Encyclopedia of Earth - Authoring and Publishing Process

Authoring and Publishing Process

Contributors to the Encyclopedia of Earth are made up of scientists, educators, and professionals within the environmental field. Contributors are vetted by the Environmental Information Coalition (EIC) Stewardship Committee, the governing body of the Encyclopedia of Earth, before they are given access to the author's wiki. Within the wiki, where they operate under their real names and are give attribution on the published articles.

Articles are written, edited, and published in a two-step process:

1. 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.
2. 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 authors' wiki, but revised articles require review and re-approval before revisions are displayed on the public site.

Contributors are designated as "Authors" or "Topic Editors." Contributors can create, write and edit freely on all content within the Encyclopedia. Topic Editors act as reviewers of articles on topics upon which they are judged to have a high level of expertise. Articles, when written, are assigned by Encyclopedia staff to Topic Editors for review and, if appropriate, approval and automatic publication to the public site. As of early 2009, EoE staff were reporting that there were approximately 1,200 contributors from 60 different countries on the Encyclopedia.

The EoE has about 70 (as of late 2010) Content Partners, organizations that have a written agreement to provide their content to the Encyclopedia. Content Partners include organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, and American Meteorological Society.

The EoE also cites Content Sources, organizations that have content in the public domain which is used in the Encyclopedia. In this category are various government agencies and Wikipedia. The Encyclopedia of Earth has a specific policy on use of Wikipedia Content which requires authors and editors to carefully review and approve such content before using it and includes the following statement at the bottom of the article:

Note on Wikipedia Content: The authors of the content derived from Wikipedia are not identified. The Encyclopedia of Earth Author(s) and Topic Editor(s) listed at the top of this article may have significantly modified the content derived from Wikipedia with original content or content drawn from other sources. The Encyclopedia of Earth Topic Editor(s) listed at the top of this article has reviewed all of the content, including that derived from Wikipedia, and approved its accuracy for use in the Encyclopedia of Earth. See Encyclopedia of Earth Policy on use of Wikipedia Content for further details.

The Authors, Topic Editors, Copy Editors, Content Partners, and Content Sources, are all attributed on the articles with links to biographical pages on those individuals and institutions. This is part of the EoE's stated policy of transparency.

The Encyclopedia has a stated policy regarding neutrality and fairness 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.