Medpedia, a new online [OA] medical encyclopedia to be written and edited by a collaborative group of thousands, with support from several leading medical schools, is calling for volunteers. But not everyone will be accepted. Only those who hold an M.D. or Ph.D. in a biomedical field need apply.
That is one way in which the ambitious project, which plans to go live by the end of this year, hopes to set itself apart from existing medical Web sites. In return for contributors' efforts, Medpedia expects to provide them with a reward. Contributing to the encyclopedia will be a career-booster, its founders say, and participants could gain international reputations as experts. ...
Medpedia aims to create pages for more than 30,000 known medical conditions, as well as for the thousands of drugs being prescribed each year. All the available information on a subject will be presented in a single entry, and each topic will have an accessible version for the lay public and a more technical account for health professionals and other knowledgeable readers. ...
First reactions to the Medpedia project announcement seem enthusiastic: The online-encyclopedia team received about 3,000 applications during the project's first 24 hours.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
