What would happen if a handful of bloggers started asking questions about the impact of blogging on the "Real World"? What would change if the Academy was made more aware of science blogs, and that they may have an impact of science (for better or worse)? What would happen if a lot of people were asked questions about their opinions of blogs, and the results were published?
Well, its happening right now. Me and a few other bloggers are currently involved in writing a manuscript discussing the impact of science blogging, on, well "real" science. Is there one?
Let us know by taking our short 10 minute survey, and contribute to our project. In addition to making me personally very happy, you will also be contributing to a project that may result in an increase of exposure to blogs and is the first data-collection on blogs for a scholarly manuscript (that I know of, at least).
Bloggers and blog-readers of the world, unite! Click here to continue to the survey.
UPDATE: The survey has already reached 1000 participants, and is now closed. Thank you so much for participating!
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Some things as feedback on the survey itself:
1) It's perhaps too obviously targeted at people in the sciences/academia. This is understandable, but I find something a tad odd about my job being "other". It can perhaps be off-putting to those of us who love science and keep that enthusiasm, even though we aren't IN science.
2) I think that perhaps the information about science in science blogs is possibly a close second in importance to the way the blogs allow their authors to become more than propellerheads in a lab. The personal adventures that you talk about here Shelley, and that other science bloggers talk about show that scientists are not all humorless drones, or pedantic jerks. Well, not exclusively. Reading about your trips to China, or the things that the other bloggers do helps show that, duh, scientists are people too. That's something that I think a lot of scientists forget about. They let their work speak about them perhaps too much. Which is a shame, because I've had the priviledge of working with a lot of scientists, and while y'all can be the most demanding pains in the ass at times, y'all are also some of the best people I've worked for.
Who knew math postgrads could be so deadly at pun contests? Or that someone who lived and breathed planetary atmospheres would also be able to give a detailed, and absolutely hilarious dissertations about the best crab and beer spots in Baltimore? I will also say that when i worked there, the scientists at AER were some of the most merrily murderous lunchtime basketball players I've ever met.
Those guys did more to keep my...love? fandom? of science alive than any ten years of papers and discoveries could. It's also kinda cool when I read some new tidbit about Jupiter, see the name and am able to say "Hey, I know him. I worked with her."
Don't be too narrowly - focused on the scientific information that science blogs can spread. Sometimes, ranting about music can do just as much.
I want to echo John Welch on his points 1 and 2. You also lack a category for former bloggers on survey question 30. (minor quibbles, all)
ScienceBlogs is interesting to me because it is more than just a summary of the science involved. The joys, the angst, the aggravations, the research, the insights, the frustrations with funding, fundamentalism, and politics along with the completely unrelated posts that reflect the interests and observations of the bloggers themselves all come together to make for an informative and entertaining view of the world.
"This survey is currently closed."