on the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition

Lambert HellerTIB/UB Hannover

On the challenging gap between community feedback

and academic recognitionBerlin 6 Open Access ConferenceDüsseldorf, 11-13 November 2008

Lambert Heller, On the challenging gap between community feedback...Berlin 6 Open Access Conference, Düsseldorf, 11-13 November 2008

> It is a revealing new communication pattern to present regularly updated informations from personal weblogs using blog aggregators.

> Feed aggregators...

...are web applications to collect entries from blogs (or other feed sources) on a common topic.

...have a searchable archive and are public (unlike personal aggregators, e.g. Google Reader).

...are in general driven by a common interest on the conversations in and between the blogs of the members of some community of practice / of interest.

Blog aggregators as a communication pattern



> Aggregator „Planet Debian“> Started in 2004, pioneering the use of public

blog aggregators.> At that time, it collected the entries from the

personal blogs of 40 developers of the Debian Linux Distribution.

> Today more than 300 aggregated blogs, several spinoff planets etc …

> Function as a community „showcase“.> Not suprising: Some computer nerds as early

adopters of a new pattern.

Screenshot taken from planet.debian.net

A look at a software developer community

Spreading of the „blog aggregator“ pattern

> Well known examples of science blog aggregators

Screenshots taken from researchblogging.org and blogs.nature.com



> Perhaps even more important:

Small adoptions, like institutional „planets“…

Screenshot taken from planetyork.yorku.ca



> …communities of interest, often loosely coupled…

Screenshots taken from oerblogs.org and

en.planet.wikimedia.org



> …experiments with „social streaming“, and…

Screenshot taken from friendfeed.com, room „Science 2.0“



> … ad hoc feed collections with free commercial tools.

bloglines.com user account of Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Health Library


So what?

> What can we observe within these communities?

> In particular, what are the incentives to blog as a researcher/scientist?

> What are the new patterns emerging from that?


Ambient findability as an obvious basis

> A sense of „ambient findability“ of the information: When I‘m blogging out loud, every information will (immediately, and later on) find its reader.

> Mostly impact of powerful web search engines (cf. Peter Morville), but additional layers of community building (cf. blog aggregators) go beyond this.

> One interesting implication thereof (as this conference is all about Open Access): Importance of Open Access is obvious. Although most bloggers catch on „openess“ as a more technical term, explicit licensing of blog content under creative commons licenses is spreading.


Instant community feedback

> Not only does the blogged content „find its readers“: It also pulls its critics.

> By allowing your readers to comment on your blog, you expose yourself to peer review in public. And you simply can't defeat not being linked by others.

> Nothing gets sorted out before publishing, but everything is „included and postponed“ (David Weinberger, Everything is Miscalleneous, p 113) to be reviewed and to be corrected later.


Appeal of easiness

> Blogging has the appeal of definitive easiness, compared to any other way of publishing:

No need to „sort out unneeded information“ (cf. the Wikipedians‘ inclusionist/exclusionist debate), to negotiate with publishers, waiting to appear in print etc.

> Even original research data may someday be blogged (not only blogged about). The tools are already there.


Continuos development „in the open”

> Resulting from the beforementioned adherence to openess, instant community feedback and easiness: Incremental, continuos developing of thoughts „in the open“ as an individually chosen strategy.

> „Communities of blogging practices“ (Jan Schmidt) encourage a new communication behaviour on top of the new web infrastructure.

> Tensions and problems with this kind of revolution are inevitable.


Gap between practice and acknowledgement

> Blogging is an emerging pattern in science communication that won't replace traditional media anytime soon, but definitely will complement them.

> “...we are witnessing a radical shift in how we establish authority, significance, and even scholarly validity.” (Michael Jensen, New Metrics of Scholarly Authority)

> Young generation of science bloggers begin to shift their practice – but hard to gain academic recognition.

> Publishers, funding agencies, libraries and appointments committees should acknowledge the phenomenon and adapt their tools and strategies.


Thank you!

> References & recommended reading:

http://www.bibsonomy.org/user/sciencebloglibrarian

> Questions, counterpoints?

> Discuss with me anytime later:

> http://wikify.org/ | [email protected] | Skype: wikify


http://www.bibsonomy.org/user/sciencebloglibrarian

http://wikify.org/

mailto:[email protected]

on the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition

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