These blog posts were written by researcher Andee Rubin in 2013 & 2014 as a way to provide technical assistance to investigators planning to carry out research in informal settings. The first post provides a history of human subjects protection as it emerged from medical research and thoughts about the application of these principles to informal settings. The second discusses the set of federally-mandated rules that Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) use to protect human subjects and describes how and when researchers need to seek IRB approval for their work. The third describes techniques for
Scientific literacy is an important educational and societal goal. Measuring scientific literacy, however, has been problematic because there is no consensus regarding the meaning of scientific literacy. Most definitions focus on the content and processes of major science disciplines, ignoring social factors and citizens’ needs. The authors developed a definition of scientific literacy for the California 4-H Program from the citizen’s perspective, concentrating on real-world science-related situations. The definition includes four anchor points: science content; scientific reasoning skills
This paper summarizes key findings from a web-based questionnaire survey among Danish scientists in the natural sciences and engineering science. In line with the Act on Universities of 2003 enforcing science communication as a university obligation next to research and teaching, the respondents take a keen interest in communicating science, especially through the news media. However, they also do have mixed feeling about the quality of science communication in the news. Moreover, a majority of the respondents would like to give higher priority to science communication. More than half reply
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristian Hvidtfelt NielsenCarsten KjaerJorgen Dahlgaard
When thinking about this contribution, an homage to John Ziman, one question occurred to me repeatedly: what would John have made of the European Research Council? Here is a newly established institution with the sole objective to fund ‘frontier research’ at EU level, based exclusively on scientific excellence and subject to pan-European competition of the best researchers. Would he have interpreted it as a vindication of academic science as a culture, a deliberate turning away from ‘post-academic science’ or even of overcoming it? Or, would he have seen it as the establishment of a small
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Helga Nowotny
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
John Ziman with his old-fashioned ways, was a real British gentleman of the colonies. Born and raised in New Zealand, Ziman belonged to that large group of men and women that went back to their fathers’ land in the last century from the Commonwealth countries. In many cases, they were individuals with an outstanding intellect and, therefore, a real tresure trove for Great Britain, which drew from those remote places not only gems, tea, perfumes and raw materials, but also enlightened minds and reliable personalities.
This paper will outline the very successful initiatives to define common communication strategies amongst the world’s high energy physics laboratories. These initiatives have been extremely successful in changing the communication practices of a worldwide community of high energy physics labs and these practices are now expanding to the community of synchrotron radiation laboratories. The payback has been extremely encouraging, with a much higher regard for the importance of communication in senior management and, perhaps coincidentally, major increases in funding of physical sciences in the
In last times scientific PR activities are increased by number and quality. Especially in United States and, more recently, in Europe all the most important research institutions and universities have been equipped with communication officers able to circulate their own information through mass media. This is undoubtedly a positive news for science. In spite of this, it’s necessary to think about which effects can be created by marketing activity on scientific communication. In this commentary we asked some scientific professionals to tackle these problems from different points of view.
The attacks of September 11 2001 and in particular, the sending of letters containing anthrax spores the following October had a profound effect on society, and at the same time on science and its communicative mechanisms. Through a quanto-qualitative analysis of articles taken from four publications: two daily newspapers, the Corriere della Sera from Italy and the New York Times from the United States and two science magazines, Science and Nature, we have shown how the aforementioned events provoked the emergence of media attention regarding bioterrorism. A closer reading of the articles
The Royal Society published in late June a report entitled «Science Communication. Survey of factors affecting science communication by scientists and engineers». It is an in-depth survey on the communication addressed to non-specialist audiences that was carried out interviewing a wide and representative sample of UK scientists and engineers.
Organized creationism is not widespread in Italy. It is a rather limited resource politicians and columnists draw upon when wishing to stir up a “debate”. Judging by its results, Italian creationism is old-fashioned, still comparing Darwin’s theories with the Bible, hoping to find the wreckage of Noah’s Ark, holding conferences on the origin of apes, questioning fossil dating and distorting science debates with out-of-context quotations from disparate sources. It is not a lobby that could obtain considerable electoral support, win favour or drag scientists to court.
In addition to their intrusive presence in American schools, creationists - or more modern epigones thereof, known as “intelligent designers” - are also and unexpectedly to be found in other countries. Take the United Kingdom as an example. Over the past few years, Darwin’s homeland has actually been witnessing attempts to introduce literal faith in the Bible into school programmes in a way which does not significantly differ from the one adopted in the United States. It is multi-billionaire Howard H. Ahmanson who generously finances the Discovery Institute across the Atlantic, one of the