Forum: Featured Discussions: Can Academic Blogging Advance Wisdom Research?

Blogs are slowly but surely changing the face of academia. In a world where universities are run like businesses (intellectual property and patents are now, given traditions of disinteredness in academia, still somewhat uncomfortably the norm (1)), and scholars, especially scientists, perennially run into the problem that negative results don’t get published, blogs may offer a way to retain the university’s ideals of vigorous and open pursuit of knowledge while simultaneously launching scholars into the Internet age (2).

Blogging allows for rapid discussion between scholars worldwide on topics ranging from concepts, current events, literature, to data analysis or the sharing of tools. Not only may scholars use blogs to receive feedback from colleagues, they can also use the medium to inform a larger public about their research. Some feel that blogging may be a right step towards reforming the academic publishing industry, by allowing partial credit to be given to those first to blog an idea. More importantly, some feel that blogging might expand the focus of academic work, which is often almost exclusively concerned with publishing in academic journals (3).

The move towards blogging is timely. Studies show that researchers, in an ever-increasing number, publish and patent in teams (4). This trend is not limited to sciences like biology, chemistry, or physics, where it has been suggested that team science merely grows with the cost and scale of ‘big science.’ For example, in 1955 17.5% of publications were authored in teams, whereas in 2000 this number had jumped to 51.5%. Publications in mathematics, wherein the ‘solo genius’ stereotype remains among the strongest, show a similar trend. Moreover, these studies tend to be higher impact, that is to say, field changing (5). Among the many causal factors for this trend is the necessity for teamwork in an environment of increasing specialization. Blogs may facilitate intra and interdisciplinary communications in a world where scholars have already acknowledged the advantages of collaboration (6).

Blogging and collaboration also have the potential to create a new field of wisdom research spanning multiple disciplines by creating a community of scholars. The Wisdom Research Network website was designed as an essentially collaborative tool, allowing scholars to share ideas, data, profiles and opinions. We will actively recruit both Wisdom Network members and others to contribute to this discussion forum. I also welcome and encourage you to post responses, even if they are merely brief thoughts or comments. If you would like to post a discussion question, please email admin@wisdomresearch.org.

Given recent trends in academic blogging and team science, as well as calls for professionals to engage with the public about their research, I suspect, from a mere lay understanding, that creating a blogging community about wisdom is indeed a wise decision. But maybe that’s just hubris. I’ll leave that for you to determine.

- Joy Wattawa, Assistant Director for Interdisciplinary Outreach and Communications, Arete Initiative

If you seek guidance regarding how to write a blog entry, please see our Academic Blogging Style Guidelines, linked as a pdf at the top of this page.

References

1)    For more about academy/ industry tensions see Merton’s famous theory on the “The Normative Structure of Science” in Merton, Robert King. The sociology of science: theoretical and empirical. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973.  Also, see Merton's "The Matthew Effect in Science: The Reward and Communication Systems of Science are Considered," Science, Vol. 159, No. 3810, pg. 56, 1968, which describes trends in academic publishing that tend to renforce the conclusions of those single authors already recognized. For a more modern view on these tensions and another view on how technology impacts how universities work and generate knowledge, see Kathryn Packer, Andrew Webster. “Patenting Culture in Science: Reinventing the Scientific Wheel of Credibility (1996).” Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 427-453.

2)    “So, might blogging be subversive precisely because it makes real the very vision of intellectual life that the university has never managed to achieve?” the author states in “Attack of the career-killing blogs: when academics post online, do they risk their jobs?,” by Robert S. Boynton (2005). Slate Magazine.  http://www.slate.com/id/2130466/ This gives an excellent summary of the controversy surrounding blogging in academia just as the trend was taking off.

3)    “By the Blog: academics tread carefully” by Zoe Corbyn (2008), Times Higher Education. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403827&c=1

4)    Stefan Wuchty, Benjamin F. Jones, Brian Uzzi (2007). “The Increasing Dominance of Teams in the Production of Knowledge.” Science; Vol. 316. no. 5827, pp. 1036 – 1039. Here, team is defined as two or more authors. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5827/1036

5)    Ibid., Higher impact is defined here as an increased number of citations. This has been shown to correlate with research quality. For further details, see paper.

6)    Many academic blogs already exist. Please follow this link to an “Academic blog portal” which allows you to search many of them by subject: http://wiki.henryfarrell.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

7)    Julia Davies and Guy Merchant. “Looking from the Inside Out: Academic Blogging as New Literacy,” A New Literacies Sampler. Peter Lang, 2006.

Here is a recently published article from Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics by Maxine Clarke entitled "Ethics of Science Communication on the Web." In it, the author argues that peer-reviewed journals remain the best means for scientists to communicate their results to one another as well as to the public. This is so because peer-reviewing ensures that researchers use proper methodology and make reasonable interpretations of their results, and it also allows the media equal access to findings. Clarke does point out that there is no peer review process for the interpreters of science, but insists that peer review helps control the political interests and biases of scientists themselves. The article focuses on use of the internet for communicating science to the public, as opposed to the use of the internet as a collaborative tool between scientists. It ends by suggesting that allowing the public to have a clear view of scientific "in-fighting" would be damaging to the image of science and undermine confidence in its integrity.

Clarke also notes in the article that for the public "It is this combination of a lack of technical understanding and an unrealistic expectation that science is absolute, rather than about uncertainty or prediction, that causes very basic confusions (2)." While Clarke recognizes that scientists have interests of their own, she maintains that we can and must extricate science from such a mess. It seems to me that arguing for instilling critical attitudes in consumers of science media, and encouraging them to understand "science like it is (3)" is inconsistent with making the argument that it is necessary for science to maintain a mythically unified face. 

Also see the article from the same journal on the theme "Ethics of Science Journalism" entitled "Is science reporting turning into fast food?" This article also discusses changes in the way science reporting is done in different media, including blogs.