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• Date of publication Apr 17, 2018 Category: Commentary

  Open infrastructure and community: the case of astronomy

  by Niels Taubert

  This comment focuses on an early case of an open infrastructure that emerged in the 1990s in international astronomy. It targets the reasons for this infrastructure's tremendous success and starts with a few comments on the term ‘digital infrastructure’. Subsequently, it provides a brief description of the most important components of the infrastructure in astronomy. In a third step, the use of one component — the arXiv, an open access repository for manuscripts — is analyzed. It concludes with some considerations about the success and acceptance of this infrastructure in astronomy.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Apr 17, 2018 Category: Commentary

  A collaboration platform for sociology. How to increase accessibility, visibility and sustainability of scientific information in sociology

  by Johann Schaible , Sonja Strunk , David Brodesser

  Web-based information and communication systems extend access for scientific communities to information such as publications or research data and provide the opportunity to collaborate with other scientists. Our comment gives a short sketch of the Information Service Sociology (short: FID Sociology), in which we aim at designing and developing such an information and communication infrastructure within the field of Sociology. To this end, it comprises (i) an approach for simplified publishing of open access publications, (ii) an integrated search across multiple sociological databases, and (iii) a collaboration platform to facilitate interaction and collaborations between members of the sociological community. Here, we mainly focus on the individual steps of the development of the collaboration platform.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Apr 17, 2018 Category: Commentary

  Lots of data, lots of hurdles: aggregating usage information from distributed Open Access repositories

  by Ulrich Herb

  This article reflects the results of the project “Open Access Statistics”, which was designed to collect standardized usage figures for scientific documents. The data gathered were primarily intended to provide impact values based on document usage for Open Access documents as these were excluded from databases used to provide citation based impact scores. The project also planned the implementation of more sophisticated procedures such as network analyses, but was confronted with complex legal requirements.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Introduction to Commentary on Universities and Science Communication

  by Brian Trench

  The four essays in this Commentary examine contributions of universities to science communication's development but also challenges in consolidating those efforts.

  Universities, science communication and professionalism

  by Brian Trench

  Universities as living labs for science communication

  by Caroline Wehrmann and Maarten van der Sanden

  Supporting excellence in engaged research

  by Richard Holliman

  Science communication practices at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

  by Ana Claudia Nepote and Elaine Reynoso Haynes

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Supporting excellence in engaged research

  by Richard Holliman

  This paper reviews the purposes, definitions and criteria designed to embed ‘engaged research’ as a strategic priority with universities, and explores some of the challenges of implementation. Surveys of academics have shown various understandings of, and attitudes to, the practices of engaged research, but also impediments to realising the aspirations it expresses. Drawing on the experience as the academic lead for engaged research at the Open University, the author explores questions of professionalisation, for example, through training, support mechanisms and measures of recognition for engaged research. He concludes by arguing that, if done well, engaged research can promote epistemic justice.

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Science communication practices at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

  by Ana Claudia Nepote , Elaine Reynoso Haynes

  The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is one of the world's single largest employers of science communicators, with over 350,000 students and 40,000 staff. Its science communication activities include five museums (Universum, Museo de la Luz, the Geology Museum, Museo de la Medicina Mexicana and Musem of Geophysics), botanical gardens, as well as a wide range of cultural and outreach activities. It has several programmes for training professional science communicators. The science communication staff are spread across the campuses in Mexico City and four other cities, including writers, explainers, researchers, evaluators, who produce exhibitions, magazines, books, theatre, screenings and science cafés. This activity is diverse and sometimes operates to different agendas.

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Universities as living labs for science communication

  by Caroline Wehrmann , Maarten van der Sanden

  Science communication research and education programmes worldwide exhibit notable differences as well as similarities. In this essay the authors claim that this diversity is not a problem. They argue that universities can contribute well to the science communication field, theoretically and in practice, if they invest in building collaborations and make use of the ‘networked pattern’ connecting various actors, contexts and contents. As critical nodes in the networks, universities can enable practitioners to deliver real-life cases, students to participate to find solutions and researchers to investigate and explain. Universities can also prepare their students and (future) practitioners for lifelong learning in the dynamic context of science communication, helping them to become adaptive experts. These two aspects will be illustrated in the case study of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Universities, science communication and professionalism

  by Brian Trench

  This essay examines several distinct roles universities play in science communication, with particular reference to professionalisation in the field. It identifies the ways in which universities have facilitated, even driven, that continuing process. But it also notes the potential and actual contradictions between some of the roles of universities, reflecting current developments in higher education across many different contexts.

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Science fiction and science futures: considering the role of fictions in public engagement and science communication work

  by Michael Reinsborough

  The imagination of possible scientific futures has a colourful history of interaction with scientific research agendas and public expectations. The 2017 annual UK Science in Public conference included a panel discussing this. Emphasizing fiction as a method for engaging with and mapping the influence of possible futures, this panel discussed the role of science fiction historically, the role of science fiction in public attitudes to artificial intelligence, and its potential as a method for engagement between scientific researchers and publics. Science communication for creating mutually responsive dialogue between research communities and publics about setting scientific research agendas should consider the role of fictions in understanding how futures are imagined by all parties.

  Volume 16 • Issue 04 • 2017

• Date of publication Sep 20, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Does being human influence science and technology?

  by Laura Fogg-Rogers

  This article addresses two major questions about women and science. Firstly, the commentary looks at the ways science and technology are discussed and represented all around us in society. Secondly, I ask whether this matters. The defining issue is therefore whether or not being human affects the type of science and technology that is conducted and valued within our society. By addressing these questions in science communication, we can add much to the debate about gender diversity and affirmative action being portrayed in our media and culture.

  Volume 16 • Issue 04 • 2017