A Case Is Made For Institutional Support Of Science Blogging

A new article published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology calls attention to the substantial potential that science blogs have in engaging parties in scientific discussions, enhancing academic collaborations, and informing and involving the general public. Neuroscientist Shelley Batts (Neuroscience Program and Kresge Hearing Research Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan) and colleagues detail a plan that would make blogs more trustworthy educational tools.

"Science doesn't stop at the publication of a paper," notes co-author Tara Smith (Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa). "Finding new and inventive ways to discuss science among people of different backgrounds and in far-flung geographic areas should be a priority in the Internet era."

Academic institutions, however, have several reasons for not readily accepting blogs as legitimate research resources that could aid scholarly discussions.

"The academy has often treated blogging with suspicion due to the lack of vetting, or regarded it as a waste of time that draws a scientist away from bench work," informs Batts. "We want to illustrate that in addition to connecting researchers to laypeople interested in their work, blogging can be a serious academic pursuit by continuing and enlarging the scope of academic conversations between collaborators and peers."

Not surprisingly, the authors of this article are also active science bloggers. They suggest an active role for academic institutions and recommend a "bottom up" approach to blogging that would create a common web home or directory for blogs that are already being written by faculty, students or alumni. The advantages, according to the researchers, include that the institution "gets free publicity for its researchers' work" and academic bloggers "have built-in readership funneled straight from the institution's web page."

The authors also discuss a "top-down" approach that institutions might consider. This would work by recruiting academics to write blog content for web sites that are directly under the institution's purview. Rather than scholarly content that currently exists in journal articles and is technical and expensive to access, science blog content contains information that is "freely accessible, interactive, and are generally written for a lay audience," they write.

Quality control on science blogs can be driven by informal peer evaluations as well as occasional reviews by moderators or committees specifically appointed for the task. Trusted blogs can also, for example, receive an icon or some other "blog badge" from the institution as a mark of quality.

"While perhaps not all science blogs belong under the institutional umbrella, we certainly think that there is much to gain by integrating and supporting the blogging of academics," concludes Batts.

Advancing science through conversations: Bridging the gap between blogs and the academy
Batts SA, Anthis NJ, Smith TC
PLoS Biology (2008). 6(9): e240.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060240
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About PLoS Biology

PLoS Biology is an open-access, peer-reviewed general biology journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource. New articles are published online weekly; issues are published monthly. For more information, visit http://www.plosbiology.org

About the Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org

Written by: Peter M Crosta