On the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition

Lambert Heller
TIB/UB Hannover
On the challenging gap
between community feedback
and academic recognition
Berlin 6 Open Access Conference
Düsseldorf, 11-13 November 2008

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

Blog aggregators as a communication pattern

> 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.


A look at a software developer community

> 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

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/ | lh@wikify.org | Skype: wikify


On the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to On the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition

Similar to On the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition (20)

More from TIB Hannover

More from TIB Hannover (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

On the challenging gap between community feedback and academic recognition