Blogs firmly established as means of scientific communication
Web logs or blogs are the most recent tools scientists are using to communicate their ideas with other scientists and the general public. The number of blogs on sciences has progressively increased in the past years.
(***)As a scientific record, a study published in the Journal Cell by Laura Bonetta, doctor on Sciences, writer and scientific consultant, brings an idea of the size of this new universe of publications. The author cites the gathering of information made by Bora Zivkovik, zoologist, specialist on Online Discussion at the PLoS Journal and author of A Blog Around the Clock, a popular scientific blog: "according to Technorati, a site that indexes blogs, there are around 2,5 thousand blogs on health sciences among millions existing ones, approximately 20 thousand blogs have a pseudoscientific profile, since they are not necessarily maintained by academic institutions. Out of these, roughly one thousand to 1.2 thousand are written by graduate course students, post-doctorate professionals, university lecturers, science teachers and some professional journalists", estimated Zivkovik.
"These thousands of blogs on science provide opinions on current issues, such as evolution and climate changes, or are designed to attract the opinion of scientists about scientific politics or literature topics. According to Technorati, the most visited scientific blog is currently Pharyngula, with approximately 20 thousand visits per day", adds Bonetta. The informal language and the short and informative format of the posts found in the blogs draw attention of the public, making this mean a huge success, as stated by bloggers (those responsible for the blog). Moreover, it is possible to establish online communities through comments made on the posts.
Many scientists use science blogs to post information on their work and receive comments from other scientists and from people outside the usual circle of readers. Some authors even suggest posting in blogs part of their works before publishing them, in order to exchange ideas and bring new perspectives. Scientists who use blogs consider them a complement to – not a replacement of - scientific journals, since they represent documents that do not substitute articles, but that establish a maturing stage of scientific work preparation, which is static and limited in terms of scope. However, many scientists still see blogs as a distraction from the real world and believe they do not gain much by commenting their work with lay people or specialists from other fields. Some consider attractive the possibility of communication through blogs, but do it anonymously, afraid of being deemed as not serious, or criticized for dedicating time to tasks that are not acknowledged as academic activities.
Blogs progressively establish as means of scientific communication as demonstrated by many well-known scientific journals, with high impact factor, that adopted blogs in their websites as a formal means to disseminate and promote discussions among the community of readers about works published.
Out of 50 journals indexed at the MEDLINE with higher impact factor, according to the Journal of Citation Report (Thomson Reuters), 14 have one or more blogs associated to the official site. These blogs related to traditional journals may help closing the gap between the classic scientific literature and the community. These debates contribute to enhance visibility of the works and encourage peers to share ideas.
The journal Nature has a wide collection of blogs to address all journals of its publishing group. In its website, there is a portal page dedicated to indicating and cataloguing good scientific blogs separated by subjects. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the BioMEd Central which publish journals in open access use blogs intensively.Continuation>>>
Publicado por: BIREME/OPS/OMS
26.02.2009
17:37:44 h
Actualizado por: BIREME/OPS/OMS
13.04.2009
19:20:35 h voltar
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