Sunday

People You cannot see the feedback that many participants at ScienceOnline2010 have already provided to Anton and me (keep them coming - we take the responses very seriously), but the recurring theme for the "highlight of the conference" question was "Meeting the People"; and the main request for the future is "provide more time for informal conversations". You will see even more of that kind of sentiment if you peruse the growing list of blog coverage. Or glean it from photographs posted on Flickr and Picasa here, here, here, here and here. Or on YouTube videos here and here.... While…

Of course, our conferences always attract a nice contingent of physicians, nurses, medical journalists, biomedical researchers and med-bloggers, so it is not surprising that ScienceOnline2010 will also have sessions devoted to the world of medicine. Check them out: Medicine 2.0 and Science 2.0--where do they intersect? - Walter Jessen Description: Medicine 2.0 applications, services and tools are defined as Web-based services for healthcare consumers/patients, health professionals and biomedical researchers that use Web 2.0 technologies and/or semantic web and virtual reality approaches to…

There will be, at ScienceOnline2010, at least two sessions dedicated to books and book publishing - From Blog to Book: Using Blogs and Social Networks to Develop Your Professional Writing and Writing for more than glory: Proposals and Pitches that Pay - as well as several others that will at least mention books as vehicles for distributing scientific information, popularization of science, or science education. This got me thinking....about ways that the Web is changing the world of the book. I can think of three aspects of this: 1) Changes in the process of writing a book It may not be a…

Every year, we pay special attention to sessions that explore the use of the Web in science education. This year is no different - there are several sessions to choose from: Citizen Science and Students - Sandra Porter, Tara Richerson (science_goddess), and Antony Williams Description: Students are a great resource for projects that require large numbers of volunteers. We will discuss examples of projects that combine student learning with authentic research and the power of blogs to connect students with projects. Discuss here. Science Education: Adults - Darlene Cavalier Description: "…

Of course, this conference would not be itself if it was not full of Open Access evangelists and a lot of sessions about the world of publishing, the data, repositories, building a semantic web, networking and other things that scientists can now do in the age of WWW. This year, apart from journalists/writers, the largest cohort appear to be librarians and information scientists. So it is not surprising to see a number of sessions (and several demos) on these topics, for example: Repositories for Fun and Profit - Dorothea Salo Description: Why are my librarians bothering me with all this…

The year that just ended, 2009, was a year that saw huge changes in the world of media and the world of journalism. Science journalism has also been greatly affected, with many media outlets firing their science journalists first, then firing all the others afterwards. Much virtual ink has been spilled on the topics of "death of newspapers" and "bloggers vs. journalists is over" and "future of journalism", etc. If you checked out everyone who's registered for the ScienceOnline2010 conference, or followed my posts introducing everyone, you have probably noticed that this, fourth meeting is…

A number of sessions at the Conference are looking at sociological aspects of the Web and science. I have already pointed, in quite a lot of detail, to the session on civility and politeness, as well as several other sessions that touch on the topics of language and trust. Let's look at several others that approach the social aspects of science online (and offline) from different angles: Casting a wider net: Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in STEM - D.N.Lee and Anne Jefferson Description: We will introduce programs that attract wider audiences to science, math, and engineering at…

Last year we had a session on Art And Science and a workshop How To Paint Your Own Blog Pictures. At this year's conference we have more sessions that explore the visual aspects of science. Click on links to see what discussions have already started on these pages and add your questions and thoughts: Paint your blog images using a digital tablet led by Glendon Mellow Description: Get a chance to test out a digital tablet, and see why it's like having an entire art supply store on your computer. Beginning with tutorials on Glendon's blog before the conference, we'll try using Gimp, ArtRage…

If you have been following sciency blogosphere, or my blog, or tweets about #scio10, or checked out the Program of the conference, you may have noticed that I have predicted that the "overarching theme" of the meeting will shift from last-year's focus on Power to this year's, hopefully, emphasis on Trust. Several sessions will, directly or indirectly, address the question of trust - who trusts whom, how and why: With no non-verbal clues available online (apart from an occasional smiley-face), one has to convey not just meaning, but also intent and mood, using only language. And intent and…