Scholarpedia

Scholarpedia

Scholarpedia logo
Screenshot Scholarpedia homepage
Type of site	Online encyclopedia
Available in	English
Editor	Eugene M. Izhikevich (Editor-in-Chief)[1]
URL	www.scholarpedia.org
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional (required to edit pages)
Users	19,133 registered users (December 2022^[update])[2]
Launched	February 5, 2006; 18 years ago (2006-02-05)
Current status	1,816 peer-reviewed articles (December 2022^[update])[2]
Content license	CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
ISSN	1941-6016

Scholarpedia is an English-language wiki-based online encyclopedia with features commonly associated with open-access online academic journals, which aims to have quality content in science and medicine.

Scholarpedia articles are written by invited or approved expert authors and are subject to peer review.^[3] Scholarpedia lists the real names and affiliations of all authors, curators and editors involved in an article: however, the peer review process (which can suggest changes or additions, and has to be satisfied before an article can appear) is anonymous. Scholarpedia articles are stored in an online repository, and can be cited as conventional journal articles (Scholarpedia has the ISSN number ISSN 1941-6016). Scholarpedia's citation system includes support for revision numbers.

The project was created in February 2006 by Eugene M. Izhikevich, while he was a researcher at the Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California. Izhikevich also serves as the encyclopedia's editor-in-chief.^[1]

Scope

Scholarpedia main page

Scholarpedia content is grouped into separate "encyclopedias". As of August 2023^[update], seven of these are described as "focal areas":

• Astrophysics^[4]
• Celestial mechanics^[5]
• Computational neuroscience^[6]
• Computational intelligence^[7]
• Dynamical systems^[8]
• Physics^[9]
• Touch^[10]

Other encyclopedias include diverse areas such as play science^[11] and models of brain disorders.^[12][13]

As of November 2018^[update], Scholarpedia has 1,804 content pages and 18,149 registered users,^[14] while as of November 2021^[update], it has 1,812 peer-reviewed articles.^[15]

Funding

Scholarpedia's maintenance and server costs is currently funded by Brain Corporation,^[16] a robotics company which Izhikevich is the co-founder and CEO of.^[17] As stated on Scholarpedia's Frequently Asked Questions page, the company is also able to "benefit from Scholarpedia's extensive coverage of topics in computational neuroscience".

Authorship

To ensure that the articles are written by experts, authors of the various articles in Scholarpedia are either invited by the editor-in-chief or other curators, or selected by a public election. For example, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger were nominated for the article on Wikipedia.^[18] As of May 2009^[update], the list of authors included four Fields Medalists and sixteen Nobel Prize winners.^[19] Registered users must provide their full real name, and a recognized affiliation to an academic institution. Only registered users can edit an article, and those edits are subject to approval by the curator of the article, who is typically the author.^[20] Curatorship is transferable. Users have a curator index attribute which is incremented or decremented by various activities and which affects the user's capabilities on the website.

After October 20, 2011, anyone can propose an article for Scholarpedia, but articles must be sponsored by Editors or Curators before the article can be published.^[21]

Copyright

Articles are available online without charge for non-commercial use, but may not be copied in bulk. ^{[citation needed]}

Authors are credited on the article page and in the suggested citation formats.^[22]

In January 2008 Scholarpedia changed their licensing policy and started accepting articles under the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, in addition to the earlier system in which the author gives a non-exclusive license directly to Scholarpedia.^[23][24]

Software

Scholarpedia uses the same wiki engine as Wikipedia, MediaWiki, with modifications to support voting on revisions. The software's development is done privately.^[25]

See also

• Nupedia – which had similar design to Scholarpedia
• Citizendium
• List of online encyclopedias

References

1. "Eugene M. Izhikevich". Scholarpedia. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
2. "Statistics". Scholarpedia. Archived from the original on December 30, 2022. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
3. "Scholarpedia: the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia". Society of Applied Neuroscience. 2006-11-11. Archived from the original on 2012-02-22. Retrieved 2014-02-15.
4. "Encyclopedia: Astrophysics – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
5. "Encyclopedia: Celestial mechanics – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
6. "Encyclopedia: Computational neuroscience – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
7. "Encyclopedia:Computational intelligence - Scholarpedia". www.scholarpedia.org.
8. "Encyclopedia: Dynamical systems – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
9. "Encyclopedia: Physics – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
10. "Encyclopedia: Touch – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
11. "Encyclopedia: Play Science – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
12. "Encyclopedia: Models of brain disorders – Scholarpedia". scholarpedia.org.
13. "Scholarpedia". The MIT Presslog. 2007-01-08. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
14. "Statistics". Scholarpedia. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
15. Ishchenko, Oleksandr (2021-12-15). "New trends in the encyclopedic practice shaped by the digital age (based on Scholarpedia and Scholarly Community Еncyclopedia)". The Encyclopedia Herald of Ukraine (in Ukrainian). 13: 46–62. doi:10.37068/evu.13.4. ISSN 2706-9990. S2CID 245244884.
16. "Help:Frequently Asked Questions". Scholarpedia. sec. How is Scholarpedia funded?. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
17. Simonite, Tom (September 22, 2014). "Robots That Learn Through Repetition, Not Programming". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on July 31, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
18. "User:Eugene M. Izhikevich/Proposed/Wikipedia". Scholarpedia. 2008-04-20. Retrieved 2014-02-15.
19. "Editorial: Wouldn't you like to know?". Nature Physics. 4 (7): 505. 2008. Bibcode:2008NatPh...4..505.. doi:10.1038/nphys1012.
20. "Help:Frequently Asked Questions". Scholarpedia. sec. How is an article maintained?. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
21. Izhikevich, Eugene M. (5 February 2006). "Scholarpedia – Scholarpedia". Scholarpedia. 1 (2): 1. Bibcode:2006SchpJ...1....1I. doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.1.
22. Scholarpedia FAQ
23. "Talk:Scholarpedia". Scholarpedia. 2008-02-15. sec. Comments on copyright and patents. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
24. "Scholarpedia:Terms of Use". Scholarpedia. 2012-09-08. sec. Scholarpedia's Licenses to You, and Your license to parties other than Scholarpedia. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
25. "Help:Frequently Asked Questions". Scholarpedia. sec. How can I contribute to the source code?. Retrieved 2012-05-25.

External links

• Scholarpedia official website