Curation process for resources to be included in the library
The library of the European Competence Centre for Science Communication aims to offer people working on or interested in communicating science with relevant resources to conduct or improve their activities, and the possibility for creators to find a larger audience. To support both creators and users, we have devised a curation process that helps to outline the strengths and use contexts of each resource.
The curation process of resources builds on the standards, principles and criteria for science communication resources. For the curation process, a curation board will be formed, consisting of science communication experts both from academic and practice communities. The board will have at least four members from the COALESCE project, affiliated organisations and beyond. For the evaluation of each submitted resource, at least two board members will be involved.
The curation process will consist of following steps:
Step 1: The creator of the resource uploads the resource to the Competence Centre library and fills an evaluation questionnaire, providing relevant information about the resource.
Step 2: The curation board checks the resource against “relevance criteria” to decide whether to include it in the library.
Step 3: If yes, the curation board uses the responses from the questionnaire on “general criteria” to prepare a public evaluation report. If the resource qualifies for a “special endorsement”, the board will award one or several endorsements.
Step 4: Before publishing, the evaluation report will be shared with the creator to promote a collaborative and iterative process to enhance the resource quality. If the creator wishes, they have a chance to improve it and upload the resource again.
Step 5: The resource is published in the library together with the final evaluation report, for full transparency.
Step 6: Users will be able to add testimonials about the experience with using the resource.
The full curation process, together with the library of resources, will be operative during 2025.