This commentary introduces a preliminary conceptual framework for approaching putative effects of scholarly online systems on collaboration inside and outside of academia. The first part outlines a typology of scholarly online systems (SOS), i.e., the triad of specialised portals, specialised information services and scholarly online networks which is developed on the basis of nine German examples. In its second part, the commentary argues that we know little about collaborative scholarly community building by means of SOS. The commentary closes with some remarks on further research questions regarding the putative impact of such systems on science communication and scholarly community building.

While most researchers still primarily use emails and simple websites for professional communication, the number of specialised online portals, information services and scholarly social online networks is constantly growing. This development led to the 6th workshop organized by the team of openTA, an online portal for technology assessment. This issue of JCOM pools commentaries on the workshop which deal with questions such as: what are the criteria of successful digital infrastructures? Which potential for changing workflows or scholarly interaction and collaboration patterns do we ascribe to digital infrastructures?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

New public participatory modes of practice are emerging in fields as diverse as politics, healthcare and research. In part, these DIY and citizen-led initiatives have gained momentum from the optimism of new technologies, which allow unprecedented access to previously inaccessible knowledge and tools. Equally, they are the result of a growing frustration with power hierarchies and systems that reinforce elites. Experts are increasingly regarded with suspicion as trust in public institutions is eroded and individuals begin to give more weight to personal accounts, and information shared within networks of peers. In this climate there is a critical need for improved knowledge transfer practices based on improved empathy, understanding and communication of shared values and motivations. In this session we questioned the role of expertise in a changing landscape of knowledge production and practice. Using the lens of science & technology communication and hands-on DIY practices, we explored how to move towards a more inclusive model of knowledge transfer, where different types of expertise are acknowledged and valued.

In response to EU draft legislation on robots and artificial intelligence ― which included the headline-grabbing proposals to introduce rights for ‘e-persons’ and necessitating that robots come equipped with a ‘kill switch’ ― a diverse group of experts and academics gathered in Sheffield as part of the Science in Public 2017 conference. Panellists and the audience discussed the origins and implications of the ideas behind the EU initiative, and more specifically, whether robots or artificial intelligence qualifies for right as ‘persons’, and how the EU proposal imagines robots and artificial intelligence in particular, historically-contingent ways that influence or distort our present discussions and attempts to legislate on the future use and development of technology.