University Field Researchers' Home Page | Why be a University Field Researcher? | What do the University Field Researchers do? | University Field Researchers' Code of Conduct | Volunteer to be a University Field Researcher

Here's a quick introduction to the University Field Researchers' scheme. It summarises the advantages of being a University Field Researcher, what we get out of the scheme, and then finishes off with details of the University Field Researchers' mailing list.

What you get out of being an h2g2 University Field Researcher

We sincerely hope that you get as much out of being a University Field Researcher as the volunteers in our other schemes have. Always bear in mind that you should be doing the work of a University Field Researcher because you want to: we very much hope that you enjoy being one, but we will never question you if you decide that it isn't really for you. Just let us know if you change your mind, or would prefer to join one of our other volunteer schemes instead.

That said, there are lots of benefits of being a University Field Researcher. Here are the main ones:

• You get direct access to the in-house team of professional journalists, with whom you can develop your own writing and researching skills. We're happy to help you grow your skill set by providing our expertise for free. Feel free to use it.

• You get access to the University Field Researchers' mailing list (see below).

• We're constantly developing the schemes on h2g2, and every time we make decisions about the University scheme, we'll ask you for your ideas and opinions. We do take volunteers' comments very seriously, so this is a real opportunity to influence what happens on h2g2.

• While you are working on your project, you get listed on the appropriate faculty page.

• You get to skip the Peer Review process, assuming your project is of a high enough standard. Note that this means you must not put any entries from your project into Peer Review, so make sure that all the Researchers involved in your project are happy with this arrangement. You can, of course, link to Edited Entries from your project. It's also worth mentioning that you can get feedback on entries in the Writing Workshop.

• When you have completed your project, you get a permanent University Field Researcher badge on your Personal Space - think of it like a graduation scroll. Your project will be listed in the appropriate faculty page, and it will be highlighted on the front page for a whole week (as opposed to the single day for non-University entries).

• You get a considerable amount of kudos within the h2g2 Community.

What we get out of you being an h2g2 University Field Researcher

In short, we need the University Field Researchers to create top-quality and thorough entries for inclusion in the Edited Guide, which is vital if we are to build interesting and in-depth content in the Guide.

The relationship between h2g2 and our volunteers is definitely two-way: the site couldn't exist in its current form without them, and the University Field Researchers are absolutely key to the creation of quality content in the Guide. Before the University Field Researchers scheme was set up, both the old scheme of submitting to the queue, and the new system of Peer Review, prevented large, multiple-entry projects from getting into the Edited Guide. The University enables projects to skip the Peer Review process, thus enabling them to go into the Edited Guide in one go.

As well as having the undoubted benefit of a team who are helping us to create the Guide, we also get to discuss the future of the University with you before it becomes reality. Often we've changed an idea because, after debate with the volunteers, we've realised that things would be better if done differently.

The University Field Researchers' Mailing List

The University Field Researchers and internal staff currently communicate private material via a private mailing list, to which all University Field Researchers are subscribed.

This is a private mailing list and is available to invited members only, so you can be perfectly candid here. Indeed, that's the point: it's for discussions about the scheme, and for announcements about new versions of the test site and suggested changes to the scheme. General University conversations, though, should be conducted on the University Field Researchers' Home Page, so please don't immediately jump onto the mailing list and start filling it up with lots of friendly greeting messages - please do that on h2g2.

That said, any questions can be fired at the mailing list, and you'll find the other University Field Researchers very happy to help you out. We like to let discussions develop before diving in with any official standpoint, as you are very much involved in the development of the site and the scheme, and discussion aids that. It's also a lot of fun.

When we subscribe you to the mailing list you receive an email detailing the URL and the various ways of accessing the mailing list. It's worth having a quick tour round the site, if only to discover who the other members of the list are.