Blogging about science is a hot topic these days. Aside from the raging debates about whether it can adequately replace science journalism or support it, can blogging about your science seriously affect your career prospects?

According to this new analysis by Vivienne Raper, appearing in Science’s Career Magazine… it depends on how you use a blog. As we have seen in our previous post, blogs can be powerful communications tools that can be used to successfully reach out to the public via the media.

It is clear, however, that not all academics see this benefit. Blogs might help, but many institutions value research output above all else as the main factor in career progress. That is also a fair point.  Blogs in this case, might be viewed by superiors as no more than a hobby or at worse a distraction from the day job. That might not be so good for your career but we can sort of see their point of view.

However, the major highlight from this article (for us) is the case of Greg Gbur who blogs here. According to Gbur, he has found that blogging has helped him in his career after receiving “good scores” for “broader impact” assessments in grant applications submitted to the US National Science Foundation (NSF). That is an important point because “broader impact” is one of two categories the NSF use to make funding decisions. According to the article, NSF spokesperson Bobbie Mixon has said “blogging would be considered a broader impact… depending on the specific proposal.”

Assuming that grant applications actually get funded, we think any efforts to promote your science (be it blogging or shouting from the roof tops about science), is a good idea if it helps to keep your research funded and you in a job. Many institutions say they value research output. We will guarantee you that they love it when you bring in the grants and the cold hard cash.

We suggest you read the rest of the article as it contains a very balanced consideration of the do’s and don’t's of blogging and how it might enhance or hinder your career prospects.

Science of Blogging

A new blog, appropriately called the Science of Blogging, promises to highlight how and why all scientists should be… blogging. Here’s the detail.Promoting and communicating science is what we do at 24 Media Labs and so it’s always great to hear about new initiatives from entrepreneurial scientists trying to do things a bit differently. Peter Janiszewski (and here) (PhD) and Travis Saunders (PhD in waiting) started Science of Blogging in November 2010 and it seems to be hitting a rather positive nerve (may be to the apparent surprise of the authors).

The how part of the blog is good stuff with plenty of tips and tricks posted already. I love the recent post of Travis Saunders arguing that if you can write an email, then you can write a blog. A very valid observation. There’s also some neat advice on starting a blog, promoting your blog, whether to write under a pseudonym, and what makes a blog successful. This is all very interesting and I, for one, hope they continue dishing this advice out.

The bit that I’m really interested in is the ‘why’. I have previously said that this blog will be all about how to promote science in the media. It seems that Science of Blogging has already given us a great first example of why this is so important. And, you might be surprised by their story.

Two years ago, Peter and Travis set up this blog on obesity research. One of the drivers for doing this was that they were getting royally ticked off with doing decent science, publishing it and… nothing. That was it. No reaction, no press, just silence.

One example is this paper which was published in Diabetes Care. This is a fairly prestigious journal to get published in. Now, despite this achievement, promoting it at conferences, and having a message that is seemingly rather important to the field, it apparently met with near silence from the scientific community (in terms of citations) and the press (in terms of articles). There is nothing unusual in this but annoying if you feel that your message is important.

After getting the paper published in June 2010, they produced this 5-part series on the topic on their blog (now hosted on PLoS blogs) in September 2010 to try to get a bit more publicity. This, apparently, led to just over 12,000 page views and over 70 comments in one week.  That is a serious achievement in terms of knowledge translation. As they point out, publishing in a prestigious journal basically made no impact until they decided to start discussing it online a few months later.

It does not end there. After digging around a bit, we’ve found further mentions, blog posts and news articles relating to the paper here, here, here, here and here. And, of course, there is also the article at MSNBC which certainly helped push the message further in October 2010.

You might say, so what? And you might well feel that no press is good news. No stress of interviews, no journalists knocking on your lab door, no hassles from your superiors etc etc. Well that is fine, but friends, think of this. Knowledge translation, outreach and communications are starting to become a very serious driver of funding bodies. If you have a demonstrated track record of publishing work that has received media attention, it will help you win that next prestigious grant, which will keep you in your job.

The next question is obviously how this experience has impacted on the citation record of the paper. We’ll deal with that another time.

This annual event promises to dig deep into the online world asking what science can do to leverage the internet, crowd power, blogs, twitter and all the rest of the tech we hear about every day. As with many areas of industry and commerce, the internet is turning upside down old business models, communications and institutional power. It’s asking probing questions of how we communicate with each other, who we communicate with and with how many. Science can benefit and this conference promises to highlight some of the new ways scientists, their funders, the journalists, the bloggers and the people formerly known as the audience/public are interacting and operating in this brave new world.

Registrations for Science Online London 2011 are not open yet (apparently we have to wait a few more months) but at least you can now mark the date in your diary with a big fat marker pen (we have).