Unconference sessions
Matt Brown
Tuesday, 01 July 2008 09:41 UTC
In the afternoon, we’ve set aside three parallel ‘unconference’ sessions. They work like this.
At breakfast coffee, we’ll have a big whiteboard or flip chart upon which you can volunteer yourself to give a talk or lead a discussion on a topic of your choice (i.e. one not covered in the main programme).
At morning break and lunch, delegates will then vote for their preferred talks.
The three with the most votes will be slotted in to the unconference sessions.
Ahead of the big day, we can use this thread to bounce a few ideas around.
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I would suggest a session on Funding Open Science – both on the current state of opportunities (government, companies, foundations, individuals) and on brainstorming some action items for the future.
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Good science and science-related blogs (in the speaker’s opinion), and what in a nutshell makes each one good.
If people like this idea, we could have a few speakers each giving a “my top five” talk. -
Blog as opportunity for science education. Should the next holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford be a blogger?
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We get accused of preaching to the choir a lot. I’d love to see (and happy to facilitate) a discussion on how what we can do to improve our skills at reaching out to the broader public.
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I like the idea of what makes a good science blog. I’d like to see some discussion of what makes a good science blog reader, and how bloggers can reach out to different audiences (including those put off by the tag ‘blog’).
Brian – yes, I think blogging would be a great attribute in a public understanding of science chair at Oxford.
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Anonymous
Since this is an European event, I would suggest a session on blogging science in languages other than English. We could describe the situation in each other’s culture, discuss specific obstacles and… cheer us up!
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Sorry, I did not intend to post the above message anonymously…
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Good call, Enro. The language issue is an interesting one. Should a scientist blog in German, Spanish, Italian, etc. to get a better connection with local scientists, or do you go for English, which a wider audience might understand?
I’d be interested in seeing an unconference session on these issues.
On Nature Network, we usually insist on English, mostly because we can’t easily check for spam or libelous content if multiple languages are used.
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I am reposting a comment from Martin Fenner at his blog, as I think these are questions we could try to answer at the conference:
“William, what steps would you suggest to convince department heads and other university administrators that science blogging will be actually be beneficial for them (increasing the repuation, attracting students, etc.)? Do they need positive examples that we should collect? A scientific study that examines the value of science blogs? A survey of students, faculty or the public? An evening in the pub?” -
I’m planning a talk to my department sometime in the next year about science blogging and how it benefits science. Hopefully the conference will give me some suggestions for topics to cover. It will be a short seminar (30 minutes) but a start.
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