BugwoodWiki:Community Portal
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The purpose of the BugwoodWiki is to provide a source of reliable information for homeowners, scholars, industry professionals, and researchers. Despite the considerable merits of Wikipedia, it is unlikely that it will gain the full support of the academics and professionals due to its open nature. However, "wiki" technology does provide great promise in it's ability to centrally consolidate information, promote collaborative writing, and provide a channel of authoritative information for academics, extension personnel, and industry professionals as well as the general public.
By developing a specialist site we hope to develop a mechanism of appropriate peer review for all articles and to restrict contributors to qualified individuals. This will allow articles to achieve academic status for referencing purpose and ground the content solidly in the knowledge base of the discipline.
To make this resource as dynamic and useful to as many audiences as possible, BugwoodWiki provides tools to:
- Allow collaboration on the creation of fact sheets and other information sources with accommodations made to make sure individuals are credited for their contribution
- Provide easy, open access to the Bugwood Image Database System so the images and information can be used in the creation of Wiki articles
- Provide easy portability of the Wiki articles to other formats including: other websites, publications, AgAlerts, and factsheets. Special emphasis is placed on maintaining proper citations for both images and the Wiki Articles
Who can edit BugwoodWiki?
BugwoodWiki Scholars are users who have been given permission to edit and create articles in this wiki. To qualify as a Scholar, you must have experience, education, or training specific to the articles you plan to edit.
Examples of individuals who qualify as BugwoodWiki Scholars include:
- Graduate students
- Faculty and Staff of Educational Institutions
- Industry Professionals
If you wish to become a BugwoodWiki Scholar so that you can contribute to wiki articles, please contact the Bugwood Network Staff or a BugwoodWiki Bureaucrat to receive permission to edit articles. You may also look at our current events to find a project leader in an area you are interested in. General requests to become a BugwoodWiki Scholar can be sent to the Bugwood Webmaster.
What constitutes authorship?
To edit articles in the BugwoodWiki, you must be a BugwoodWiki Scholar. Even then, the BugwoodWiki system 'does not' automatically assign authorship. We leave this upto the site contributors to assign on the various articles. If you make a significant contribution to an article, you should be listed as an author.
Examples of significant contributions include:
- adding a section to article
- improving a section of an article to be more complete
Examples of non-signficant contrubutions include:
- correcting spelling and punctuation
- minor revisions of grammar
This will be an evolving definition as this project develops. We believe most people have a basic understandig of ethics in science and there will be few (if any) disputes over authorship.
Standardizing the author line
The standard Author line (in WikiText) for BugwoodWiki articles is:
''Authors: [[User:USERNAME]], [[ORGANIZATION]]''
- The double single quotes ('') at the begining and end will put the text in italics.
- The USERNAME is whatever username you entered when you made your account. Using the [[User:USERNAME]] will link to your personal page on the BugwoodWiki.
- [[ORGANIZATION]] will link to the page for your institution or company. From that page, visitors can find out a little bit of information on the organization access links to different departments and units.
How should I submit images
The BugwoodWiki is directly attached to the Bugwood Image Database System (BugwoodIDS). This provides convienent access to 82,000 high-quality, high-resolution images. Adding an image to the BugwoodWiki is done by either uploading it to BugwoodIDS or directly to the BugwoodWiki 'depending on what it is!!'
Where do images I wish to upload belong?
Images such as logos, icons, personal pictures, or other miscelaneous additions can be uploaded directly through the wiki. BugwoodIDS is set up to organize High-resolution images related to educational topics. This miscelaneous images would not fit well into that system.
Images of subject matter should go to BugwoodIDS. This allow you to use the image in BugwoodWiki, make sure the image is properly cited when it is used, and also allow other people to use the image for educational projects as long as the image is properly cited.
What type of images should be sent
Images should be high resolution images (4 megapixel and up). Our major focus is on species of economic concern (i.e. pests and invasive species), but we also wish to have a wide selection of images about many aspects of forested, natural, agricultural, and urban systems. This includes images of of plants, insects, wildlife, and plant diseases/fungi as well as management and cultural practices. If it directly relates to an article that you are writing and better illustrates the subject matter, we can find a location for it in our system.
If possible we would like to know the scientific name of the subject in the picture or at least enough clues that we can track the information down. We also ask that you sort through your pictures and only send those that are in focus and of good quality (i.e. not over-exposed, of good composition, etc.)
How can I send you images?
CD's and DVD's through the mail are a good option. We do also have an on-line upload form that can be used to send the images over the internet. It uses an Active X control and has been very reliable for sending large volumes of images. If you would like to have access to this, contact the Bugwood Network Staff.
How can I send the information for the images
There are several options for sending information for images.
- We have a Bugwood Data sheet. This is a pretty straight forward form that we can easily manipulate, compare to our system, and insert proper "codes" used in our fully-relational database. This form does require the filename to be entered so that we can keep the data with the proper image. Entering filenames can be done by hand or we have instructions on how to import these names into Excel using DOS commands.
- If the file name is sufficiently descriptive, we can use that to classify the image, although this is likely to not be as complete as the spreadsheet method. The information can be supplemented with additional data entered during the image review phase of our system.
- We can access the EXIF information associated with images and use those comments to enter the information to our system. This process is not yet automated and has not been widely used by our contributors.
- We can upload the images into our system and let the photographer enter all of the information through our image review system. If your images involve repetitive entries, it is not as efficient as using the excel spreadsheet. If you are only working with a few images at a time and they are cover different subjects, this is often a better option.
What happens after I send the images?
The Bugwood staff will review the images and add them to the system. You will then receive a notice to look at the information that was entered and verify that you approve of what was entered. After the image are reviewed, the corrections are made and the images are made publicly available.
The photographer retains all commercial rights to their pictures. We do ask that they allow the use of their images by non-profit organizations creating educational materials. Any commercial requests we receive are redirected to the photographer or handled as the photographer or image rights holder has instructed us (i.e accept or refuse).
Give feedback
BugwoodWiki has a wonderful feature known as the discussion pages. These pages are attached to every article in the system. The discussion pages allow users to comment on an article and discuss what changes should be done to improve the article. This allows for full collaboration between any number of users and a running history of the article's development.
When making comments, use a header such as "=discussion topic=" to help organize the comments. It is also important to sign your entries on these pages by adding ~~~~ at the end of your comments. This will place your signature and time stamp on the comment to let the authors know when the comments were made. The signature look something like "LaForest 17:28, 17 December 2007 (EST)" and provides a way for the authors to either respond directly to you or follow the comments through the discussion.
You can also give general feedback about the site and its function by contacting the Bugwood Network Staff. We are always interested in your thoughts about how we can improve the site and other features you would like to see.
