The INFO Project Blog

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:10 Second Generation Web Tools to Use Today

10. PostGenomic.org –Browse hundreds of posts from science blogs (public health next?)
9. Search.creativecommons.org–Find free use photos from Flickr
8. Flock—Download a free “social web brower” that enables blogging and feeds
7. Research Blogging –Tag posts when blogging on peer-reviewed research. Group your commentary with similar posts!
6. WebAIM –Check to make sure your site is accessible to persons with disabilities.
5. CSA Illustrata –Not especially social. But allows searching of charts.
4. Last 24 hours of scienceblogs.com
3. Bloglines Aggregator feeds easily.
2. PLoS Reader Responses
1. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments). Watch labwork: the cooking show model towards successfully replicated laboratory work. No translation necessary.

Top 10 Reasons to Blog (with input from presentations by Jennifer Jaquet, Dave Munger, and the weekend’s countless clamoring voices)

10. Brings southern innovation conducted on shoestring budgets to light on the blogosphere, and even to funding.
9. Collaboration speeds up research and innovation.
8. Makes health findings make sense by putting them in context and humanizing them. Builds a relationship with readers. (aka, The barbershop model).
7. Makes research engaging with spontaneity, freshness, and provides a personal voice that is subjective and sometimes opinionated.
6. Builds interactivity to engage and converse with readers in ways traditional media and research publications have not.
5. Naturally incorporates multimedia, improving communication of abstract or difficult concepts.
4. Voices varying perspectives on research, highlight potential flaws, and establish context for research, to inform public policy makers.
3. Allows publishers to meet readers, virtually at least, and ask them what they think about things in polls and surveys. Try SurveyMonkey, QuestionPro, and Survey Gizmo.
2. Creates transparency, minimizing waste in peer review system of publishing.
1. Reaches and pulls information from a critical mass of experts who’ve learned the lessons already.

Other important reasons to attend 2009 rendition of Science Blogging (if you’re a scientist, blogger, media member, wired citizen or otherwise inclined to the Web log):

Cheerful organizers
Varied participants
Strange beards (removable, thanks to SEED magazine’s Virginia Hughes)
LocoPops!

Science Blogging”