International Union of Crystallography

Expanding the Online Dictionary

[Gervais Chapuis]The IUCr Online Dictionary of Crystallography (ODC) is a very popular resource with currently over 250 definitions of key concepts and terms in crystallography. The system is based on the Wiki principle, allowing community authoring and editing of the content, but with some restraints on the selection of authors. Currently there are close to 50 registered authors, who have been selected or accepted by the administrators of the ODC. In order to increase the attractiveness of the ODC, and to improve the quality of the definitions and the number of entries, the board of editors have studied various proposals.

[Online Dictionary home page]In agreement with the IUCr Executive Committee and Commission on Crystallographic Nomenclature, the board of editors has decided to open the authoring and editing procedures of the ODC to a larger community. For this purpose, they have set up a screening system to minimise unauthorised modifications and spamming. After a period of tests, we are happy to announce the widening of access to edit the ODC to the full community of crystallographers, provided each author is a bona fide crystallographer listed in the World Directory of Crystallographers. The editors have also set up a system to protect some definitions, which should not be modified according to the wishes of IUCr commissions or other groups of interests.

We hope that this initiative will contribute to the improvement of the dictionary and encourage new and previous authors to participate actively in the creation of new entries.

For the Editorial Board
Gervais Chapuis