Flyer 1 - for assistance

The Psychology Wiki http://psychology.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page

In recent years there has been a quiet revolution developing on the Internet with the development of software that facilitates the collaborative editing of pages by anyone with access to a modem. They are called wikis from the Hawaiian for ‘quick’ because they are so easy to use.

The most successful example has been Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) a collaborative encyclopaedia that, in five years, has grown to 500,000 pages, translated into some 200 languages. A recent study by Nature revealed that Wikipedia was more accurate that Encyclopedia Brittanica when judged by a sample of scientific articles. See: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html.

I have recently been given permission to set up a site for the knowledge domain for Psychology with the aim of collaboratively producing a hypertext textbook that gives an authoritative up-to-date account of all the knowledge in the field at a level of detail appropriate to undergraduate and postgraduate education.

The same people responsible for running Wikipedia will provide technical support in terms of backup etc.

The use of the site is free both for inputting and accessing. I hope that it will develop an international audience and lead to the dissemination of psychological knowledge across language boundaries. I feel it will be particularly useful in areas of the world where textbooks are scarce.

I invite anyone who has an interest, to access the site, to learn the simple editing procedures, and to then contribute. There is no limit to the size of the site and I hope that we will find creative ways of using it, not only as a textbook, but as a repository of self help materials, therapy protocols, user views, as a means of collaborative international dialogue etc. The site now has over 700 pages that need filling. Can you please encourage others to join and contribute as early as possible? Many hands make light work!