h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The h2g2 Editors are very pleased to announce the re-opening of the h2g2 University. For those who only joined us in the last two years, the University was an area of h2g2 that allowed for more in-depth research in the form of projects containing groups of related entries.

The University is now open for submissions and the Introduction page for the University outlines the basics of the all-new university, along with links to the revised faculties.

We've had to revise the process for getting University Projects into the Edited Guide, so we'd strongly advise even our most experienced Researchers to read the new University information page [<./>university-what</.>] for the details of how to create a new project and all of the different stages involved.

We're really looking forward to some brilliant new entries coming from the h2g2 University and hope that the faculties might become a home-from-home for those Researchers who wish to specialise in Science, Art and Entertainment, Sports, History and other Topics. We might even be able to offer reciprocal links to related h2g2 clubs and societies.

Am I right in saying that under the new system, University projects will not go through Peer Review?

You would be wrong to think that.

<./>University-what</.> covers this. But a project only has to spend that minimum 7 days in PR before it's either accepted or (hopefully unlikely to be necessary) returned to the faculty for more work.

So Projects are sub-edited first, and then go into Peer Review?

Yep. They should be discussed thoroughly in the Faculty first, so the Project leader knows what they're aiming for. Then they should go away and research/write all the entries, either with a Sub working alongside them or once all the entries are done.

Then, as a final check, the Project's index page (clearly marked as an Uni submission) goes into Peer Review where final comments can be made. After the end of the week the Project can be accepted by us, which we do by removing the Index page from Peer Review and then processing the entries as before, checking the entries against the comments in PR in case any of them have been missed.

We wanted to include that part of the process in recognition of your concerns with the old process, but we also didn't want the uni projects to clog up PR or give extra work to the Scouts.

This sounds awesome.

This means that I *really* should be dusting off my old but never finished University Project on Kalevala - a source of constant bad conscience, that one...

Hmmm... I think I may have to see about coming up with a project...

Could I ask if the following entry is suitable for the university, its too long to be a normal EG entry and is about a series of fighting games on arcade and Playstation called Tekken - I spent a lot of time on it and it is annoying to see it not edited but then again it is far too long and hard to edit down. I'd rather leave it how it is and unedited, though, than edit it just to get a researcher badge and more EGs. I'm newish so not fully understanding of the University purpose (though I have seen the notorious Billy Joel entry)

A4309779

So if I'm going to turn my Star Trek entries into a project, which I'll probably do, does that mean that I have to remove them all from peer review first?

Entries already in Peer Review should just sail through as normal, although if we have five entries that are linked we might be able to award a Field Researcher's Badge as a courtesy.

As for the Tekken entry, I haven't had chance to look at it yet, but if there is enough material to write five or more full entries then it could be submitted to the 'Arts and Entertainment' faculty.

I'd be happy to help out with those, seeing as I worked on Tekkens 2-4 while at Sony.

Oooooh, aren't we the lucky one. Left after 4? Good choice that one was awful, 5s quite good though. It will probably need a lot of editing and work on certain bits, I mainly focussed on the storylines, the rest need serious looking over if it was to be edited.

I'll wait til you look over it to see if its suitable or not before getting excited.

It's nice to see the Uni alive again. Great!

A question though, knowing this may never be achieved - what about a list of completed projects from the old uni? I think it would be a good thing if there was a sort of 'Hall of Fame' linked from the main uni page; completed projects from the new Uni could be added to this or perhaps get a Hall of Fame of their own.

Something like section 3 here? <./>University-What</.>

Oh, err... did someone mention the French Revolution?



Well, it was going to be finished by... um... about 3 years ago, I reckon!

Well, since the uni's back, maybe I'd better re-enrol as a mature student and try to put that ol' revolution to bed.

Cya
keep on truckin'

Hurrah! Well done, Spiff!

Paully

Well, I'm not advocating any feats of apnoea just yet, .

I did say I was gonna finish it in time for the uni closing last time!

I'll definitely put it back on my ever-flexible agenda, though.

There are a couple of ways this could be done - we could arrange a drop-down list like other volunteer groups that shows the people with Field Researcher badges, or we could just have a definitive list of completed projects.

Only two drawbacks. Well, one really. We'd have to update the page every time a new project was accepted, and the point of this revised Uni is that it operates with minimal in-house involvement. Even compiling a list of the existing ones would take us a lot of time (which we currently don't have).

However, if someone would like to do this for us, we might be tempted to make it worth their while...