GeologyRocks

Time for the third GeologyRocks newsletter - later than scheduled, but good things come to those who wait. In this newsletter, I'm covering a new review system that will be put in place for content. I'll be interested to see what people think of this. Of course we start with a look at the new content over the last couple of months.

New content

Most of the new content has come from myself and Katie as we managed to find a week to go on holiday! Obviously, being geologists, we ended up looking at rocks most of the time. I've written up some of the field localities we visited, Robin Hood's Bay and the Burniston shoreline (on the lookout for dino footprints) in two field locality reviews. I also uploaded a few pictures.

Speaking of pictures, our 200th image was uploaded by Benauld. This is a great achievement and keeps us on track for the number of images available on the site for the 5 year plan.

Hypocentre has again provided us some thought-provoking blog entries. Keep up the good work!

It also seems that the Open University have been advertising the site for their new students. We've had an influx of newcomers doing an OU course. This is great and we hope to see more!

New review system.

With the new style being implemented imminently, we have decided to also introduce a review system for all new content. Essentially, all images, glossary entries, tutorials and articles are reviewed by myself or Katie. However, with the influx of new material, we're struggling to keep up (this a good thing!).

So, two things that I'd like to bring up. Firstly, be aware that once you have created some new content, you will receive some emails about it. Second, we could do with some reviewers!

The review process will work like this. Any new content will be seen by myself or Katie and we will assign a reviewer. The reviewer will fill in a simple form, in which s/he will either:

1. Recommend your content for publication with no or very minor changes.
2. Recommend that the material is along the right lines for the site, but not of sufficient quality for publication.
3. Recommend that the material is not of sufficient quality and should not be published.

For case 1, the author will have two weeks to make the suggested changes (or contact the editor to argue a case against the changes). If the changes are not made by the author, the changes will be made by us and the material published under the authorship of GeologyRocks.

For cases 2 and 3, the author will have 2 weeks to take a copy of the material before it is deleted. For case 2 the author is keenly encouraged to resubmit the material with the changes suggested by the reviewer implemented.

All reviewers wil be anonymous and hopefully we will have enough reviewers so that it's not obvious who reviewed your material. If you would like to be a reviewer then, please contact us. We would expect you to have a BSc or equivalent in geology (or related subject), have a good grasp of English and be willing to put in a few hours a month.

If you don't have the necessary experience or qualifications then moderators are also needed. Their role is to delete unwanted posts and approve links and news stories that have been submitted. Again, contact us.

Please be aware that for both reviewers and moderators we won't accept everyone that applies. We will base our decision on your participation and contributions to the site as well as the information in the form.

Publicising GeologyRocks

I will be giving a talk at Edinburgh University on the 31st of October all about GeologyRocks and public engagement in science in general. I'll cover what GeologyRocks is about, what is on the site and how I think it will help when letting the public know what scientists do. If you're in Edinburgh, then please come along. The talk will be in the evening, around 5pm. Please contact me if you want to come along and I'll give you directions and more details.

Well that's it for another newsletter. I'll be bringing the next one much sooner than in two months time to make up for the tardiness of this one. Hope you all create enough content to fill it!

If you would like to write a newsletter issue, please get in touch.