FAQs For Visitors
Q What is Expert Guide?
Expert Guide is one of the world’s largest expertise resources – and the only place online where journalists, government, business and the community can connect free and fast with thousands of academic and professional specialists. We encourage you to use this resource to enhance your research, reporting, teaching and other activities by making contact with one of the many experts listed on this site. To do so, just type an expertise keyword (eg. “leadership”, “biotechnology”) in the search box above. Our search engine will try to find you the most relevant experts, and you can then make contact with them directly or by using our secure email form.
Q Who uses this site?
Expert Guide is accessible to all, but is particularly tailored for use by the media and other professionals seeking experts. Some of our key visitor groups include:
- Journalists
- Government representatives
- Speakers’ agencies
- Lawyers
- Academics and researchers
- Business and industry.
Q How many hits does this site receive?
In 2006, Expert Guide received 263,848 visits from Australia and overseas. These visitors resulted in our pages being “hit” 2,060,902 times.
Q How much does Expert Guide cost visitors to use?
It’s free! Expert Guide is paid for by the subscriptions and fees from participating organisations and institutions. This allows the public to have free and fast access to this valuable database.
Q If experts pay to list, how do I know they are really an expert?
Experts on the site who claim affiliation with an organisation (eg. a university, hospital, research centre) must be verified by a central contact person (usually a communications manager) at their organisation. In the case of sole operators or small businesses, we independently verify the organisation at the time of listing.
Q What are the best ways to search Expert Guide?
You can read a range of suggestions about search methods in our Search Tips.
Q How often are contact details on Expert Guide updated?
Expert Guide conducts quarterly updates. This involves us emailing experts on the guide and asking them to self-update their information. Most of our clients choose to re-verify their experts’ profiles after they are updated for added quality control.
Q I need to communicate with journalists and users of Expert Guide. Can I advertise on the site?
We are always interested in developing partnerships that will benefit our clients and visitors. If you belong to an organisation that wants to communicate with our visitors click here to contact us.
Q What are the most popular topics people search for?
In 2006, visitors searched for more than 10,000 different keywords and phrases on Expert Guide. At the top of the list were topics that mirrored some of the year’s most prominent news stories: water, nuclear energy, climate change, terrorism, and weather. However, among the 10,000 topics were also keywords spanning thousands of individual areas of expertise across education, health, the arts, science, technology, law, politics, media, popular culture, and history, to name a few.