GeologyRocks

Hello again and welcome to the fourth GeologyRocks Newsletter. In this newsletter, I'd thought I'd recap the last year's activity comparing them against the plan, as it's been a year since this version of GeologyRocks was released. However, as per usual first here's new content that's been put on over the last couple of months.

New content

There have not been any major additions since the last newsletter, but the site has received a lot of questions from people asking us to identify bits of their rock collection. I think we've identified most of the pictures that have been posted, so well done everybody!

Once thing I'd like to note is the excellent game introduced by hypocentre: the Geology Rocks Google Earth Great British Geology Hunt or GrGeGbGh for "short". This has been excellent and I've learnt a lot about British localities. I look forward to this continuing (at least until hypocentre can find no more localities!).

Progress this year

Back in February 2007 (the 18th to be precise) the current version of GeologyRocks (version 3) was released and the five year plan I wrote came into effect. You can read the plan here, but here's a summary of the content on GeologyRocks at the time:

• 23 Tutorials
• 1 Article
• 181 Glossary terms
• 164 Images
• 55 Links
• Average 200-300 visits a day.

Where are we now, one year in (the figure in brackets indicated the change)?

• 26 Tutorials (+3)
• 7 Articles (+6)
• 196 Glossary terms (+15)
• 232 Images (+68)
• 67 Links (+12)
• Average 300-400 (+100) visits a day.

How does that compare to the five year targets I set? In the five year plan, I set out some objectives we would meet and some we would aim to meet.

Things that we were going to do:

• Increase the presence of the earth sciences on the web by creating a community site where amateurs and professionals can interact and contribute

From my point of view I think we are well on the way to achieving this. Clearly more work needs to be done in this area, in particular advertising around UK universities at least.

• Produce an annual report detailing the current status of the site and compare this to the objectives contained in this document

This is annual report number one.

• Create a bi-monthly newsletter for its members and interested parties

We've not quite achieved this. This is issue 4 in 1 year, so two issues have been missed.

• Allow content creation and editing via the web browser

Yes, the use of Drupal allows this quite well. There are still some improvements that can be made in this area though.

• Allow each member to create a blog if they so wish

Yes. This came "free" with Drupal; but again more work can be done here to help promote the use of blogs.

• Allow members that contribute tutorials, articles, glossary entries, pictures, reviews and blogs a share in the revenue of the site

Yes, again because of Drupal.

• Create an online help document to help members use the site

We have quite extensive documentation now, but as with any documentation it can be constantly improved.

• Create style guidelines and instructions for content creators, editor and moderators

Again, as above, they are there, but need constant reviewing to make sure they are current and useful.

• Give a GeologyRocks mouse mat or mug to members achieving Quartz status and a t-shirt, sweatshirt or ladies top to those reaching Diamond status

No-one has reached quartz status yet (apart from me and I don't count).

• Ask 1-10 members to become editors and/or moderators. Guidelines for editors need to be drawn up (have a degree in geology or equivalent experience, for example). Anyone could be a moderator.

Yes, we now have a few reviewers and moderators who are doing a great job. The reviews are anonymous so I can't thank them publicly until we have more, but I would like to thank their efforts so far. The moderators are also doing a very good job.

• Make the terms & conditions more straightforward by using standard licences, such as Copyleft where appropriate.

Yes, I've used the Creative Commons licence on images.

These are things we aimed to do:

• Increase visitor numbers to around 1000 per day in the next 5 years.

We've had an increase of 100 in the last year. This is 100 below the 200 per day increase required, but it's a solid start. We recently hit 10,000 visits in a single month.

• Add at least one new game or activity per year

No, this has not been done this year.

• Hold at least one fieldtrip per year for the next five years

No, but plans are in motion to hold a trip in the Pentland Hills (near Edinburgh) this spring.

• Increase the content on the site to include at least 50 tutorials and 10 articles within 5 years

The 50 tutorials looks difficult to get to at the present time, but the number of articles on the site is growing well.

• Increase the number of free images on the site to 500 within 5 years

This equates to adding 67.2 images per year. 68 have been added this year, so we're well on track here.

• Increase the number of glossary entries (including synonyms) to at least 500 within the next 5 years

This isn't so promising. Only 15 glossary entries have been added this year. If anyone has suggestions to encourage the adding glossary entries, please let me know.

• Add a series of computer desktop wallpapers to download

These have been started, but are languishing on my computer.

• Innovate and create new content to encourage education in the earth sciences

I'm currently talking to people about adding voice overs to PowerPoint presentations and producing video-based tutorials, which comes under this.

• Secure grant funding for a part- or full-time employee

No funding has been secured as yet, but I have lots of avenues to explore in this area.

• Compile a list of copyright free sources for material

Yes. This can be found in the help pages. If you have any more suggestions for resources please let me know.

Summary

Looking over that lot it appears to me that we're doing well with the five year plan, but please add a comment if you have something to say. The amount of glossary entries is disappointing, but they do take a surprising amount of time to construct, especially linking to existing terms or having to do a "batch" of entries, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the low number. I hope I can make the entering of glossary entries easier by autmomatically linking to exiting terms (see below), saving a lot of effort for the author. In addition to the explicit things listed in the plan, we've also implemented some of the more speculative ides, such as badges for moderators, and the "invite" module. The idea is that in 4 years time, GeologyRocks will be a very useful, information-rich, easy-to-use website.

Extensions to the plan

However, in the last year, I've thought of a few more things that can be done:

• add an automated review system, which doesn't rely on me (in the role of editor) passing emails back and forth.
• add an automatic glossary->content module which will add exising glossary terms to content without user intervention (this is an extension of the speculative idea of placing glossary entries into tutorials only. I think it would be useful to extend this to other material such as images and other glossary entries)

These will be added to a revised plan (to be released in the next few months), but feel free to comment here if there is anything you'd like to see amended, added or removed. GeologyRocks is a community site and I'd like to start getting the community involved in running it.

That's it for this newsletter. As always, feel free to contact me with questions or comments, or leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.