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• Date of publication Mar 22, 2010 Category: Editorial

  Users and peers. From citizen science to P2P science

  by Alessandro Delfanti

  This introduction presents the essays belonging to the JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science. It also draws a first map of the main problems we need to investigate when we face this new and emerging phenomenon. Web tools are enacting and facilitating new ways for lay people to interact with scientists or to cooperate with each other, but cultural and political changes are also at play. What happens to expertise, knowledge production and relations between scientific institutions and society when lay people or non-scientists go online and engage in scientific activities? From science blogging and social networks to garage biology and open tools for user-led research, P2P science challenges many assumptions about public participation in scientific knowledge production. And it calls for a radical and perhaps new kind of openness of scientific practices towards society.

  Volume 9 • Issue 01 • 2010 • Special Issue

• Date of publication Mar 22, 2010 Category: Article

  Open science: policy implications for the evolving phenomenon of user-led scientific innovation

  by Victoria Stodden

  From contributions of astronomy data and DNA sequences to disease treatment research, scientific activity by non-scientists is a real and emergent phenomenon, and raising policy questions. This involvement in science can be understood as an issue of access to publications, code, and data that facilitates public engagement in the research process, thus appropriate policy to support the associated welfare enhancing benefits is essential. Current legal barriers to citizen participation can be alleviated by scientists’ use of the “Reproducible Research Standard,” thus making the literature, data, and code associated with scientific results accessible. The enterprise of science is undergoing deep and fundamental changes, particularly in how scientists obtain results and share their work: the promise of open research dissemination held by the Internet is gradually being fulfilled by scientists. Contributions to science from beyond the ivory tower are forcing a rethinking of traditional models of knowledge generation, evaluation, and communication. The notion of a scientific “peer” is blurred with the advent of lay contributions to science raising questions regarding the concepts of peer-review and recognition. New collaborative models are emerging around both open scientific software and the generation of scientific discoveries that bear a similarity to open innovation models in other settings. Public engagement in science can be understood as an issue of access to knowledge for public involvement in the research process, facilitated by appropriate policy to support the welfare enhancing benefits deriving from citizen-science.

  Volume 9 • Issue 01 • 2010 • Special Issue

• Date of publication Dec 11, 2009 Category: Article

  Science on television: how? Like that!

  by Pieter A. Maeseele , L. Desmet

  This study explores the presence of science programs on the Flemish public broadcaster between 1997 and 2002 in terms of length, science domains, target groups, production mode, and type of broadcast. Our data show that for nearly all variables 2000 can be marked as a year in which the downward spiral for science on television was reversed. These results serve as a case study to discuss the influence of public policy and other possible motives for changes in science programming, as to gain a clearer insight into the factors that influence whether and how science programs are broadcast on television. Three factors were found to be crucial in this respect: 1) public service philosophy, 2) a strong governmental science policy providing structural government support, and 3) the reflection of a social discourse that articulates a need for more hard sciences.

  Volume 8 • Issue 04 • 2009

• Date of publication Dec 19, 2008 Category: Article

  Popularization of Science in Brazil: getting onto the public agenda, but how?

  by Márcia Tait Lima , Ednalva Felix das Neves , Renato Dagnino

  The importance the Brazilian government has given in the last few years to the dissemination of science points out the necessity of a more discerning analysis about the establishment of this subject on the public agenda and the related public policies undertaken. This work tries to contribute to the debate as an inquiry about the policies to popularize and disseminate Science and Technology (S&T) established by the Science and Technology Popularization and Dissemination Department, which was created in 2004. In order to do so, theoretical references from Public Policy Analysis, the Studies of Science, Technology and Society (SSTS), and Public Communication of Science are used. Furthermore, we analyze some of the results from research on Science and Technology Understanding carried out in Brazil in 2006. As a final point, this associated approach aims at identifying some of the limiting factors related to science dissemination actions in Brazil.

  Volume 7 • Issue 04 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Editorial

  A total society of knowledge

  by Pietro Greco

  The major Lisbon goal is to give Europe back the primacy as a society of knowledge. `Giving back' is a more appropriate term than `giving', as Europe long held that primacy in the past, and virtually as a monopoliser from the 17th century throughout the 19th. Then, Europe shared it with North America for a long portion of the 20th century.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Article

  CNRS researchers' popularization activities: a progress report

  by Pablo Jensen , Yves Croissant

  We have analyzed the popularization activities undertaken by ten thousand CNRS researchers by means of their annual reports for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. This is the first time that such an extensive statistical study on science popularization practices is carried out. Our main findings are : - the majority of researchers is not involved in popularization (51% has not done any popularization over the three-year period, two thirds have been involved in no more than one popularization action). - popularization practices are extremely diverse, both at the individual level (we have identified three subpopulations that feature distinctive attitudes towards popularization), and at the level of scientific disciplines (researchers in Humanities are twice as active as the average), as well as in laboratories or geographical regions. - the number of actions reported in 2005 greatly increased compared to 2004 (+ 26%), while they slightly diminished in 2006.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Scientific education and European citizenship. Suggestions and results from the European project SEDEC

  by Roberto Ceriani

  Two concepts seemingly distant from each other, scientific education and European citizenship, have been the basis for "SEDEC - Science Education for the Development of European Citizenship", a European project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Socrates/Comenius programme, aiming at producing training material addressed to European teachers. Started in autumn 2005, the project will end in 2008 with an in-service training course for European teachers and educators.

  European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

  by Lauretta D'Angelo

  Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

  by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

  Science and scientists in the drawings of European children

  by Paola Rodari

  What is a scientist’s job? From the drawings to the citizenship

  by Etienne Bolmont

  Teachers' perception of the European scientists

  by Daniele Gouthier

  From the perception of science to the design of teaching materials

  by Laura Dumbrăveanu

  Debating as an educational method to science and citizenship

  by Sara Calcagnini

  School staff training: the opportunities offered by National Agencies in European countries

  by Chris Souvlis

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  European citizenship and active citizenship: an ever open debate

  by Lauretta D'Angelo

  In the course of the last decade the European debate on the concept of citizenship has shown that a definition of this concept in strictly legal and jurisprudence terms is reductive. Indeed a behavioral element is present, which goes beyond the defence and request for defence of rights and duties, but actually stresses the importance of acting within a community (or within several communities). A citizenship belonging to a given space/time context which, to be authentic, requires know-how and know-how-to-be that can be gained in different training opportunities (formal, informal etc.) with various active learning methodologies and through experience. The SEDEC project aims to investigate which teaching methodologies and activities specifically developed for the teaching of sciences can be applied in other learning contexts, in order to sustain actions for developing an active citizenship.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Science popularization and European citizenship in Poland

  by Jacek Piotr Szubiakowski

  The idea to link European citizenship and science education is surely new and uncommon in Poland, but we think, as SEDEC project, that can enrich both the panorama of science popularization outside and inside school system. I checked carefully curricula for every stage of school education looking for the topics concerning the developing of the European citizenship. I found that they are usually connected to the history, geography and some activities developing of the knowledge about generally defined citizenship. The spare topics connected directly to the science are present especially in grammar school curriculum. They may be divided into three groups: exploiting the common heritage, common object of interest and scientific community respectively. In that paper I would like to show how the activities in each of the group may influence the EU citizenship developing process. I am going to emphasize the good choice of science as a context or a medium for EU citizenship education. It may be an important point especially in Central Europe. Additionally I would like to present some auxiliary events that are enable through the external educational resources such as museum and planetarium.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Science and scientists in the drawings of European children

  by Paola Rodari

  The first step of the SEDEC project has been a survey on teachers and pupils perception of science, scientists, and the European dimension of science. Different research actions have been organized for the different targets, and have been held in the six countries involved in the project: Czech Republic, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Romania. This article will present the analysis of more then 1000 drawings realized by 9 and 14 years old pupils and representing "a scientist". Form the drawings emerge stereotypes, fears, desires, expectations and more, a whole imaginery that has to be taken in account for an effective educative adn communicative action.

  Volume 6 • Issue 03 • 2007