The IWA WaterWiki: an open-access publishing platform providing free content on all aspects of water, wastewater and the environment

Abstract

The International Water Association (IWA) WaterWiki is an open-access online platform for the global water community to share resources on all aspects of water research. The site has been developed in order to offer a permanent publishing platform for high-quality free content that might not otherwise find an outlet. With a focus on repurposing out-of-print content and archiving grey literature, the WaterWiki is able to provide a collection of free eBooks of particular interest to users from developing countries and offer an online publishing solution for authors of content in non-traditional formats such as poster presentations. Our ongoing aim is to bring together all the high-quality water sector material that is currently available online, in or out of print and at events, and to encourage knowledge brokerage within our community of users. Here is an outline of what you can expect to find on our site: The WaterWiki Is More than an Encyclopedia... After completing a short registration process,(1) you will be able to join a community of over 4,000 water professionals and take full advantage of the WaterWiki’s information resources and networking functions: Over 1,200 Open-Access Reference Articles The WaterWiki Articles(2) section currently hosts over 1,200 articles, case studies and presentations on all aspects of water research. As with Wikipedia, content can be edited or uploaded by all registered users. Submitted content is reviewed for quality control by the WaterWiki Editorial Group.(3) The Editorial Group features leading names in the water sector, so submitting an article to the WaterWiki is an excellent way to have your work seen by the experts in the field! All content is tagged by subject, making it easy to navigate to the material that interests you by clicking on the Article tag cloud in order to filter the list by subject. Once you’ve found an interesting article, the site will automatically suggest related content in the right-hand column. This feature updates every time you reload the page so you will get new suggestions every time you visit. Events Extra – The Conference Materials Archive Events Extra(4) is an archive of over 800 conference documents, providing the ideal publishing outlet for poster presentations and other forms of grey literature that may not otherwise find a suitable permanent Chloe Parker is the Digital Publishing Executive at IWA Publishing and the Community Manager of the WaterWiki.