I am lucky enough to work with some amazing people in an enrichment program for teens who love science. The leaders create activities to help students explore science in different ways. These exercises are usually more than the usual outreach or classroom activity – but they could be adapted to work within classrooms or for other settings.
So how do we share this great work? We are talking about sharing resources, not education research results.
Most of the leaders are graduate students or newer PostDocs and we are trying to publish these new resources. Right now, we are looking at submitting to teacher journals like The Physics Teacher and Mathematics Teacher. But some of these articles will end up beyond a paywall so are we sequestering these resources?
Budget is a concern so some of the OA journals are also out of reach because we can’t afford the fees within our budget-strapped outreach program.
I asked the following on twitter:
Is there an sci outreach resource journal? Collection of activities beyond lecture? Would you want one?
— genegeek (@genegeek) April 6, 2014
I got some great responses:
@genegeek like a list of demos?
— Dr Sheila Kanani (@SaturnSheila) April 6, 2014
@SaturnSheila not sure. Probably combo of demos, short activities and bigger projects?
— genegeek (@genegeek) April 6, 2014
@genegeek @SaturnSheila @SoniaHall There are several sci teaching journals like that, but I don’t know of an outreach focused one.
— marieclaire shanahan (@mcshanahan) April 6, 2014
Some interesting suggestions:
@genegeek do you mean something like http://t.co/ZFy8ZQ9cte ? Or http://t.co/4yCux37WL5 ?
— Tracy Ross (@TracyLRoss) April 6, 2014
I liked the idea of these last two resources.
- Howtosmile.org is a searchable collection of resources. This could be a good starting point. Many of the activities are done by organizations and are for younger children but I think we could add things there.
- Informalscience.org is a database to ‘collect and share informal science education projects, evaluation, and research resources.’ This seems to be more formal research and evaluation programs.
I’m looking for something that blends these two things – but is that too difficult?
Should outreach/science communication/engagement have its own journal? Maybe something similar to the new Science Museum Group journal? They will present ‘the global research community with peer-reviewed papers relevant to the wide-ranging work of the Science Museum Group. The journal freely shares the research of four national UK museums and warmly invites contributions that resonate with their collections and practice.’
What I’d love:
- Authors can get publication (DOI credit) for their resources
- Would using something like figshare work? Cite your resource in this database and put into more general bank of resources?
- A journal (database?) where you could also publish tips and tricks for science communication but at the review or opinion level. There is often a disconnect between people who want to communicate science and those who study the field. I have to admit that I have trouble reading education research papers so I’d love to have reviews that bridge the gap between my science expertise and the important social science research.
- Place where people can share their experience with the resources
Does this exist? What is close?
If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments or contact me!
susanmvickers says
This is so important, science outreach has become much more popular among academics in recent years, yet there is little guidance on how to go about it. I have seen so many programs trying very hard to get off the ground and making the same mistakes other programs have made already. There is nowhere to collate these experiences and discuss, scientifically, the best approach to outreach.
Having publications is also important, it legitimizes the field and turns “volunteer work” into “science” in the minds of some (not right but it happens). A journal would be fantastic, but I agree funds is the problem, few outreachers have the money available to go down the “pay to publish” OA route. I’ll have a think! Great idea though Catherine!
Shane McCracken says
The Collective Memory (http://collectivememory.britishscienceassociation.org/) is intended to do part of what you’re asking for. It aims to collect some evaluation of outreach projects. Some reports are very brief, others are very long. I’m guessing some will be just right.
But it isn’t a reviewed journal and I suspect much of the evaluation lacks some robustness. But that is understandable. It takes a lot of time to evaluate robustly enough to prove your point. A lot of time to get an evaluation into a state where you’d be confident enough to have it peer reviewed.
In the end though I believe practitioners who are funded through public money and, I guess through the likes of the Wellcome Trust, should be sharing their learning more. I wrote up our thoughts for the Wellcome Trust here: http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2013/11/13/learning-from-our-peers-how-can-we-better-share-evaluation-of-public-engagement/
I must look again at http://about.imascientist.org.uk/category/evaluation/ and see if I’m keeping to my word.
genegeek says
Thanks! The collective memory is part of what I’m hoping to see = place to see what is being done (hopefully well). I’d also like publication credit for these PhD candidates and recent graduates to give some academic credit for their work.
I’ll keep collecting all the information and hopefully will get a clear path for sharing our activities, optimizing the sharing and the credit.
Terrific T says
For science communication, there is the Public Understanding of Science by Sage (http://pus.sagepub.com/). Unfortunately I don’t think it is open access, which I think doesn’t quite fit with its subject of “public understanding.” Nevertheless a good resource. A lot of different groups/associations have their publications on science outreach. For example, the American Association of Physics Teachers have a publication called “the Physics Teacher” (http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt). Not open access, but from experience I believe they are okay with putting the publication on personal websites (need to double check, but the last time we published with them it was the case).
So perhaps there needs to be some sort of database to aggregate these publications/resources from different places?
genegeek says
Thanks. We are planning to publish in the Physics Teacher and most of the articles seem to be available. That isn’t true for other disciplines though. Maybe an outreach version of arxiv? Or something like the collective memory in the above comment?
Terrific T says
Ohhhh something like an arxiv for outreach would be really nice. Or, like you said, using Figshare and then collect all the links at one place.
Something to think about. Possible project?
genegeek says
I’d love to do it – but would need funding. There are some places (e.g. Science World) where they have resource websites so maybe tweaking something like that…
Terrific T says
Yeah, totally agree, and perhaps utilizing existing platform (like Figshare) would be a good idea? Or perhaps collaborate with existing organizations mentioned in other comments…
Frank Norman says
How about EMBL’s Science in School journal?
http://www.embl.de/training/scienceforschools/scienceinschool/
“a European journal to promote inspiring science teaching. It covers not only biology, physics and chemistry, but also earth sciences, engineering and medicine, highlighting the best in teaching and cutting-edge research, and focusing on interdisciplinary work. The contents include teaching materials, recent discoveries in science, education projects, interviews with young scientists and inspiring teachers, book reviews, and European events for teachers and schools.”