Strategy
The WSC is still in its infancy. It has no software, hardware, funding, or users -it is but a dream at the moment. However, that is not to say that there is no plan! The following is therefore a suggested strategy for the WSC (contrubutions are, as always, wellcome):
It is difficult to get people to contribute something to nothing. This seems to be the general difficulty with creating wiki webs -you need a certain ammount and quality of information in place before people catch on and begin using the pages. So one of the first challenges facing the WSC is to reach "knowledge crittical mass" -getting to the point where other people are interested and want to contribute further.
In order to get experts (i.e. scientists) involved in the project, the level and quality of knowledge already on the pages must be gargantual! So starting with experts will be dificult. In stead, it is possible to take things step-by-step, starting by actively recruiting undergraduate students in a single discipline (psychology), and then gradually expanding to more advanced levels and to other areas of science.
The WSC plan has 5 steps.
Step 1: Setting Up In this phase, all the software and hardware required for the WSC to work is developed. At the same time, some basic information is written (e.g. information about the WSC initiative, overview of the most popular undergraduate psychology topics, etc) and posted on the WSC web as part of the beta testing. As things progress, several universities are also contacted, and permission is obtained to use the WSC as a volunteer tool that students and teachers can use as part of their course. In this way, undergraduate students will be encouraged by their lecturers to collaboratively create litterature reviews of the different topics they are studying.
Step 2: Undergraduates Once the web itself if ready for the users, the WSC is launced simultaneously in English speaking universities across the world, using student representatives and staff as refference points (Espen will go to several Universities in the UK in order to recruit support from the universities). Hopefully, both 1st, 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates will use the WSC, creating a good basis for recruiting graduate psychology students within just a year.
Step 3: Graduates At the end of the first year, if all goes well, it should be possible to repeat the first year process with other areas of science, but also to start involving graduate students (masters and phd's). By showing universities what we have already made, it may even be possible to get them to use the WSC as a more integrated part of their master's education, by giving class assignments as part of recommended reading and so forth. Again, this should take little more than a year, and by the end of it the WSC should be hosting the equivalent of a psychology dictionary's worth of web quality pages (approx 17 000 terms and deffinitions).
Step 4: Researchers Once we have engaged the undergraduates, the masters, and the phd students (advancing to to other areas as well), it will be time to involve the scientific community itself. Although we might already have some academics involved already, perhaps the best way to involve researchers would be to contact everyone whom has had a research article cited on the WSC pages and ask them to review and possibly to contribute to the page (people are usually more interested when they themselves are involved). Also, the WSC should be generating a lot of press at this point, and publicity stunts should ensure that we are written about in prominent scientific magazines such as Nature, Scientific American, The New Scientist, Brain & Behaviour, etc. Talks could also be held at relevant conferences, such as the British Association for Advancement of Science (BA) annual festival of science, the British Psychology Society, the American Psychology Association, and so forth. BBC and CNN coverage could also be a possibility if we play the "new scientific tool" angle well enough.
Step 5: Expansion When Psychology has reached a sustainable research level, it will be time to do the same to all of science. By this point, the WSC should be in an excellent position to get the attention of the scientific community. If there are sufficient resources, one could begin to recruit other science stakeholders, such as people from business, politics, agriculture, and so forth. In short, we will be well on our way to creating a truly inclusive World Science Community.