Blogs

2011 will be the UN International Year of Forests

Interesting article on InsideHigherEd on the development of bibliometrics to accommodate social media use in science.  One particularly interesting aspect is the commercial considerations and how these interact with the academic. /...

.../ Clearly publishers will be interested in how metrics affect their commercial interests, as will libraries and academic institutions. Bibliometrics are transparently about the behaviour of groups of academics with respect to particular publication media - but the non-academic parameters are less frequently appreciated.

The UK Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre, a BIS unit addressing public dialogue, has produced an international comparison of public-science dialogue programmes in policy, with recommendations for development in the UK.  The UK stands fourth out of eight countries, scored on a variety of metrics. /....

.../ The recommendations of the report are fairly detailed, but in summary:

• Building
  on and continuing the work of Sciencewise-ERC in creating institutional memory
  to capture experience and improve practice
• Developing
  resource-efficient solutions (what we call „third generation engagement‟)
• Creating
  and professionalising S&T engagement
• Providing
  a national focus for S&T engagement (somewhere for the media, politicians
  and the public to go)
• Creating
  a parliamentary link between elected representatives and the public on S&T matters
• Focusing
  on and developing opportunities for using social media to harness open government
  and transparency