of contributors, so that they can maintain the article for you. The contributions of such users are ranked according to how often their judgements coincided with your judgements. Should you decide to resign, the highest-ranked contributor will be offered the curatorship of your article, or the article's contributors elect the world’s top expert to become the article’s curator. Their votes will be weighted by their Ranks.
The process of curatorship makes Scholarpedia a unique project. Sigmund Freud wrote "Psychoanalysis" and Albert Einstein wrote "Space-Time" for the 13th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica almost 100 years ago. If Britannica had the feature of curatorship, the best experts of today would be competing with each other for the honor to be curators of Freud’s and Einstein’s articles. The goal of Scholarpedia is to recruit today’s Einsteins and Freuds to write encyclopedic articles on their fundamental discoveries, so that 100 years from now the best experts will be willing to maintain and update the articles through the process of curatorship.
How to cite Scholarpedia articles
Upon approval, articles in Scholarpedia are archived in a journal (ISSN 1941-6016) so that they could be cited as any other peer-reviewed article. For example,
- Izhikevich E. M. (2006) Bursting. Scholarpedia, 1(3):1300
This citation, found below the article's title, always refers to the latest approved version of the article that is shown to visitors by default. Any particular approved revision of the article can also be cited. For example,
- Izhikevich E. M. (2006) Bursting. Scholarpedia, 1(3):1300, revision 1401
Each article forever maintains a history of all of its revisions, accessible via the 'revisions' tab. We expect the history of revisions to be of interest in its own right, providing a window into the living process of peer review and progress of ideas that is hidden behind the scenes in traditional publications. Some revisions may well become classics much like a fine vintage of wine.
History
Scholarpedia was conceived by Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich at the end of 2005, while he was contributing to Wikipedia.
Up until October 20, 2011, Scholarpedia relied on its editors to identify and convince the top leading experts to contribute encyclopedic articles, and on its assistant editors to help the top experts with their articles. This resulted in nearly a thousand peer-reviewed articles in the field of dynamical systems, computational neuroscience, and physics. However, the growth of Scholarpedia was linear, limited by the editorial bottleneck.
