PLOTS is an open community - we're open to building more formal collaborations, but you're welcome to simply sign up and start contributing in a variety of ways. 

##Giving back##

We're happy to help you get started using our tools and techniques. Consider giving back -- not in terms of money (although we'd love to accept donations) but by contributing documentation of your projects, collaborating on shared research and publications, and generally becoming part of the community.

###Some ways to be a part of the community:###

* add to existing pages (most are editable by any [registered user](/user/register), wiki-style)
* co-author [articles & papers](/media) (in research journals, newspaper op-eds, magazines, etc) with other community members
* co-author grants for research and for working with specific communities
* contribute to better [documentation](/wiki/guides) (tutorials, diagrams, even just offering critique) of the [tools](/tools) we all use
* organize a [local group](/places) to investigate environmental, social, and other issues in a participatory way
* adopt and contribute to units of our curriculum (mainly the [mapping curriculum](/wiki/mapping-curriculum) at this point) in universities, schools, and public workshops -- use some of our resources and add your own. Also see the [guides](/wiki/guides) we're starting to develop for our tools.

Feel free to just jump in and start adding content to our site (it's a wiki), but a great place to start is to [sign up for an account on this site](/user/register).

###Areas we need specific help in:###

* archiving and publishing consistent data sets (from spreadsheets and geotiffs to interviews with community members)
* outreach to research, policy, and legal institutions (Environmental Law Clinics, for example) to get our data adopted and used
* organizing meetups with residents in our [partner communities](/places) to test new tools and gather data with proven ones
* developing better and more comprehensive documentation & tutorials around our existing tools