The nano.org project is currently in early beta testing. During this phase registration is disabled; users are invited directly by email from the Operators. The 'scholar' rank is automatically assigned to all participating users. Generally, users who participated in the beta will retain the Scholar rank as we transition to the full hierarchy. Read more about the beta test here.

Open access
The content of nano.org is fully accessible to everyone. It is part of our philosophy to offer all articles, threads, etc. as open content. However, in order to actually contribute to the site, registration is necessary. Upon full launch, a range of registered user types and 'jobs' will exist, as outlined below.

USER RANKS
Member: All users who register will begin with rank Member - any individual can register to attain this rank and start posting on the General Forums. Is this forum, it is people can participate in wide ranging discussions about all aspects of nanotechnology, including its impact on society and so forth. This is also the place for members of the public to ask for expert help in understanding a given nanoscience topic.

Scholar: Members who are verified as nanoscience researchers (graduates, or above) in a university or appropriate company are promoted to Scholar. They may of course continue to contribute to the General forum. However, they may now also contribute to the Articles section, including uploading their own work and participating in open peer review. The process of progressing from Member to Scholar is described here.

Operator: Above Scholar there is only one rank, namely site Operator. These are individuals with essentially unlimited access to the site. There are only ever a few Operators, their names are publicly available. It is the role of the Operators to maintain smooth running of the site.

SPECIAL ROLES
There are also secondary ranks called 'jobs' that operate on a contextual basis.

Author: As the name suggest, this job is assigned to the author of any uploaded preprint - an author is flagged as such in the discussion thread attached to that article.

Moderator: This job is given to a Member or Scholar who offers to help the nano.org project by looking after one or more threads. Moderators are given limited 'house keeping' powers in order to remove abusive posts for example, or more commonly to move a post to a more suitable location. Within the thread where they have this role, the Moderator is flagged as such. In threads where an Open Peer Review process is taking place, a qualified OPR Moderator will be assigned.

Reviewer: When the Author(s) of a manuscript request the Open Peer Review process, then two individuals will be invited to read the manuscript and post a review into the associated discussion thread. The purpose of this is to provide the Authors with objective feedback on their work, and to provide high quality input to the discussion thus stimulating further analysis by other scholars.