The INFO Project Blog

For those who follow the HIFA2015 (Health Information for All by 2015) Listserv, there has been an interesting thread on the future of information dissemination to and from health workers in developing countries.

Much of the discourse has been about the cost and effectiveness of print materials on one hand, and the difficulties of accessing the Internet and other electronic resources such as CD-ROMs on the other. Some of the posts have been about the way health workers absorb and communicate information with proponents and opponents of print and electronic formats airing their views.

Of course, as with most of these types of debates, the future path lies somewhere in the middle–printed reference materials, the Internet, e-forums, blogs, e-learning, e-books, etc., all have their place. The challenge will be to teach future generations of information seekers and information communicators to use all these vehicles to achieve their goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Mundy and Evelyn Mathias have created an excellent resource on their website, Dev Comm, about collaborative workshops for developing communcation materials called writeshops. According to Mundy and Mathias, writeshops can can reduce the time needed to produce information and increase the value of the content at the same time. It’s a process for taking a draft and in an intensive editing and critique process - which can take from a few days up to a few weeks - come up with a final version. Sounds good to me!

To read more about how it works, visit the writeshop process page or read a short article about it. Mundy has also created a list of materials that have been produced as a result of writeshops, including some on family planning.

If you are interested in developing materials that document your work, you should also take a look at this excellent resource from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance - Documenting and communicating HIV/AIDS work (courtesy of One Source).

Open Notebook Science talk at 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference: An overview of the role of blogging in the dissemination of primary research data in the UsefulChem project, an open-source project in chemistry led by Drexel University’s Jean-Claude Bradley. Click to listen and scroll through slides, learn about Open Notebook Science, and find out why Bradley uses Second Life to teach chemistry. Hint: “You get to become a molecule and fly around.”

Science Blogging Session: Open Science Discussion leader is Dr.Hemai Parthasarathy (former editor at Nature and PLoS). Thanks to Wayne Sutton for capturing this–view his other footage here.

Back in Baltimore from North Carolina’s buzzing Research Triangle Park, I am inspired to rattle off a Top 10 List (totally copying Seth’s Best of INFO post). No, make that two lists.

The 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference, a free forum organized by BlogTogether, was a great way to share best practices for Web logs as we know them today—and emerging second generation tools embedding interactivity into formerly-dry science journals. While INFO focuses on more practice-oriented reporting than gene splicing, we are working, as many science communicators, to translate technical innovation from jargon-laden journals into actionable material for policymakers and practitioners, and to the public.

Without further ado, the lists: Read the rest of this entry »