The Encyclopedia of Earth (abbreviated EoE) is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is described as a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and other approved experts, who collaborate and review each other's work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are intended to be useful to students, educators, scholars, and professionals, as well as to the general public. The authors, editors, and even copy editors are attributed on the articles with links to biographical pages on those individuals. The Encyclopedia of Earth is a component of the larger Earth Portal (part of the Digital Universe project), which is a constellation of subject-specific information portals that contain news services, structured metadata, a federated environmental search engine, and other information resources. The technology platform for the Encyclopedia of Earth is a modified version of MediaWiki, which is closed to all but approved users. Once an article is reviewed and approved it is published to a public site. The EoE was launched in September 2006 with about 360 articles, and as of November 30, 2010 had 7,678 articles. Authoring and publishing process Contributors to the Encyclopedia of Earth are made up of scientists, educators, and professionals within the environmental field. Contributors are vetted by the Environmental Information Coalition (EIC) Stewardship Committee, the governing body of the Encyclopedia of Earth, before they are given access to the author's wiki. Within the wiki, where they operate under their real names and are given attribution for the published articles. Articles are written, edited, and published in a two-step process: Content for the Encyclopedia is created, maintained, and governed by group of experts via a restricted-access wiki that uses a modified version of MediaWiki. Upon completion, content is reviewed and approved by Topic Editors, and then published to the free public site. Content may be continuously revised and updated on the authors' wiki, but revised articles require review and re-approval before revisions are displayed on the public site. Contributors are designated as "Authors" or "Topic Editors." Contributors can create, write and edit freely on all content within the Encyclopedia. Topic Editors act as reviewers of articles on topics upon which they are judged to have a high level of expertise. Articles, when written, are assigned by Encyclopedia staff to Topic Editors for review and, if appropriate, approval and automatic publication