Coming-out for science bloggers?
Martin Fenner
Tuesday, 27 May 2008 17:36 UTC
Science blogging can be many things to different people. It can be educational, entertaining, career-promoting or just fun. But what is the social standing of a science blogger? How are science bloggers perceived by fellow scientists, science journals or even bloggers from other parts of the blogosphere? The first reaction from fellow scientists is probably that they never heard of such a thing. The second reaction that it is a waste of time and that one should rather be doing experiments.
The result of this (perceived) image: many science bloggers don’t talk much about their blogging with their scientific colleagues and communicate mostly with other science bloggers. Do we have an image problem? And should we do anything about it?
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It looks as if most of us see blogging as an activity done during free time in the evening or on weekends. That is certainly also true for me. But does it have to me that way? One could argue that science blogging falls into a similar category as teaching. It’s (unfortunately) not critical to advance your career (where only the research output counts), but there are many reasons why it should be part of the business of doing and communicating science. And therefore be done during work hours.
Should we ask our universities and research organizations to set up blogging programs? Something like the resident blogger for the department of chemistry. Or the official blogger for a multi-institution research project. These bloggers would obviously try to communicate the research to other scientists and to the public. Most departments and organizations set up websites in the 1990s, now it’s time to make the next step. This wouldn’t cost much, but the recognition would not only promote science blogging but also just feel good.
Bora, your experience at the Chronobiology conference sounds very rewarding.
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Hi Martin-
So right. I don’t talk about my science blogging to my colleagues much, and when I do they don’t get that there is a whole community talking about science, teaching, mentoring, grantsmanship etc., online.
Yes, I think we have an image problem, I’m not sure what to do about it though- I suppose we could systematically begin inviting colleagues to join nature networks or periodically read other online resources…
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Should we ask our universities and research organizations to set up blogging programs? Something like the resident blogger for the department of chemistry
What a concept. What a cool concept. This is something we should talk about at the conference.
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Matt/Richard:
At my old university there is a “scientist blog” for scientist at the uni to write about subjets they feel are interesting (and related to their research). It is, however, in Swedish – but it makes it more available to the Swedish people I guess?! One of the things we as researchers have to do as scientist at a uni back home (“talk to and with the public since they have given tax money to the research”).It is one blog with several contributors and seem to generate quite an ok traffic.
If anyone is interested http://forskarbloggen.typepad.com/
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Asa, unfortunately I don’t understand Swedish. What is the blog about?
Thanks to the imminent addition of more Nature Network hubs, we will over time have Toronto, Helsinki, Sidney, New York, Berlin, etc. science blogs/news. At least some institutions could see this as something that should be acknowledged. Just as being a reviewer or editor for a journal.
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Qualify the following with the fact that I very much like the idea of legitimizing science-y blogging.
- How are we (read: an institutional science department) going to assess the quality of a resident blogger?
- What topics are on or off limits?
- Who will enforce those guidelines and what are the penalties for stepping over the boundaries?
- How do we ensure that any local human subjects in the blogs have the power of rebuttal?
And from a blogger’s point of view:
How do we maintain our individual voices and flavorful septic conditions (thinking cheese here) if we have to run through these gauntlets?
That is, if I want to write about my car troubles and how that means I get to lab late and have missed my reservation of one of the culture hoods, is that the way any given department wants to be portrayed?
One way around this is to encourage a diversity of local blogs, housed in one official site by the institution, but then we get back to the productivity issue. Does any given department need more than one blogger?
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This may be slightly off-topic, apologies if so, but another issue is “who comments?” (there are a lot of cranks and anti-science people out there) and, an important subsection, legality – concern about defamatory comments for which the institution hosting the site could be held legally responsible. It takes quite a resource to manage all that (many of the potential legal ramifications are untested in any court, but they make institutions nervous, rightfully so I think, as you can be sued from anywhere in the world for comments on the internet, irrespective of where the server is, as it is where the comments are “published” and read that is what counts in the courts).
Sites such as Nature Network or other specialist social site can perhaps help in a partnership sense, in that NN can host a group for an institution, and the scientist from that institution who hosts the group/forum would be “credentialized” by the institution for doing so. This might get around some of the problems Heather mentions, by formalizing the process sufficiently but not too much.
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Comments are easily dealt with.
Anything defamatory is summarily deleted. shrug
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@Richard – at least this rule would not suffice to reassure institutions:
The decision to block a commenter is at the discretion of the blog owner — i.e., me
First, you wouldn’t really own the blog from a legal stance. You write it and you have copyright I suppose to your own writing – but you would not own the support system and the server, the institution would. And therefore it’s the institution in danger of getting sued.Why is it better if institutions give a rubber stamp to bloggers who then work from NN? That is, are all activities moderated by a human on here? (I suppose it’s better for the institution, but for Nature?) What happens if Henry wants to sue Richard for certain inflammatory propos? Does he attack Richard directly, or isn’t Nature, as the owner of the site, somehow responsible for the comments remaining online?
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What I forgot to add is: what if the blogger’s interest in moderating comments does not dovetail with the institution’s? (A comment I might find funny, and leave, might be construed as libel from a legal perspective.) Does it mean that a sponsoring institution has to assign a watchdog to all of its rubber-stamped blogs? And who would want to blog under those conditions?
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